ARC Raiders One-Year Anniversary: Free Gift and Year-One Stats

ARC Raiders turned one year old on October 30, and Embark Studios marked the occasion with a new anniversary post on the game's official site, a thank-you video for the community, and a free gift waiting in every Raider's in-game inbox. The anniversary post doubles as a progress report on the PvPvE extraction shooter's first 12 months, and it lands less than a week after the Frozen Trail update's latest patch.

01A Year of Rust Belt Stats, By the Numbers

To celebrate, Embark published an infographic breaking down exactly what Raiders have been up to since launch. The headline figures are staggering for a single year: players have fired off 6 billion rounds and destroyed over 14.8 billion ARC units across every map in the Rust Belt. Among those kills, Raiders have taken down 3,920,595 Queens and 2,919,521 Matriarchs, the game's toughest boss-tier enemies.

The infographic also leans into ARC Raiders' community humor as much as its combat numbers. The Anvil is named the community's favorite weapon of the Rust Belt, Scrappy the chicken companion has been fed 6,800 tonnes of food over the year, and apricots are listed as Scrappy's favorite snack. On the more chaotic side, Embark says 3,625 Raiders have specifically been taken out by a volcanic rock, while the community's most supportive players have healed as many as 5,643 fellow Raiders combined, with one squad healing 18 strangers in a single raid.

02Frozen Trail: The Biggest Update Yet

The anniversary lands just over a week after Live Update 2.3.0, the latest patch for October's Frozen Trail content drop. Frozen Trail added the snow-covered Pendola Pass map, new enemy types, and expanded raider progression, and Embark has called it the biggest single update the game has received since release. Update 2.3.0 followed up with the new Souls Offering player project, a buff to the Heavy Shield's base charge (from 80 to 90), and a faster, harder-hitting Firefly Burner, alongside dozens of smaller fixes to grappling hooks, zip lines and ARC pathing near map borders.

ARC Raiders' official '1st Anniversary Accolades' video, published alongside the anniversary post on October 30, 2026.

In the anniversary post, the team says it's "already hard at work on what comes next" after Frozen Trail, without naming specific content yet. For a studio that shifted from monthly patches to a cadence of major seasonal drops this year, the next big reveal is more likely to land in the weeks ahead than immediately.

03A Permanent PvE Mode Is Still Under Discussion

One open question hanging over the anniversary is the future of PvE. Embark ran a limited-time PvE matchmaking toggle test from October 13 to 20, letting Raiders fight only ARC's mechanized threats without the risk of other players jumping them for loot. In its official wrap-up post, the studio confirmed the experiment drew more than 30 million PvE rounds and called community reaction "polarizing" on a first read of the feedback. A representative player survey went out starting October 22, and Embark says any decision on whether PvE becomes a permanent mode will prioritize "the overall health and enjoyability of the game" as a whole.

As of the anniversary post, Embark hasn't announced a final call. The studio says it expects to share more information in November, which puts a decision on a collision course with whatever Frozen Trail follow-up content is next in the pipeline. Until then, the test's 30-million-round turnout alone shows how much appetite exists for a calmer way to play Speranza's extraction loop.

04How to Claim Your Anniversary Gift

Embark is giving every active player a free thank-you gift to mark the milestone. According to the official post, the reward is automatic: log in to ARC Raiders on PC, PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S, and it will be waiting in your in-game inbox. Embark hasn't published an exact item name or an expiration date for the gift, so claiming it sooner rather than later is the safer move if you've been away from Speranza for a while.

05What's Next for ARC Raiders

A year after its October 2025 launch, ARC Raiders remains one of Embark Studios' two shipped titles, alongside THE FINALS, and the anniversary post frames this milestone as just the first lap. The studio closes its message by thanking the community directly and promising "lots planned for the future," which, combined with Frozen Trail's momentum and the pending PvE decision, suggests year two will move just as fast as the first.