There are over 230 million copies of Grand Theft Auto 5 in the world. As the second-highest selling game of all time, it has been played for billions of hours by players across the globe, making it one of the most significant pastimes in the entire world. That’s an impressive achievement for what in 2013 was simply the highly-anticipated next entry in Rockstar’s beloved (and notorious) open-world crime series. But GTA 5 proved to be much, much more than a typical sequel. It has become home to a huge, expressive, and loyal community, one which has made a digital hobby of everything from warring alien clans to producing slick vehicle stunt movies.

This is the story of how a video game became much more than a crime simulator.

Ash Skyqueen’s avatar weaves between the traffic of busy Dorset Drive on a motorbike spouting flames. Suddenly she veers, mounting the pavement at high speed and rebounding from the roof of a bus stop to achieve incredible air. Momentum carries her through a perfect circle, barely bigger than a human body, that forms the second ‘O’ of the ‘LIQUOR HOLE’ store sign. Pulling the ripcord of her parachute, she lands with a slight stagger at the door of the rundown booze establishment on Eclipse Boulevard - a couple of streets over from where her jump began.

It’s the first feat in a stunt montage which Ash put together to celebrate ten years of GTA 5 – the game that gave her freedom, companionship and goals when she was robbed of all three. “I’d had a ruptured disc in my spine, so I was bed bound shortly after the game came out,” she says. “All day every day for about three years straight, it became my therapy in a way. You’re stuck in bed, can’t do anything, can’t work, no social life, a pretty miserable existence. And then I’m suddenly connected to a community of people doing the same thing. It kept me from going insane.”

It’s a striking demonstration of why GTA 5 has remained a deeply important game to millions of players. A pillar of pop culture, it was erected in 2013 and has loomed over the entertainment industries during every year since. Thanks to the enduring love for its single-player story campaign and its ever-popular, seemingly invincible online mode, GTA 5 has spanned three console generations and made around $10 billion dollars for publisher Take-Two – over 3 times more than the highest-grossing movie ever. When Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds made Free Guy, a Hollywood comedy about the social connection and wanton violence of online games, it was GTA they chose to riff on.

Where previous Grand Theft Auto entries were cinema-riffing crime simulators that routinely broke sales records, GTA 5 has evolved beyond those confines. It has become an alternate world where players can escape to a funhouse mirror version of LA – the most mythologised city on the planet. There they become whoever they want to be: stunt specialist, bank robber, nightclub kid, hitchhiker or filmmaker.

The GTA Campaign, Re-Tuned

In some ways, GTA 5 was a course correction for Rockstar. While 2008’s Grand Theft Auto 4 had been rapturously received, it was a narrower interpretation of what the series could be. Some players chafed against its dour and grounded tone, as well as the unforgiving driving simulation that threatened to hurl speeding players through the windscreen. It was a largely straight-faced vision that left a space for rivals like Saints Row developer Volition, who filled the vacuum with gleefully absurd city sandboxes populated by dildo-toting gangsters and gimp chariots.

GTA 5, however, saw Rockstar reclaim its lost territory in the single-player space without compromising its serious storytelling chops. The developer turned up all the dials on its screaming satire, filling its campaign missions with ludicrous plane, train, and helicopter setpieces in which the bodies hit the floor without moral consequence. The driving was made friendlier, and the oppressive skyscrapers of GTA 4 replaced by the open freeways of the San Andreas countryside. Yet GTA 5 also told the ambitious tale of three controllable protagonists at totally different points in their lives – Franklin, the young and hungry Scarface-in-waiting; Michael, the washed-up cuckold; and Trevor, the psychopathic embodiment of the five-star Wanted level.

As clear as that ambition is to see in the final product, Mike York had nothing close to a sense of that full picture when he first joined the GTA 5 development team as an animator, two and a half years before its launch.

“A lot of times during production you’re thrown in there, and you don’t know what the story is and how it plays out,” he says. “There are a lot of scenes where I didn’t even know what came before or after. I was so out of the loop with the story of the game. They just threw me a cutscene with Tanisha and Franklin and were like, ‘Hey, can you do the body animation on this?’ But I had no idea how it connected. All I knew is, ‘Damn, this girl looks mad at Franklin. She looks like she just broke up with him.’”

Even in the final six months of development, when members of the team were “all hands on deck” and testing the game for eight hours every day, it was impossible to perceive GTA 5 in its entirety.

“As a tester, you’re trying to play through the whole game over and over and over again,” York says. “But the game is very long. A lot of times I would play the game from the very beginning, up until 60% or 70%, and then a new build of the game would come out where they fixed a bunch of bugs. And so I only played the game from start to finish all the way one time, and that was after I was done from the project and played it at my house by myself.”

I was shocked about how massive it was, how big the world was, and how cool it was to switch characters.

