Arc Raiders Update 2026: Stella Montis, Patch Notes, and What’s Next

Arc Raiders launched in late 2025, and Embark Studios has been pushing updates at a pace that most live service games only promise. Weekly patches, monthly major drops, and a roadmap that actually tells you what’s coming. For an extraction shooter trying to carve out space next to Hunt: Showdown and Escape from Tarkov, that consistency matters.

Here is a full breakdown of every major Arc Raiders update in 2026, the current patch notes, what the Stella Montis situation looks like now, and what is coming next.

Latest Arc Raiders Update: Patch 1.29.0

The most recent Arc Raiders update, as of this writing, is patch 1.29.0, released on May 19, 2026. It’s a mid-sized patch with some genuinely intriguing additions.

The headline feature is the arrival of the Nomadic Envoys in Speranza. These are underground traders from the nomadic tribe who have appeared for the first time in the game’s history, offering gear and weapons you cannot find anywhere else on the surface. It’s a lore moment as much as a gameplay one, and it opens up a new layer of the map that Embark has been teasing for months.

Beyond the traders, the patch also brought weapon durability adjustments; a buff to Photoelectric Cloak, reducing its power cost from 10 per second to 5 per second; and improvements to Queen and Matriarch enemy behavior so they step over obstacles rather than through them. The old knockback issue was genuinely frustrating, so that fix was long overdue.

The update also added a block option after player reports, which the community had been asking for since launch. If you are playing on PC and dealing with latency issues in addition to everything else, our guide on reducing ping is worth checking before you blame the servers.

Arc Raiders Stella Montis Update: What Happened and Where It Stands

Stella Montis has been Arc Raiders’ most talked-about map since launch. It’s the PvP-heavy zone where most of the game’s most intense extraction fights happen, and it has also been the source of most of the game’s most frustrating exploits.

The biggest issue was wall glitching. Players discovered they could go out of bounds on Stella Montis using specific geometry exploits, which quickly became a cheating method in high-value extraction scenarios. Embark acknowledged it early, but the fix took until January 20, 2026, with patch 1.12.0 to fully land.

That patch also addressed item and ammo duplication exploits that had been running alongside the map glitch. Both were significant problems. The duplication exploit in particular was undermining the game’s economy, and players who reported it had been waiting over a month for the solution

Since 1.12.0, Stella Montis has had additional fixes in patches 1.23.0 and 1.24.0, covering audio bugs where players and ARC enemies sounded quieter than intended when out of line of sight. It’s a small fix, but anyone who plays extraction shooters knows how much audio information matters during a tense raid.

Game Rant noted at the time that the Stella Montis update was one of the most requested patches since the game’s launch. The map itself is now in a much cleaner state than it was.

Arc Raiders Update Patch Notes: Major Updates in 2026

Here is a rundown of every significant Arc Raiders update released in 2026 and what each one brought. You can always find the full official patch notes on the Arc Raiders website directly.

Patch 1.11.0: January 2026

The first new Arc Raiders update of 2026 came after a Christmas break from Embark. It added a new cosmetic bundle and brought weapon nerfs, most notably a damage radius reduction on the Trigger Nade. The C4-style grenade had been dominating PvP for weeks, and the community had been calling for a fix. It landed here.

Patch 1.12.0: January 20, 2026

The arc raiders Stella Montis update that everyone was waiting for. Fixed the out-of-bounds exploit on Stella Montis, the item duplication bug, and ammo duplication. No major content, but it addressed the three most-reported issues in the game at that point.

Flashpoint Update: March 2026

This is the biggest Arc Raiders update of the first quarter. Flashpoint added the Close Scrutiny ARC Assessor operation, a brand new flying vaporizer enemy with laser attacks; the Canto SMG; the Dolabra legendary energy shotgun; the Surge Coil deployable; and expanded Shredders to all maps. It also launched the high-gain antenna community project. The update was a proper content drop, not just a patch.

Patch 1.23.0 and 1.24.0: April 2026

Two back-to-back patches focused on cleanup after Flashpoint. Fixed the trigger grenade damage calculation exploit, the anvil splitter dispersion bug, and the Assessor orbital break issue. Patch 1.24.0 added the Nascosto Set cosmetic and more Stella Montis audio fixes.

Riven Tides Update: April 28, 2026

The most significant Arc Raiders update of 2026 so far. Embark actually cancelled the April 21 weekly patch specifically to roll everything into Riven Tides, so it arrived packed. The Third Expedition launched alongside it, completely overhauling how Skill Points are earned by tying progression to damage dealt with any weapon or gadget rather than grinding stash value. That change alone fundamentally shifted how people approach a raid.

