Arc Raiders dropped and people are either loving it or rage-quitting after their third death in the first five minutes. I get it. The game throws you into the Rust Belt with barely a tutorial and expects you to figure out that the Arc queen will one-shot you if you’re standing in the wrong spot. It took me a few painful runs to learn that.
If you’re new or just returned after a break, this guide covers everything, from how Arc Raiders matchmaking works to the best PvP build, a current weapon tier list, and answers to questions like why you can’t use the medium shield. Let’s get into it.
What Is Arc Raiders and How Does It Work?
Arc Raiders is a free-to-play third-person PvPvE extraction shooter developed by Embark Studios, the same team behind The Finals. You drop into one of several maps in the Rust Belt, fight off deadly AI machines called “Arc,” loot buildings, complete objectives, and extract before dying.
The core loop is simple: deploy, loot, survive, extract. But nothing about execution is simple.
You can enter raids using a free loadout (random basic gear, nothing to lose) or a custom loadout (your own gear from the stash). Custom loadouts unlock the Safe Pocket, which protects one item even if you die. Free loadouts are great when you’re learning. Once you know the maps and enemy patterns, switching to custom gives you much better weapons and real progression.
Your behavior affects how Arc Raiders matchmaking works. Attack every player on sight and you’ll find yourself in increasingly aggressive lobbies. Play passively and communicate through the mic, and the game tends to put you in calmer lobbies where cooperation is more common. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s noticeable. Solo queues also run calmer than trio queues, which are basically PvP death matches.
First Things First: The Skill Tree
Don’t ignore the skill tree. It’s split into three branches: mobility, conditioning, and survival. You start with 76 base points and can earn more by completing expeditions.
Mobility (Start Here)
“Marathon Runner” and “Youthful Lungs” are the two most important skills in the entire game. Max both early. Everything you do in Arc Raiders, looting, running from a Sentinel, or escaping a PvP fight, involves your stamina bar. These two skills stretch that bar significantly.
After those two, grab Nimble Climber for vaulting and Momentum Maintenance to keep sprinting briefly after a dodge. Mobility skills pay off in every single situation. Don’t skip them chasing damage perks.
Survival (Where Loot Efficiency Lives)
Once your stamina foundation is set, move into survival. Looter’s Instincts speeds up how fast containers reveal their contents. Broad Shoulders increases carry weight, which directly determines how much you can extract per run. One Raider’s Scraps gives a chance of finding extra items in raider containers.
The big unlock here is Security Breach, which lets you breach security lockers. These containers hold some of the best loot in the game. Getting here early changes your whole raid routing strategy. You need 36 points invested in Survival to unlock it, so plan accordingly.
Conditioning (Combat and Durability)
Game Rant’s Arc Raiders best weapons and skill guide notes that respeccing individual skill points costs 2,000 coins each, so plan your tree before committing. Don’t blow points on conditioning early if you haven’t maxed mobility yet.
Loaded Arms cuts weapon weight in half. Unburdened Roll gives you a free dodge when your shield breaks. If you’re doing PvP or boss fights, these are game-changing. Conditioning is a lower priority than the other two trees for pure PvE loot runners.
Arc Raiders Weapon Tier List (Riven Tides Meta, June 2026)
The Riven Tides update (Patch 1.26.0) reshuffled some of the meta, added new weapons, and significantly buffed the Bettina. For a full breakdown of what changed, check our Arc Raiders update guide. Here’s where things stand right now.
S-Tier: Best Guns in Arc Raiders
According to GamesRadar’s Arc Raiders weapon tier list, the S-tier meta has stayed fairly stable since Riven Tides, with Anvil, Venator, Dolabra, and Renegade consistently at the top.
Anvil is the consensus best weapon right now. Single-shot, massive damage, strong armor penetration, works in both PvP and PvE. The downside is slower handling. Pair it with something fast for close quarters. It’s not the cheapest to acquire, but it’s worth it once you find the blueprint.
Venator fires two bullets per shot with a 2.5x headshot multiplier. It dominates close-to-mid range and is actually fairly accessible compared to other top-tier weapons. Fast time-to-kill, especially against other players. This is the arc raider’s best PvP build anchor right now.
Dolabra is an energy shotgun added in the Flashpoint update. Two fire modes, massive shield-deleting damage, and it has the longest range of any shotgun. Rare to find, but worth chasing once you’re out of the beginner phase.