Only then could York finally appreciate the enormous puzzle he’d been contributing pieces to for so long. “I think the biggest thing I was shocked about was how massive it was, how big the world was, and how cool the system was of being able to switch characters,” he says. “I thought that was unique, and I knew that players hadn’t seen that before.” It’s a system that Rockstar’s peers in the triple-A sphere are only now catching up to - infusing Spider-Man 2 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows with swappable protagonists whose stories are entwined.

As an American, York appreciated Rockstar North’s Scottish perspective - an outsider’s view of the quirks and comedy inherent in LA culture. “I think they have a pretty good eye, a good touch on our society,” he says. “And that’s because, even though the main studio is in Edinburgh, a lot of the people that work there are from the US, or all they do is watch US TV shows and play US games. They’re engulfed in our culture in general. So even though they live in the UK, they have a good pulse on everything that’s going around here.”

When the midnight launch came, Ash Skyqueen and her sister stood in line at the Metrocentre shopping mall in the north-east of England. Like so many others, she took the game home and pushed it straight into the console. Behind the scenes, the development team were “stoked, walking around the office and telling people, ‘Oh my God, did you see we just sold this many?’ There were a lot of funny comments from people on YouTube channels and we were all geeking out about that.”

Simultaneously, however, Rockstar was readying to launch GTA Online - the platform that would take Los Santos multiplayer. “We were trying to get prepared for that, too,” York says. “So half of it is excitement, and the other half is trying to get some stuff done for Online.”

The Live-Service Frontier

GTA Online arrived only two weeks after its parent game and immediately ran into problems. There were difficulties with servers, crashes and lost character progress. The IGN review of the time criticised the repetitive missions and oddly mute player avatars, who contributed little to cutscenes with established GTA characters like Trevor. “I’m left with the overbearing impression,” wrote Keza MacDonald, “that Grand Theft Auto Online as it stands right now is still a colour sketch of what it will probably one day become.”

In 2017, Rockstar’s then director of design, Imran Sarwar, offered an unusually frank assessment of GTA Online’s formative period. “To be totally honest it did not begin very well at all,” he told Game Informer. “It’s one of our biggest regrets that we lost millions of players in that first year that have never experienced how much we have improved and added to the game since the early days.”

It’s one of our biggest regrets that we lost millions of players in that first year.

Rockstar had promised players cooperative heists – huge multistage missions featuring lavish story sequences in the mode of single-player GTA. But the company’s first attempts didn’t live up to its own standards and had to be redesigned from scratch, leading to several delays.

“GTA Online was slowly failing - and quickly losing players - right up until the middle of 2014,” Sarwar said. “The updates were not interesting enough, and as a company we did not realise how challenging it was going to be to have a team that essentially ran a content service, not make normal games.”

This is not the obvious oversight it might seem today. When GTA Online launched, the live service model was in its nascency. Fortunately, as Rockstar fumbled around trying to figure out the shape of its multiplayer platform, it had a critically acclaimed single-player game to lean on. “GTA 5 helped prop up GTA Online in the early days when Rockstar was still exploring how it wanted the online component to work,” says James McWhirter, senior games analyst at Omdia. “There was a lot of experimentation going on behind the scenes.”

Some of those experiments were in economics. If there’s a comparison to be drawn, it’s Team Fortress 2 – the competitive FPS that Valve used as a testing ground for new business models that have since become standard in Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and a host of other games besides. Ultimately, GTA 5 has made its billions through multiple different methods.

“It’s simultaneously pulling all of those levers,” McWhirter says. “You’ve got the upfront sales for GTA 5 itself, the full game. You’ve got in-game purchases via GTA Online, and now Rockstar have begun to lean into subscriptions with GTA+.”

None of that would have panned out if the GTA Online team hadn’t solved its biggest creative problem: heists. As Rockstar began to update its world with unique new stories and complex missions that demanded coordination and mastery from their players, GTA Online genuinely started to look like the future of the series rather than a flawed spin-off. Even resolutely solo players braved the servers for fear of being left behind.

“I was kind of shocked by how much extra story and missions they put into Online,” York says, who left Rockstar in 2017 – a few years before the likes of the Cayo Perico and Diamond Casino heists were added. “They really went all out, I felt, adding all kinds of stuff to do in there.”

Online Superiority

GTA Online’s turnaround and subsequent financial success came at the cost of single-player expansions. Actor Steven Ogg filmed scenes for a solo campaign that would have featured Trevor as an undercover agent, but it never emerged thanks to GTA Online sucking up many of the resources once earmarked for DLC.

“I can’t speak for the company, obviously,” York says. “But I think that they wanted to do a little bit of both. And I think they did have strong intent with DLC stuff, but the Online just did better. That happens a lot at studios, where they’ll have a DLC lined up that they’ll have plans for, and then they’ll completely shut it down because they realise something else is way more important - or they don’t even know if that DLC is going to perform well at all. They’d rather just not take the risk on it.”

Similar to Minecraft or Fortnite, it’s a virtual world first and foremost, and a game second.

