ARC Raiders Dust on the Wires Quest Guide
Shani has lost contact with a reconnaissance squad on the Spaceport, and you are tasked with retracing their steps to find out their whereabouts in the Dust on the Wires quest in…
ARC Raiders
ARC Raiders is a third-person PvPvE extraction adventure and shooter set on a lethal future Earth ravaged by ruthless mechanized forces. Venture topside in the underground settlement of Speranza, head to the dangerous surface alone or with a squad, scavenge valuable resources, fight or outsmart deadly ARC machines and rival Raiders, and get your haul back alive. Every expedition can change quickly, so smart preparation, improvisation, crafting, and knowing when to extract are as important as winning a firefight.
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Our Verdict
Awaiting Review
Review in progress
Critic Consensus
9.5/10
Community · 2 ratings
Videos & Screenshots
Overview
If you’ve been burnt out on standard extraction shooters where every match feels like a tedious spreadsheet simulator, ARC Raiders comes completely different. Embark Studios dropped us into a world that feels part post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi, part high-stakes tactical nightmare, and it absolutely delivers.
You play as a Raider based out of Speranza—a gritty, subterranean refuge beneath post apocalyptic Italy. Every time you take an elevator up to the surface (the "Rust Belt"), you’re gambling everything in your pack. The surface is crawling with ARC (relentless, cold-blooded killer machines dropping from the sky), and if that wasn't enough, you have to share the map with other human players who will smile at you one second and put a bullet in your back at the extraction hatch the next.
What makes it click isn't just the gunplay; it's the insane environmental audio, physics, and gun feel built on UE5. You scavenge old world tech, fight flying drones, try to outmaneuver heavy mechanical behemoths, and sweat bullets every time you try to call in an extraction. It’s tense, visually jaw-dropping, and wildly addictive if you love high-risk, high-reward gameplay.
47 hrsMain Story
115-117 hrsMain + Sides
180-200+ hrsCompletionist
118 hrsAll Styles
ARC Raiders Articles
How to Kill Every ARC Enemy in ARC Raiders – Their Weaknesses and Target Spots
ARC Raiders doesn’t hold your hand when it comes to fighting the ARC enemies. These machines are fast, angry, and tuned to send you back to Speranza with an empty pack. Worse,…
How to Find Sheet Metal in ARC Raiders
You take a photo of a dilapidated farmhouse in Ruined Homestead for your new Outpost project in ARC Raiders, head over to the construction terminal to start building, and then hit a…
How to Find Frigate Inductor in ARC Raiders
Upgrading the Research Station to Level 4 can be a big hurdle in ARC Raiders' mid-game progression. Without it, you cannot unlock Amplified weapon upgrades, locking your Bettinas and Hullcrackers out of…
ARC Raiders Celeste’s Childhood Drawings Quest Guide
Lance wants to lift Celeste’s spirits, and you're tasked with playing archaeologist across Riven Tides to find belongings from her childhood. Celeste's Childhood Drawings quest from the ARC Raiders Frozen Tail update…
ARC Raiders To The Skies Quest Guide
Apollo is back with another questionable engineering scheme in the "To The Skies" quest in ARC Raiders. To figure out how to shuttle raiders up and down the mountain toward Pendola Pass,…
ARC Raiders Boarding the Frigate Quest Guide
The Boarding the Frigate quest in ARC Raiders drops you in the path of the game’s biggest airborne nightmare introduced in the Frozen Trail update. This colossal aerial fortress (or ARC machine)…
Where to Find Epoxy Bucket in ARC Raiders
Grinding out the base upgrades introduced in the ARC Raiders Frozen Trail update will inevitably send you hunting for Epoxy Buckets across Pendola Pass. These items are categorized as Rare Recyclable loot,…
Where to Find the Thermal Shaker in ARC Raiders
Thermal Shaker is an Epic rare item in ARC Raiders required to upgrade your Workshop to Research Station Level 4 at the cost of 3x Thermal Shakers, 3x ARC Data Modules, and…
ARC Raiders: The Major’s Footlocker Quest & Hullcracker Blueprint Guide
Hullcracker is an explosive pump-action launcher built to delete ARC armor and open fights with authority in ARC Raiders. Unlike many weapons that drop out in the wild, the Hullcracker blueprint is…