Riven Tides also added 12 stash spaces (bringing the total to 316), new cosmetics, and a catch-up system for players who missed earlier Skill Point content.

When will the next Arc Raiders update be released?

The next Arc Raiders update is expected in June 2026. Embark has been running a consistent monthly major update cadence with weekly smaller patches in between. Based on the 2026 roadmap, the post-Riven Tides period should bring new map content and additional enemy types.

The arc raiders update time for weekly patches is typically on Tuesday or Wednesday. Major monthly updates tend to drop toward the end of the month. Embark announces delays on their official socials when they push back patches, as they did with the April 21 update.

If you want the most reliable heads-up on the next Arc Raiders update, GameWatcher’s patch notes tracker is one of the best community resources alongside the official Arc Raiders Discord and their posts on X. Embark is generally transparent about timing changes.

Arc Raiders New Update: What the Community Wants Next

The Arc Raiders community on Reddit and Discord has been pretty vocal about what they want from future patches. A few requests keep coming up.

More Maps

Stella Montis and Buried City are the two main environments right now. Players want a third distinct map with different terrain and extraction dynamics. Embark has not confirmed one, but the Riven Tides roadmap hinted at new areas opening up in mid-2026.

Ranked Mode

There is no ranked mode in Arc Raiders right now. Competitive players feel the lack of it, especially in a game where skill expression is high. Embark has acknowledged the request without committing to a timeline.

Better Anti-Cheat

Cheating has been a persistent complaint. The duplication exploits on Stella Montis were the most visible example, but aimbot and wallhack reports have been a regular thread topic since launch. Patch 1.29.0 added better reporting tools, but the community wants stronger backend enforcement. If you want context on why anti-cheat has become such a massive issue across the industry, how gaming has evolved over the last decade covers the shift well. And if you are considering upgrading your GPU to get a competitive edge, our AMD vs Nvidia breakdown is worth reading before you spend anything.

How Many People Are Still Playing Arc Raiders?

This is the question most people actually want answered before they buy or reinstall.

The launch numbers were massive. Arc Raiders hit an all-time Steam peak of 481,966 concurrent players on November 16, 2025, shortly after release. Cross-platform, Nexon confirmed a peak of 960,000 concurrent players in January 2026 alongside roughly 6 million weekly active players. For a paid game at $39.99 that is not on Game Pass, those are genuinely impressive figures.

Then the drop happened. By April 2026, the active player count had fallen to around 90,000 concurrent users, which is roughly an 80% decline from the January peak. That sounds alarming until you compare it to every other live service game that has ever launched. The post-launch spike followed by a steep drop is the standard pattern. The question is always where the game settles, not how far it falls from its peak.

Right now in June 2026, Steam concurrent players sit between 27,000 and 70,000 depending on the time of day, with a 24-hour peak of around 63,000 to 70,000. The Riven Tides update in late April and the Nomadic Envoy trader update in May both brought recovery spikes that pushed numbers back up from the April low. Total copies sold across all platforms have passed 15 million as of June 2026, giving Embark a solid base to continue supporting the game.

For an extraction shooter, these numbers are healthy. Hunt: Showdown, the genre benchmark, runs comparable Steam concurrent figures after years on the market. Queue times in popular modes are under two minutes at peak hours, which is the only number that actually matters when you are trying to play.

Is Arc Raiders Worth Playing in 2026?

If extraction shooters are your thing, yes.

Arc Raiders sits in an intriguing spot in the genre. It’s less punishing than Escape from Tarkov, more grounded than The Finals (which Embark also made), and has a distinct enough aesthetic with its retro-sci-fi ARC enemies to feel different from the competition. The update cadence is genuinely impressive for a studio that also has another live service game running.

The game is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Cross-platform play combines the player pool across all platforms, which helps matchmaking. It’s a similar story to Battlefront 2, another multiplayer shooter that has maintained a surprisingly active playerbase well past its peak. If you’re playing on PC and want your rig to run at its best before dropping into a raid, our gaming PC optimization guide covers the tweaks that make a real difference in a game this demanding.

The learning curve is real. The first few hours will involve a lot of dying to players who know the maps better than you. Stick with it past that point, and it opens up considerably.

Frequently Asked Questions

Note: Arc Raiders patch notes and update schedules change frequently.