GTA Online effectively took the place of traditional expansions, becoming an endgame for solo players who had exhausted every mission and diversion in GTA 5. Unusually for newcomers to an MMO, they arrived with dozens of hours of investment in its world and characters. “You know the map and where the streets are,” York says. “You finally get your own character.”

“I played it like a single-player expansion at first,” Ash Skyqueen says. “Played through everything I could by myself, and kept playing. The mechanics have always been what appeals, so it was easy to sit there and figure out what I could do.”

It’s with this spirit of exploration that GTA’s developers and players outgrew the limitations of the series’ original premise. “The more comfortable we were pushing beyond the traditional GTA concepts and experimenting more freely, we were able to introduce things like Cunning Stunts, the Special Vehicle Races, and adversary modes like Power Play, Tiny Racers, or Slasher,” Sarwar told Game Informer.

The backdrop of Los Santos, recognisable as a contemporary city only slightly adjacent to our own world, proved helpfully malleable. “One of the updates GTA Online brought in was a TrackMania style game, racing in the cloud with a top-down perspective, almost like Micro Machines,” McWhirter says. “That just wouldn’t have been possible in Red Dead Redemption. Anything with a real world analog can be realised in GTA Online, so it’s a much more potent canvas for content updates over a long period of time. Whereas Red Dead is a lot more tied to its fiction. You couldn’t have flying horses, like having flying cars added to GTA Online.”

That flexibility has enabled Rockstar to transform GTA into a platform for many different kinds of experiences, capable of holding player attention indefinitely. “Similar to Minecraft or Fortnite, it’s a virtual world first and foremost, and a game second,” McWhirter says. “In terms of GTA Online, the racing updates with the crazy track editors are a good example of how content that could perhaps normally make for a standalone game became a bolt-on for GTA Online.”

Over time, these bolt-ons have replaced smaller game releases in Rockstar’s catalogue, for better or worse. “I would consider GTA Online to be the modern day equivalent of the double-A titles that Take-Two used to push out between those blockbuster games,” McWhirter says. “If we go back to the PS3 and 360 generation, there were games like Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis and Bully, which we don’t really see anymore because teams are busy making content for GTA Online instead. Because that’s more valuable for the publisher. It helps them buy time between major GTA releases.”

More Than Multiplayer

For players like Ash Skyqueen, a new content drop in GTA Online serves a dual purpose. Beyond the extra heists and missions to play through, every update is a toy box filled with fresh animations and props to be repurposed in fan-made movies.

Skyqueen got into making machinima through her community of stunters, who made use of a modding tool named MenyooSP. “It gives you access to everything,” she says. “I can set up a secondary character, give it a list of actions and animations to carry out, and then manually control my character and do what I need to do.”

In her own movies, Skyqueen is star, stuntperson and director - the latter role enabled by the official video editor Rockstar added to GTA 5 back in 2015. One of her most popular creations, the silent short film Siren, evokes the intro cutscene of GTA 3 – following a Bonnie and Clyde-esque couple who wreak havoc as the FIB closes in. In the climax, a pre-programmed prison bus travels down the freeway - before Ash swings in on her bike to take down the convoy.

“There’s a lot of choreography involved,” she says. “I’ll often just sit there with a nine-hour long YouTube video of all the GTA story cutscenes, keeping my eye out for something that I can use in a different context.”

180,000 viewers have watched Siren. Almost a million people have watched her Liqour Hole stunt. And Skyqueen hopes Rockstar will implement some of MenyooSP’s innovations officially in GTA 6. “I know they take note of this kind of stuff, and they certainly have promoted work that’s been made with it.”

The ongoing success of GTA 5 raises questions about its eventual fate, once Rockstar’s sequel launches in November 2026. Will the studio run two versions of GTA Online simultaneously, at the risk of cannibalising its own playerbase? If not, and the GTA Online audience is migrated to a new Floridian setting, how will Rockstar account for all the properties and vehicles players have paid for?

“If a new online mode is a completely separate thing from GTA 5 Online, managing continuously between two live service games is something that is currently unproven and it could be fraught,” McWhirter says. “I think that’s probably the biggest risk for them.” The situation brings to mind the arrival of EverQuest 2 in the mid noughties, when developer Sony Online Entertainment discovered that players typically played just one MMO and stuck with it. In such a context, a sequel’s biggest threat can be its own predecessor.

“I think GTA 5 is going to solidify as one of the greatest games in history,” York says. “I think its legacy is already etched. It was revolutionary in so many aspects - in character switching and story. I’m shocked that people are still playing GTA 5, and it goes to show you how good that game is.”

While admitting to a certain amount of bias as a former member of the development team, York believes that GTA 5 will be bigger than its own sequel once the dust settles. “I feel like GTA 5 was something special in gaming culture and history, and it’s gonna leave a lasting mark,” he says. “Games will come and go around it. My intuition is that GTA 6 will come out, people will love it, but it won’t be GTA 5. And people will constantly compare it to GTA 5. It’s going to be the most nostalgic for people, it’s going to be the one that affected them most as kids. And so I just feel like GTA 5 is going to be the GTA to be remembered. It’s gonna supersede Vice City. This is the one that marked history.”