How to Get and Use Weapon Stencils in ARC Raiders
Weapon Stencils are ARC Raiders’ cosmetic skin system (a digital rattle-can for your favorite shooter) that lets you coat your weapons in custom camos and, in higher rarities, attach unique 3D ornaments…
ARC Raiders Emperor Guide: How to Get the Emperor Modulator
The Legendary Emperor Modulator is the key material required to upgrade your Gunsmith workshop to Level 4 in ARC Raiders. Without it, you cannot build powerful weapons like the Aphelion or max…
ARC Raiders Clean Hands Quest Guide
Clean Hands is a new quest from the Nomadic Envoys added in the ARC Raiders Frozen Trail update that takes you across the freezing valleys of Pendola Pass. Unlike multi-stage missions that…
Where to Find Mini Pump in ARC Raiders
In ARC Raiders, upgrading your Workshop in Speranza is the fastest way to get ahead, but taking it up to Research Station Level 1 grinds to a halt without 3 Mini Pumps.…
ARC Raiders Nomadic Crafting Explained
The Frozen Trail update overhauled the skill tree in ARC Raiders, and sitting at the very end of the Survival branch is the Nomadic Crafting skill. The in-game tooltip keeps things vague…
ARC Raiders Sizing Things Up Quest Guide
Celeste’s Sizing Things Up quest sends you onto the snowdrifts of the new Pendola Pass map to investigate the colossal fallen Emperor machine, especially its legs. Between exploring steep terrain, dodging patrol…
Where to Find the Ruined Homestead in ARC Raiders
The Sheltered Retreat project, introduced in ARC Raiders' big new update, kicks off your topside base building, and the very first hurdle on the checklist—Research Topside Living Conditions—demands a photo of a…
Where to Find Industrial Batteries in ARC Raiders
Industrial Batteries are a Rare item in ARC Raiders that you need 3 in total for the Gear Bench Level 3 upgrade, and one is also required for Stage 2 of the…
ARC Raiders Line in the Sand Quest Guide
Celeste’s Line in the Sand quest in ARC Raiders sends you into Buried City to investigate a missing Stella Montis transport train carrying important Exodus hardware that never made it to Marano…
How to Get Headphones in ARC Raiders
Headphones in ARC Raiders are not that hard to find once you know where to go and what to search. Scavengers trip over them a lot during raids, but once you unlock…
Where to Get Prickly Pear in ARC Raiders
Prickly Pears are a hard to get piece of loot in ARC Raiders, especially when Scrappy the Rooster, our favorite buddy, is waiting on six of them for his next upgrade (alongside…
ARC Raiders Bird City Event Times and Modifier Explained
Bird City is a map modifier or event in ARC Raiders that turns Buried City into a high-risk, high-reward cash cow with more birds, extra ziplines, and a lot more trinkets hiding…
Where to Find Broken Guidance System in ARC Raiders
Finding a Broken Guidance System is one of the most frustrating progression roadblocks in ARC Raiders right now. Required to complete step four of Expedition 3, this Rare industrial material cannot be…
How to Complete Keeping an Eye Out in ARC Raiders
ARC Raiders usually gives you a good starting point for its missions, but "Keeping an Eye Out" is a curveball. Celeste sends you to look for Bilguun near a collapsed highway by…
Where to Find and Use Rotary Encoder in ARC Raiders
The Rotary Encoder is a Rare (purple-tier) recyclable item from the Exodus Loot pool in ARC Raiders. It's required for the "With A View" quest from Shani, where you help collect tech…
How to Get & Use the Dam Control Tower Key in ARC Raiders
The Dam Control Tower Key opens a high tier loot room at the very top of the Control Tower on the Dam Battlegrounds map in ARC Raiders. This POI is right next…
Where to Find Humidifiers in ARC Raiders
ARC Raiders loves making you hunt for junk you might have ignored since the first raid. First it was toasters, now it's humidifiers. To complete Stage 4 of the Caravan Expedition Project,…
Lush Blooms Event in ARC Raiders, Explained
If you’ve noticed the Lush Blooms event active on your map, you've been in one of the most profitable windows in ARC Raiders. It's a temporary world state that floods the map…
Where to Get Expired Respirators in ARC Raiders
Expired Respirators used to be the type of loot you’d scoff at in ARC Raiders. Despite being a blue rarity, they were junk—just good for quick 640 Credits, or can be broken…
What is Goop in ARC Raiders?