Renegade is the lever-action choice that became a PvE monster after being fully upgraded to rank IV. It handles drones, wasps, and fireflies better than almost anything else from a distance. Pair it with a Silencer III and a medium mag and it becomes quietly lethal in PvP too.
A-Tier
Bettina got a big buff in Riven’s Tides. Strong armor penetration, 22-round magazine, and now the top pick for boss fights like the Arc Matriarch and the Bombardier. If you’re doing event farming, this is what you want as your secondary.
Tempest is the most reliable assault rifle for general use. Fastest TTK of any rifle at rank IV, quiet enough to run a silencer on, and the upgrade investment pays off significantly. Excellent for both PvP and PvE at medium range.
Bobcat is the best close-range SMG for PvP. It has dominant hipfire, strong pressure, and is very forgiving for mechanical skill. Not as strong against armored ARC, but it handles players better than most.
Budget / Beginner Picks
Ferro is the best weapon in the game for budget runs. You can craft it from just 5 pieces of metal and 2 of rubber; no blueprint is needed. Despite costing almost nothing, the armor penetration is genuinely comparable to weapons ten times the price. Run a Ferro + Stitcher combo for your first two weeks. You won’t be embarrassed.
Il Toro shotgun is another budget MVP. PvP in tight spaces, cheap to craft, and it doesn’t sting to lose. If you’re learning the game and don’t want expensive loadouts dying with you, these two are your answer.
If you’re still figuring out whether your rig can even run this game well, check out our gaming PC buying guide for hardware advice that’ll help you get the most out of any extraction shooter.
Arc Raiders Best PvP Build
For solo PvP, the community consensus right now is built around stamina-heavy mobility skills paired with either Venator or Bobcat as your primary.
Weapons: Venator (primary) + Stitcher (secondary). Venator handles mid-range and shield popping; Stitcher cleans up at close range.
Skill priority: max Marathon Runner and Youthful Lungs first, then Loaded Arms from Conditioning so your weapons don’t slow you down. Unburdened Roll is your combat lifesaver when shields break.
Augment: Combat Mk. 3 for survivability, passive health regen, and extra grenade capacity. At a lower budget, Combat Mk. 2 works fine.
Playstyle: Arc Raiders PvP rewards positioning over raw aim. Close gaps with mobility, don’t stand still, and use smoke grenades for disengaging bad fights. Don’t brawl out in the open against squads when solo.
For squads, split roles. One player anchors with Combat Mk. 2+, Il Toro, and carries emergency healing. One plays flanker with Bobcat or Ferro. One focuses on PvE threats and carries utility grenades. Teams running identical loadouts have no role differentiation and expose themselves the moment a fight gets messy.
How to Kill the Queen in Arc Raiders
The Matriarch (the Queen) is one of the toughest boss encounters in the game and a common reason new players lose expensive loadouts. A few things to know before you rush in.
She’s a public event, meaning other raiders on your map can and usually do join the fight. Don’t go in solo expecting to carry it. Wait for others to engage first and pick your moment.
Use the Hullcracker for her body and switch to Bettina for added clarity. The Hullcracker’s explosive damage is specifically designed to chunk ARC units. Cover is everything here. Find a wall, poke out, shoot, and retreat. She hits hard, and standing in the open for more than a couple of seconds is a death sentence.
Aim for weak spots. Every major ARC unit has glowing or exposed parts that take extra damage. The Matriarch is no exception. The Renegade is also a strong pick for popping weak spots from distance, especially in the early phases of the fight.
Arc Raiders: Best Leaper Farm
Leapers are the most consistent early grind target for mechanical components and mid-tier crafting materials. The Buried City map is the best spot, specifically around the Plaza Rosa area and the research buildings nearby. These buildings respawn ARC units frequently, and the leaper density is high.
The key to farming leapers efficiently is not killing them with expensive ammo. Run a Ferro or a Pharaoh and save your better weapons for threats that matter. Leapers die fast if you hit them in their exposed core. Body shots waste ammo.
For rusted gears / rusted gear quests, leaper drops are your primary source. These are used in crafting and quest objectives, including Industrial Espionage, After Rain Comes, and Switching the Supply. Once you have Broad Shoulders unlocked in the survival tree, you can carry significantly more per run, and the leaper farm becomes much more efficient.
Common Quests and What They Need
A few quests come up a lot, so here’s the quick rundown.
Industrial espionage requires you to collect data from specific terminals. Check the Jiangsu Warehouse and similar industrial buildings. It’s a timed objective, so don’t linger in the area after interacting.