For Ash Skyqueen, who can no longer drive around a city in real life, GTA 5 is much more than a game. “It gives me that little bit of freedom back that I lost with the injury,” she says. “Though it’s simulated, it has such a good feel to it. I’ll always get on at Christmas when they turn on the snow. You’re walking around the streets at night, and it gives you that same vibe as in real life. In other games it’s just an aesthetic. But you can feel that stillness that comes with a dark snowy night. I don’t know how they do it.”

Jeremy Peel is a freelance journalist and friend to anyone who will look at photos of his dogs.

The new Arc Raiders 2.0 update has triggered a seven-month high for its concurrent player count on Steam as fans show up for its "Spider-Man" grappling hook, a new map, a free weekend, and more.

Embark's once-viral extraction experience has had a rough few months. As the studio slowed down updates and vowed to rework its divisive Expedition prestige system, Arc Raiders players have largely left it behind, hoping to one day return to Speranza should more enticing updates arrive.

After reaching an all-time peak of nearly 500,000 players on Steam (via SteamDB), it's consistently struggled to reach more than 35,000 players on PC since July. It was a fall from grace that's left fans missing the honeymoon phase, but the Frozen Trail update, which launched two days ago, October 8, across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, has almost immediately brought back some of that hype.

In September, Arc Raiders reached a player count low of just 10,000 on Steam. As of the publication of this story, 166,670 people are logged onto Arc Raiders on the PC platform alone, and it looks like it could keep climbing. It's a number Embark hasn't hit since early April, and although it's too soon to tell if these are the kind of results needed to give it a proper second wind, it does mark the first time the game has achieved a notable spike since December 2025.

It's all thanks to Frozen Trail and the free weekend that helped usher it in. The update, which brought the first substantial changes Arc Raiders has received since Riven Tides in April, introduced a collection of game-changing content. Its crown jewel is Pendola Pass, a snowy mountainous region located beyond Raiders' usual home in the Rust Belt. New buildings to loot and shoot through would surely be enough to bring fans back, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg.

New Arc threats like the Bully, Skulker, and Hydra have shaken up combat encounters. The Tether Launcher, which can tie enemies to objects against their will, and the Grappling Hook have given players new tools to experiment with. That aforementioned free weekend, meanwhile, which runs from October 8 – 12, has allowed even newcomers to check out how Embark has changed Arc Raiders for the better. Individually, these are updates that would pique the interest of even the most casual fan, but the only reason so many are installing the game again is because of how these tweaks add new toys to the sandbox.

I was not a believer. This is one of the best updates ever in a video game.
by u/Artistic_Annual8918 in ARC_Raiders .reddit-embed-wrapper iframe { margin-left: 0 !important; }

"I was not a believer," one popular post on Reddit said. "This is one of the best updates ever in a video game."

The same post continued, first praising Frozen Trail's scale. They admitted to being a lapsed Arc Raiders fan, explaining that the mix of Embark's new elements not only got them to return but also has them looking forward to what's next.

"I absolutely loved Arc Raiders for its first 6 months but I got frustrated with it since they announced the twice a year update," they said. "I quit playing, said that these devs don’t know what they’re doing, they fumbled, etc. I know it probably won’t reach the popularity and number of players it had in December but that doesn’t matter to me, what matters to me is that I was flat out wrong about these devs and their ability to update the game. What they did here is special and I just wanted to come out and admit I was wrong and give them their flowers. I’m now extremely excited for the future of this game."

While not everyone is willing to go as far as to call it an all-time great video game update, it's hard to find anyone being too critical of what Embark had to offer. Pendola Pass' size seems to be an especially notable bright spot, with others mentioning the new UFO-style Arc ship known as the Frigate as another big highlight.

Managed to get on the frigate it's no joke up there like a destiny raid
by u/cybrsloth92 in ARC_Raiders .reddit-embed-wrapper iframe { margin-left: 0 !important; }

The FRIGATE in ARC Raiders is enormous! How are we supposed to fight this thing? 😭

📽️ u/cybrsloth92 https://t.co/w2HHvCDEkK

— ARC Raiders Alerts (@ArcRaiderAlerts) October 8, 2026

"Just played an hour before work, and I couldn't even explore more than 15% of the map," one player said. "There were so many things to check out and explore, this time they really delivered a big map!"

"I agree, not to mention the new weapons, skills, weapons mods, it’s hard to believe they did all this in less than 6 months. Frigate is so damn cool," another said.

With such a drastic and sudden increase in attention, more highlight reels have started to find their way back to social media, too. New tools like the Grappling Hook come with obvious opportunities for shareable clips, as it allows Raiders to attach to everything from steep cliffs to flying Arc. Others can't help but draw comparisons to how the toy allows players to swing through maps like "Spider-Man."