Spend more than a few raids topside or watch any ARC Raiders stream and you’ll hear it sooner than later: “That guy had goop” or “We need to extract with this goop.”…
ARC Raiders Fossilized Lightning Explained
ARC Raiders' Cold Snap update 1.7.0 patch notes added a new item with a mention that "Lightning strikes sometimes leave behind a valuable item", and that item is Fossilized Lightning. It's an…
ARC Raiders Eyes in the Sky Quest Guide
Eyes in the Sky is an ARC Raiders quest from Shani that has you scaling the tallest high points across three different maps to install LiDAR Scanners. These devices monitor ground tremors…
ARC Raiders Straight Record Quest Guide
Celeste has a task for you, and it's a pretty straightforward but once you know where everything is. Straight Record quest in ARC Raiders sends you to the Dam Battlegrounds to deal…
How to Survive the Cold Snap (Frostbite) in ARC Raiders
Winter is here, and ARC Raiders is celebrating it with the recent December update. Alongside a lot of other new content, the Cold Snap map condition is a big arrival, and unlike…
How to Unlock Traveling Tinkerer in ARC Raiders
You feel it when a raid drags on longer than you expected. You are running out of heals, grenades are used, extraction is camped, and you can only stare at a pile…
ARC Raiders Our Presence Up There Quest Guide
Our Presence Up There is a short quest in ARC Raiders, but it sends you into one of the Dam Battlegrounds’ busiest buildings. Your task is to bring Pattern House back online…
ARC Raiders Stella Montis Assembly Admin Key Location & Where to Use
Stella Montis is ARC Raiders’ fully indoor map, and it plays very differently from the open maps. Around tight hallways, vertical layouts, and locked side rooms, one of the most valuable locked…
ARC Raiders Matchmaking Taking Longer Issue Explained
ARC Raiders usually prides itself on fast queues and near-instant drops, which is why the sudden spike in long matchmaking times has caught so many players off guard. Over the past few…
ARC Raiders Matchmaking Failed Error: How to Fix
The ARMR0002 “Matchmaking has failed” error has been around since day one of ARC Raiders, and many users still encounter it. You’ll usually see the matchmaking failed error when you try to…
ARC Raiders: What Items to Keep, Recycle, or Sell
ARC Raiders drops an absurd amount of junk on you, and the game does a terrible job telling you what’s actually important. Between bench upgrades, quests, Expedition Projects, Scrappy, and story chains,…
Where to Find Laboratory Reagents in ARC Raiders
Laboratory Reagents are one of the rarer Medical materials in ARC Raiders, and you’ll need three of them to upgrade to Explosives Station 3, which you have to do to craft Heavy…
ARC Raiders Launch Tower Loot Guide: All Fuel Cells Locations
Launch Tower Loot is one of the highest–value map conditions on Spaceport in ARC Raiders. You can only reach the top of the Launch Towers once the generator at the base is…
ARC Raiders Hidden Bunker Location & Access Guide
The Hidden Bunker is one of the map conditions on Spaceport in ARC Raiders, a timed event where the whole lobby scrambles across rooftops, activates antennas, and races for a sealed underground…
Where to Find Aphelion Blueprint in ARC Raiders
The Aphelion is the energy-burst battle rifle in the ARC Raiders meta everyone is after, and for good reason. It has pinpoint accuracy, long-range punch, and the clean retro ARC silhouette. Early…
Where to Find Tempest Blueprint in ARC Raiders
Tempest is one of the most talked-about weapons in ARC Raiders, and for good reason—everyone wants it, almost no one has it, and the blueprint drops from the same loot pool that…
Where to Find Power Cables in ARC Raiders
Power Cables are the rare crafting items in ARC Raiders that turn into a scavenger’s nightmare once you search for them intentionally. You’ll need them early for crafting and later to upgrade…
ARC Raiders Electromagnetic Storm Explained: How to Survive
The Rust Belt doesn’t only threaten you with ARCs and rival Raiders, the game world also puts you in trouble. Every few hours, one of ARC Raiders’ maps is consumed by an…
How to Get Rusted Gears in ARC Raiders
Finding Rusted Gears in ARC Raiders is one of the frustrating mid-game grinds every Raider eventually faces. You’ll hear people talk about them in chat, you’ll check every container you see, and…
What is Safe Pocket in ARC Raiders & How to Get More Slots
Looting in ARC Raiders means not only what you find, but what you actually keep (if you stay alive). You can spend a complete raid collecting rare crafting items, blueprints, and high-tier…
Where to Find Rusted Tools in ARC Raiders
Rusted Tools might not look like much when you first pick them up in ARC Raiders—they’re just a handful of busted metal pieces and worn-out screws—but this item is crucial to one…
Where to Find the Anvil Blueprint in ARC Raiders
The Anvil is the heavy-caliber hand cannon that carries more topside raids than almost anything else in ARC Raiders. It hits very hard, punches clean through ARC plate, and drops careless raiders…
ARC Raiders A New Type of Plant Quest Walkthrough
Lance never lets you rest easy in ARC Raiders. When he doesn't ask for medical supplies or weird samples, he has got you out in the field again, and this time to…
Where to Find First Wave Husks in ARC Raiders
After wandering the wastelands of ARC Raiders, if you have come across giant, rusted ARC shells jutting out of the ground, congrats—you’ve found the First Wave husks. They’re the relics of the…
ARC Raiders What We Left Behind Walkthrough
When Tian Wen hands you the “What We Left Behind” quest in ARC Raiders, it’s time to dig up the past. This mission sends you across three different maps to find forgotten…
ARC Raiders Off The Radar Walkthrough: Field Depot Locations
If you’ve just gotten your boots dirty topside in ARC Raiders, Shani has likely already called in a favor. The storm wrecked a lot of infrastructure, and she needs someone (that’s you)…
ARC Raiders Barricade Glitch Explained: Is It Safe?