Keeping the Memory and Echoes of Victory Ridge are both lore-tied quests in the Victory Ridge area. Celeste’s journals are scattered across residential and office buildings within that zone. Stay in the zone and check bookcases and desks systematically.
Both the unexpected initiative and switching the supply involve interacting with supply terminals. These are straightforward find-and-use objectives, but the Sentinel ARC patrols in those areas are aggressive. Clear the room before interacting or you’ll get hit mid-animation.
Building a Library asks for collectibles found in bookcase-type containers across the maps. Noisemaker blueprint and fireworks box blueprint quests follow similar logic, pointing you toward supply crates and buried city weapon cases.
For Celeste’s journals, search the residential zone of Victory Ridge specifically. They’re not randomized far from that location. If you’re finding the area too hot with other players, try off-peak hours when competition for quest items drops considerably.
Why can’t I use a medium shield in Arc Raiders?
This is one of the most common questions new players ask, and the answer is simpler than you’d think.
The medium shield is locked behind an equipment tier requirement tied to your combat augment level. If you can’t equip it, check whether your current Combat Mk rating meets the shield’s minimum. Upgrading from Combat Mk.1 to Mk.2 usually resolves this.
The other reason is equipment weight. Medium shields are heavier than light shields, and if your total gear weight is already at the limit, the game greys out heavier items. Invest in Loaded Arms from the Conditioning tree to reduce weapon weight and create headroom for better gear. This also helps with the arc raiders best PvP build since heavy loadouts slow your movement noticeably.
Fixing Common Errors
The ARMR0002 error usually means a connection or authentication issue with Embark’s servers. First, check whether Arc Raiders servers are down via the community Discord or r/ArcRaiders. If servers are fine, restart the game client entirely rather than backing out to the menu.
Arc Raiders Embark game boot error and error code 30005 (createservice failed with 32) are both Windows-side issues. Error 30005 is caused by anti-cheat conflicts. Disable third-party tools like AutoHotKey, overclocking software, or virtualization apps and try again.
Arc Raiders mouse polling rate matters more than most people expect. High polling rates (1000Hz+) can cause subtle input inconsistencies in some configurations. If your mouse has adjustable polling, try dropping to 500Hz if your aiming feels off.
For general PC performance in demanding shooters like this one, our PC optimization guide covers the key settings tweaks that make a real difference to frame rate and input lag.
Is Arc Raiders on Game Pass?
As of June 2026, Arc Raiders is not on Xbox Game Pass. The game is free-to-play on PC via Steam, so there’s no barrier to downloading it anyway. Keep an eye on Embark’s official news page for any future platform announcements.
Tips That Actually Make a Difference
Wait three minutes after dropping in. Every aggressive player rushes out immediately. Let the chaos clear. Use that time to sort inventory and plan your route.
Don’t sprint everywhere. The Calming Stroll skill reduces your sound profile while walking. Sneaking through buildings avoids triggering nearby ARC units and prevents other players from tracking you by your footsteps.
Use the safe pocket every run. Even on cheap loadouts, store your best item in the safe pocket before the raid. You’ll thank yourself when someone third-parties you at extraction.
Don’t use the nearest extraction point. When the extraction alarm sounds, you become a target. Other players know every popular exit. Take the long route to a quieter hatch, especially when carrying anything valuable.
Check map conditions before loading in. Matriarch events, Close Scrutiny, and Lush Blooms all dramatically change what you’ll encounter topside. Dropping into a Matriarch event on a free loadout as a new player is a terrible time.
Don’t fight every Sentinel. The Sentinel ARC is tanky, loud, and draws other ARCs nearby. Early on, route around them. Once your gear is decent and you understand the Unexpected Initiative quest locations that Sentinels guard, then you engage on your terms.
Our piece on how the gaming industry has changed over the last decade provides useful context on how PC hardware affects game performance at a broader level and how games like Arc Raiders fit into the future of extraction shooters.
Final Thoughts
Arc Raiders rewards patience more than aggression. The players who extract consistently aren’t the ones winning every gunfight. They’re the ones who know when to engage, when to rotate, and when to quietly pocket the loot and walk away.
Start with Ferro + Stitcher, max Marathon Runner and Youthful Lungs first, and run free loadouts until the maps feel familiar. Everything else in this game, the best guns, the skill tree, and the boss strategies, gets easier once you stop dying in the first ten minutes.