"I was going to get that," one fan said, referring to a new wall-running skill, "but then I remembered grappling hooks exist now. It's sooo much more fun to swing around like Spider-Man and then run around at 100mph with no stamina usage."

There's also the new Advanced Camera. It works exactly how you'd expect, giving players the tech to capture memories, all with the click of a button. Considering Arc Raiders has thrived on the comedy presented by its in-game systems, a camera has really only given that chaos another chance to shine.

ARC RAIDERS LETS YOU SWING LIKE SPIDER-MAN WITH THE NEW GRAPPLE HOOK!

🎥MisterMediocre https://t.co/XM22wmv5RZ

— ARC Now (@ArcRaidersNow) October 9, 2026

Bullying a Rocketeer in ARC Raiders using the new grappling hook 😂

📽️ u/BranandWiller https://t.co/q8Q0AYUSzm

— ARC Raiders Alerts (@ArcRaiderAlerts) October 10, 2026

THIS IS WHY ARC RAIDERS’ NEW CAMERA FEELS SO GOOD

🎥JojoBobaguard https://t.co/5xvYzcdVfN

— ARC Now (@ArcRaidersNow) October 8, 2026

Arc Raiders is having a bit of a moment, but we'll have to see if it has truly managed to recapture the magic that made it such a hit at launch. Up next is testing for a dedicated PvE mode, something fans have begged to see implemented since launch. Embark is certainly at least trying, with the game also available for 50% off on all platforms as players flock to its free weekend.

IGN gave Arc Raiders a 9/10 review when it arrived almost exactly one year ago, saying, "With polished gunplay and an irresistible grind, Arc Raiders sets a new standard for extraction shooters." Even if Embark can't entertain a consistently high number of players, it's clear the studio has more plans for the IP in the future. Both it and the studio's game-show-inspired FPS, The Finals, are set to receive TV show and movie adaptations at some point in the future.

Frozen Trail brought more new content to Arc Raiders than we could list. You can see the full patch notes below.

Arc Raiders Frozen Trail Update 2.0 Patch Notes

Raiders!

The cold has arrived, and it's brought a lot with it. Frozen Trail is our biggest update since launch, packed with new features, fresh challenges, and a long list of fixes and improvements.

We've been working on this one for a while, and we couldn't be more excited to finally put it in your hands. Whether you're here for the new content or just want to know what we've fixed, there's something for everyone. Grab something warm, settle in, and read on for the full breakdown.

Thank you for playing, for reporting bugs, and for sticking with us.

HighlightsNew Map - Pendola PassNew Map Conditions - Frigate & RedirectionNew Enemies - Bully, Skulker, HydraNew Weapons - Bantam & Stiletto Amplified WeaponsRevamped Skill TreeNew Items - Grappling Hook, Basic & Advanced Cameras, Tether Launcher, Yank Grenade, Mountaineer’s Detector, Banjo & HarmonicaThe Outpost, including a new Research BenchLootable “Design” items that unlock craftable Outpost furnitureQuest System improvements, 22 new quests addedNew Reward Pass systemWeapon StencilsUpdated default gamepad mappingReworked Map Selection screen, including visual and usability improvementsCollector DLC is available nowMax Stash Size increased by 2 new levels (328 Max without Expedition bonuses)Skill Tree Revamp

Changes to the Raider Skill Tree include new skills and improvements to existing skills, enabling players to better embellish their playstyle with more impactful skill choices.

We've heard the comments (and seen in the data) that the Skill Tree was not living up to its role in offering sufficiently interesting ways of building your character to better define and refine your playstyle. The goal of the Skill Tree revamp is twofold: to look at under-performing skills, modify or replace them, and to get closer to the goal of making choice and expression a more core feature of the Skill Tree.

Alongside some new skills and a reshuffling of the layout, new functionality has been added to replace the previous 'large' nodes at the middle and end of the branches. Now, for the middle of each branch, instead of having two selectable skills and two 'paths', there is one path where the node is a binary choice between two skills. You can only choose one; you will be able to make the choice again when you reset your skill tree. At the end of each branch are two nodes where you must make a choice out of three skills. Here, you can choose up to two of the three, after reaching the required skill point investment.

As this is a fairly big reimagining of the Skill Tree, there will likely be more tweaks and updates in the near future, to existing and new skills, as we see how you are engaging with it.

Weapon Stencils

The Frozen Trail update introduces Weapon Stencils, a new cosmetic option that lets players personalize the look of their weapons with a range of stencil patterns. Note that stenciled weapons can still be lost like any other weapon: if you're downed, other Raiders can loot your weapon along with its stencil.

14 Weapon Stencils:5 Stencils are exclusive to Frozen Trail Premium Pass1 Stencil is exclusive to DLC8 Stencils can be found Topside

Stencils are similar to blueprints, once learned you can apply them to compatible weapons. Applying Stencils requires Stencil Parts, which can be found Topside.