Barricades are introduced to protect you from raiders' fire in ARC Raiders, not turn you into a lock-pick ghost. But since the game's release, a strange exploit called the 'barricade glitch' has…
How to Fix the Network Timeout ART00004 Error in ARC Raiders
Few things are more frustrating than preparing to raid some rogue bots in ARC Raiders only to get slapped with the “Network Timeout – ART00004” message. This error is a connection issue…
Where to Find Mushrooms in ARC Raiders
Mushrooms are one of the deceptively simple items in ARC Raiders that somehow turn into an hour-long scavenger hunt. You’ve already fetched lemons, apricots, and even a cat bed for Scrappy, yet…
ARC Raiders: How to Upgrade Workbench & Gunsmith
Upgrading Workbench and other crafting stations in ARC Raiders is crucial for progress in the game and to create or upgrade powerful weapons and valuable gear. The Workbench is the main crafting…
ARC Raiders Maximum Simultaneous Game Instances Reached: How to Fix
If ARC Raiders doesn't launch and throws the error “Launch Error: Maximum simultaneous game instances reached!”, it means Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) has detected another instance of the game or part of its…
System Requirements (PC)
M
Minimum
Baseline setup- OSWindows 10 or 11 64-bit (latest update)
- ProcessorIntel Core i5-6600K or AMD Ryzen R5 1600
- Memory12 GB RAM
- GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB) or AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB) or Intel Arc A380
- Storage50 GB available space (SSD recommended)
- DirectXVersion 12
- NetworkBroadband Internet connection
R
Recommended
Smooth experience- OSWindows 10 or 11 64-bit (latest update)
- ProcessorIntel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Memory16 GB RAM
- GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or Intel Arc B570
- Storage50 GB available space (NVMe SSD)
- DirectXVersion 12
- NetworkBroadband Internet connection
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ARC Raiders Free-to-Play or Buy-to-Play?
It's a premium buy-to-play title. Embark Studios originally planned for a free-to-play model but pivoted during development to a premium release to ensure better anti-cheat protection, rich long-term progression, and a balanced game economy.
Is ARC Raiders PvP, PvE, or PvPvE?
It is a PvPvE (Player vs. Environment vs. Player) extraction shooter. You fight AI-driven ARC machines alongside other human Raiders, who can either cooperate with you or betray you to steal your loot.
Can you play ARC Raiders completely solo?
Yes. You can deploy topside as a solo player. The game includes dedicated solo matchmaking queues so solo players aren't forced to fight fully coordinated three-person squads.
What happens when you die during a raid?
If you get eliminated before extracting, you'll lose all the weapons, armor, and uncollected surface loot in your backpack. However, items secured in your Safe Pocket before dying remain intact in your inventory.
Is ARC Raiders cross-platform and cross-progression?
Yes. ARC Raiders support full crossplay and cross-progression across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S via your Embark ID account.
Is ARC Raiders available on PS4 or Xbox One?
No, the game is developed exclusively for current-gen platforms (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) on Unreal Engine 5.
Is the game worth buying/playing right now?
It depends on your genre preference. If you enjoy tense, high-stakes extraction loops like Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown paired with quality third-person shooter mechanics and UE5 visuals, it offers top-tier value. If you dislike losing hard-earned loot upon death, the genre might feel frustrating.
Does the game have microtransactions or pay-to-win elements?
The game features cosmetic only microtransactions (character skins, weapon wraps, emotes) and battle passes. There are no pay-to-win mechanics that grant combat advantages or stat boosts over other players.
Does the game support offline single-player mode?
No. ARC Raiders requires an active and stable internet connection to connect to online game servers, manage player inventories, and execute matchmaking.
How often does the game receive updates and new content?
As a live-service title, it follows a seasonal content roadmap that includes major balance patches, dynamic map events, new ARC machine variants, fresh Trader quests, and limited-time extraction modes.