Outpost

New Outpost can be unlocked by completing a project.

Remember to accept the quest and bring your camera! Outpost can be expanded with different modules Unlocking the outpost will unlock access to the research station

Furniture Designs:

Similar to blueprints, they can be learned and used to craft different furniture for your Outpost.

100 Furniture Designs have been added to the game 4 Furniture Designs are exclusive to Frozen Trail Pass 1 Furniture Design is exclusive to DLC 73 Furniture Designs can be found Topside22 Furniture Designs are unlocked by upgrading the OutpostReward Pass

The Reward Pass is our new progression system and the evolution of Raider Decks. Alongside this change, Cred has been removed from the game and replaced by Reward Points, a new currency that's automatically applied toward your progress on whichever pass you currently have active.

The first new pass is the Frozen Trail Pass, featuring 60 levels across a Free and a Premium track.

Your existing Raider Decks haven't gone anywhere. They've been moved into the new Legacy Pass, and any rewards you've already unlocked are kept and will appear as granted. You can continue progressing through the Legacy Pass at any time by setting it as your active pass. Note that only one Reward Pass can be active at a time, so your Reward Points will go toward whichever pass you've selected.

Feats Rework

Feats are now split into 3 different categories: Easy, Medium and Hard.

Easy: 15 Reward Points, +1 weekly milestone progressionMedium: 25 Reward Points, +2 weekly milestone progressionHard: 50 Reward Points, +3 weekly milestone progression.

Weekly milestones are granting 250 Reward Points each, there are 3 of them available per week:

Milestone 1: Get 4 weekly milestone progressMilestone 2: Get 8 weekly milestone progressMilestone 3: Get 12 weekly milestone progress

After completing your weekly milestones, you can keep completing Feats, but no major milestone rewards will be granted until the weekly timer is reset.

Twitch Drops

You can grab some new backpack attachments by watching your favorite streamer play ARC Raiders! You’ll need to watch at least 60 minutes to receive the Oxygen Respirator, and 120 minutes for the Mailbox. These drops will be live between October 8 - November 4, 2026.

Content and Bug FixesAnimationKnockback animations now align with the actual direction you’re pushed in.Fixed an issue where, after reconnecting and being revived, your character could jitter and display broken animations while moving.Fixed an issue where you could get stuck on small obstacles when sliding.Added animations to show the player interacting with their map and inventory.Added mouth animation for when players are talking in proximity chat.Added new contextual character animations; like exhaustion when running out of breath for a while and brushing off dust after sliding.Fixed an issue where players kept some items in their hands during the knockout animation or during some interactions.Additional animation polish and tweaks.ARCAdjusted the multi-target laser from the Vaporizer to give players a clearer window for dodging with fast traversal and dodge mechanics. Added fire status effect visuals for ARC drones.Moved higher tier loot from the armor pieces of the legs to the legs pieces for Queen and Matriarch.The armor plates are supposed to protect the legs, so it made sense to relocate the loot to the protected area. Having the loot inside the armor took away from the experience and was inconsistent with how other ARC work. Armor pieces can still contain some loot.Improved AI sight handling to prevent rare detection errors in enemy awareness.The Matriarch can once again use all of its ranged attacks.Rebalanced physical force effects against certain ARC enemies.AudioAdjusted how character sounds are occluded by walls and obstacles for more natural audio positioning.Added more variations to metal groan sound effects to improve environmental ambience.Added missing sound effects to the Snap Hook for attaching, detaching, and rope movement to improve audio feedback.Updated the sound for Skill Tree unlocks and added a hold-interaction audio cue in the UI.Fixed an issue where some weapon sounds could fail to play.Improved the quality of the Raider Voice model, providing a higher fidelity of voice conversion.CosmeticUpdated Celeste’s appearance.Added an Emissive Toggle for backpacks with light sources. That means you can now turn off the lights from your favorite backpacks to go full stealth mode.The Zenith Outfit now has all of its intended toggles. Players who own the outfit will receive the missing toggles shortly.Gameplay“Solo vs. Squads” is no longer available in the matchmaking options. We want players to have a proper incentive to use all of the available matchmaking settings, which Solo vs. Squads currently lacks. To that end, we're taking time to re-evaluate its role in the game.Reworked the explosive damage formula for ARC. In practice this means that explosive weapons like the Hullcracker will deal over 50% more damage against armor plates but around 30% less damage against more fragile parts.The intention is to make explosive damage feel more consistent across the board as well as increasing its effectiveness against heavy armor. Since most ARC are heavily armored and we want the numeric damage output to be more consistent this also means that its effectiveness against weak points is slightly reduced.Made certain changes to skills that were in the previous Skill Tree iteration to fit them better within the new one:Stamina gained from Fight or Flight increased by ~25% per level.Stubborn Mule stamina regen values increased by ~33%.Increase Back on Your Feet healing from 30 to 40.Added more contextual Ping information for ARC and various objects.The Stash can be upgraded further, by two tiers. The new maximum (without Expedition rewards or acquired Nomadic Envoy space) is 328 slots.You can now drop loot to the ground directly from containersYou can no longer sprint-climb ladders when exhaustedAddressed some instances where vaulting onto destroyed ARC parts or other movable surfaces could unexpectedly launch or shove the player.Weapon slot weight reduction now applies only to the loadout; other containers and sub-containers are unaffected.You can now open the map while downed.Improved hit registration when shooting while on top of ARC.Heavy Shield: reduced durability decay from 0.20 to 0.15 and decreased movement penalty while equipped from 15% to 10%. Added Scrambling. Sprinting at steep slopes will allow you to scramble up them for a short time.You now automatically enter a sliding state after tumbling for too long.ItemsIncreased Flame Spray range to better match its visual effect and improve usability. Ziplines now break when intersecting something after being placed.Reduced Snap Hook range from 20m to 18m, increased durability consumption from 2% to 4% per use, and raised power cost from 50 to 60.As we added more personal mobility items, it became clear we needed to begin differentiating them to a greater degree. While the Snap Hook has previously been a ‘general use’ mobility gadget, with the introduction of the Grappling Hook, we felt the need to give them their own identity outside of a ‘linear upgrade’ path. With these changes, we aim to make the Snap Hook better fit its role as being a burst mobility gadget; something that is used to quickly close distance or traverse a location, but with more commitment when doing so. The power cost increase will still allow for multiple uses within a short time when at full power, but will no longer allow for immediate back-to-back uses.Fixed an issue where items were appearing outside their intended areas or containers. These items will now only be available within their designated locations.WeaponsUpdated Anvil’s rarity from Green to Blue.The Anvil has been a tricky weapon to evaluate. It comes with a versatility that allows it to effectively take on both Raiders and ARC alike, and is outperforming weapons both within and above its own level of rarity. But it is also a fan-favourite and a staple of the game in its own way. We felt that increasing the rarity level for it would put it in a better place within the economy, while still maintaining the gameplay and power that we know and love. In its place, the Bantam will take the role of the uncommon hand cannon, with a balance that is more suitable for the role. The Anvil Splitter is no longer usable as a mod, and it has now become an improved upgrade option for the Amplified Anvil. We have also removed the Tech Mod slot from the Anvil to reflect this. The item itself should no longer drop, but will remain in the game for a while, allowing players to sell or recycle it into Amplified Fragments used for repairing Amplified Weapons.Fixed an unintended behavior where the Jupiter's damage would propagate twice to ARC parts behind its intended target. As a result, the Jupiter is now stronger against armor, but slightly weaker against weak spots.The Hullcracker will no longer appear incomplete when inspected in the menu.Fixed an issue where the Dolabra would not destroy the yellow weak points inside the Harvester.Fixed an issue where weapons picked up from the ground appeared without their attached parts.MapsImproved alignment of Doorblockers (now vertical) for small side-sliding-doors.Improved texture quality on several maps, resolving blocky and inconsistent visuals. Fixed areas on several maps where players could get stuck on terrain while in a Downed state.Some areas on the edges of maps are darker than intended.Blue GateAdjusted lighting on Blue Gate, refining exposure, color grading, and atmosphere.Fixed some spots on Blue Gate where players could get stuck.Buried CityFixed the Hospital Roof not being climbable.Restored ray-traced lighting on boarded window shutters in Buried City.Fixed a lighting issue in Buried City where illumination bled into an interior space.Pendola PassAs we’ve mentioned during our latest Q&A, we will be testing out a Dynamic Loot Zone system, currently exclusive to Pendola Pass. The intent is to make the loot values of certain areas vary from raid to raid, thus making “routes” less predictable and scavenging more dynamic. An important distinction to make is that zones will not change their inherent loot type (therefore, Residential loot areas remain Residential loot areas no matter what), but rather, one such area may yield more value one Raid, and less value on another raid.Riven TidesIncreased overall loot value on Riven Tides by approximately 15%. Fixed some spots where environmental objects could float unintentionally.PerformanceImplemented various optimizations related to memory usage, general performance and stability.Optimized character customization replication, fixing a bug where different players could sometimes see different outfits.Reduced memory usage for enemies to improve stability and performance in busy encounters.Fixed a crash that could occur when changing graphics settings.Upgraded to AMD FSR version 4.1.1.TradersTrader offers have been updated:Celeste now trades new materials used in crafting furniture and newly introduced gameplay items.Tian Wen will no longer sell Anvil and Hullcracker offers. They will, instead, be part of the weekly Nomadic Envoys rotation.Launcher Ammo and Energy Clips have a daily purchase limit.Shani's offers are now Coin based and include Cameras, Light Sticks and other social items.Apollo has had a set of Epic Augments added to the offers.Living up to their reputation, the Nomadic Envoys have allowed Ermal to go back on the trail and have, instead, brought in Cassio, who will continue to trade for valuables, but also ask friendly Raiders for help with certain quests.QuestsCompleting quests and quest objectives now grants XP. Added XP as a visible reward in quest descriptions and on quest completion; XP is now shown alongside other rewards when claiming a completed quest.Multiple older quests have been updated to require taking photos with the new camera to complete objectives that mentioned taking photos of something in the world.(The League, Reduced to Rubble, Life of a Pharmacist, Battening Down, Groundbreaking)SocialFixed party join not working sometimes when accepting game invites on XBOX.Fixed an issue related to in-game Voice Chat not working in certain instances, particularly for PS5 and XBOX players.UIUpdated quest list sorting, making progression easier to follow.Fixed an issue where long lists could disappear while scrolling in the Settings menu.Fix issue where the Nomadic Trader offers could appear when using the Acquire Resources menu.Emote and Quick Wheels respond to mouse input more smoothly.End-of-round screen now previews milestone progress and rewards earned this round, and milestone updates are shown in the in-round log.Fixed an issue where learning certain recipes displayed an incorrect “unknown not installed” message instead of a proper unlock notification, including Snap Hook, Blaze Grenade, and Crash Mat.Fixed formatting and text display for in-round daily quest notifications.Store panels now scroll when content exceeds the screen and fixed an issue where the last toggle could be blocked and not selectable.Fixed issue where not all data from a round would reliably show up in the End of Round Map screen.Fixed a bug where closing the Inventory during matchmaking could disable gamepad navigation until switching screens.VFXFixed an issue where burning visual effects could remain stuck on other players after the effect had ended.Fixed an issue that could cause terrain textures to appear as blocky or mismatched squares on some maps when using higher graphics presets.Dealing with Duplicated Items

We have recently begun taking further action to restrict accounts that store high amounts of duplicated items and remove items that were obtained through duplication from player inventories. This is done to help correct the in-game economy and clean up items that have appeared through past exploits.

Known IssuesGameplay:Weapon meshes can sometimes be partially invisible when equipped with weapon attachments.In rare instances, vaulting onto destroyed ARC parts and similar movable surfaces can cause the player to be unexpectedly launched or shoved.When swapping shoulders and sprinting, players’ footsteps can become inaudible.Field Repair may sometimes be unavailable after unlocking. Restarting the game solves the issue and a fix is in the works.The option to repair the Tether Launcher is currently unavailable. Will be fixed in the upcoming update.Very rarely, some players may spawn into a lobby "invisibly”, unable to loot, use quick wheel items or interact with containers. They can still fire their weapon and take damage. Returning to Speranza should leave your loadout in the way it was before the “affected” match started.The Hydra can detect and shoot players through walls in the Cargo area without being able to deal damage.Standing on the side of the Cargo drop can result in being instantly eliminated. A fix is in the works.Outpost:

(most fixes are already in the works and will be implemented in an upcoming Live Update)

In order to unlock the Outpost, the first step - “Research Topside Living Conditions” requires you to take a photo of a farmland house. The Camera can be purchased at Shani’s, crafted at the Workbench, or found Topside. Some furniture might clip through the Outpost structure.Some slots in the Outpost will be unselectable when they should be, if a piece of furniture is blocking it.The camera sometimes gets blocked by furniture or the character model at certain angles.Lighting in the main Outpost building is corrupted when the Shadow quality is set to Low in settings.The camera defaults back to the base room when you leave the decorating view, even if you were in a different module.If the Raider sits by a table with chairs, they will clip through the table.The Raider steps back from the Customization view with a 10 second delay.The Outpost tab lacks the orange dot indicator after completing first stage objectives to unlock it.Quests:The cinematic fails to trigger upon completing the 'Sizing Things Up' quest.The quest 'Picking up the Pieces' cannot be completed on Pendola Pass, but works normally on other maps. This will be fixed in an upcoming update.The 'Damage dealt using Light Impact Grenades' feat can be completed by using the Hullcracker.Audio:Rarely, some weapons may not play their firing sounds on low-spec PCs (particularly the Anvil).Rubber Ducks can be squeezed when equipped, making noise without requiring them to be thrown.UI:Weapon meshes sometimes disappear partially.Players that departed on the Expedition recently may have a notification dot on the Projects & Raider tab that does not disappear.Keybinds are reset to default after each raid when using a non-English keyboard layout.The Expedition screen can still be accessed through the Nomadic Envoys, though it is not functional.The weight of the loadout can differ slightly when viewing it in Speranza vs. what it shows in-game.When purchasing the Premium Reward Pass, the lock icon is still present on the premium rewards despite them being unlocked.The loadout weight amount differs between Main Menu and In-Round.Pendola Pass:Various clipping and collision issues.Vaulting onto some steep surfaces can occasionally cause players to slide back down.Vaulting onto destroyed ARC parts or other movable surfaces could sometimes unexpectedly launch or shove the player.

See you on Pendola Pass,
The ARC Raiders Team