A fallen Emperor opens the Northern Route as ARC Raiders launches its biggest update yet

Something enormous has fallen in the mountains beyond the Rust Belt, and ARC wants it back. Frozen Trail arrives in ARC Raiders on October 8 , opening the Northern Route toward Pendola Pass and pushing Embark Studios’ extraction adventure into its largest expansion since launch with a new map, a cr

Something enormous has fallen in the mountains beyond the Rust Belt, and ARC wants it back. Frozen Trail arrives in ARC Raiders on October 8, opening the Northern Route toward Pendola Pass and pushing Embark Studios’ extraction adventure into its largest expansion since launch with a new map, a crashed Emperor, a boardable Frigate, three new ARC enemies, a surface Outpost, heavily expanded weapon progression and an entirely new generation of traversal and combat gadgets.

The launch trailer frames the expedition as something more dangerous than another scavenging run. Celeste and Shani’s investigation into strange ARC signals has finally produced an answer, but finding it creates a much larger problem: one of the mysterious Emperor machines has fallen in an old Italian mountain settlement beyond the reach of Speranza’s normal transport network. Rare technology is waiting inside, ARC is mounting an aggressive response and the environment itself can kill Raiders caught outside when the temperature collapses. Frozen Trail is therefore not simply adding another place to loot. Embark is trying to establish a new Raider frontier beyond the Rust Belt.

Pendola Pass takes Raiders beyond the world they already know

The new region is Pendola Pass, an abandoned Italian mountain settlement that once served as an important transport hub during the Exodus Project.

Until now, the mountain range surrounding the Rust Belt has represented something close to a natural boundary for Speranza’s Raiders. The underground Tube network cannot simply carry people through those peaks, and Embark began preparing the journey in September through the Ascending the Mountain Raider Project.

That storyline had Shani investigating phantom ARC signals travelling toward somewhere the Raiders could not reach. Apollo, meanwhile, began working on an experimental solution capable of pushing an expedition farther north.

Frozen Trail reveals where those signals were coming from.

Pendola Pass sits beyond those mountains, preserved beneath snow and extreme cold. Its surviving landmarks provide a mixture of ordinary pre-collapse life and infrastructure tied to humanity’s attempt to escape its dying world. Raiders will move through an abandoned supermarket and deserted town square, but also through an observatory and a buried railway depot that once formed part of the Exodus transportation network.

Embark has described the map as its most ambitious yet, with a stronger emphasis on verticality than previous locations and threats appearing both above and below ground.

The mountains are not decorative boundaries either. They fundamentally shape movement through the region, and several of Frozen Trail’s new gadgets appear specifically designed to let Raiders navigate a landscape that is considerably less forgiving than the existing Rust Belt maps.

And above almost everything else lies the reason anyone is willing to make the journey.

An Emperor has fallen and everyone wants what is inside

At the centre of the new conflict is a fallen Emperor.

Embark has deliberately avoided explaining everything about these enormous ARC machines, but the crash at Pendola Pass represents something unprecedented enough to trigger immediate interest from both Speranza and ARC itself.

Rare technology is believed to be contained within the machine.

For Raiders, that makes the wreck one of the most valuable opportunities anyone has encountered Topside.

Getting there is only the beginning.

Players will need to discover how to enter the Emperor and explore what remains inside rather than simply looting a pile of debris surrounding the crash. Embark is treating the machine as a substantial environmental location in its own right, allowing the mystery surrounding ARC technology to become something players physically investigate.

That matters because Frozen Trail is also supposed to begin answering one of ARC Raiders’ largest unresolved questions.

What actually is ARC, and where did it come from?

Embark has previously said that Frozen Trail starts pushing the game further into that mystery. The Emperor’s fall provides an obvious opportunity to examine technology that Raiders would normally never be able to approach safely, let alone crawl inside.

But the machines have noticed what happened.

And they are not leaving the wreck undefended.

The Frigate turns the sky into an endgame battlefield

ARC’s response includes one of the largest machines Embark has created for the game.

Raiders have started calling it the Frigate.

This enormous ARC vessel patrols Pendola Pass as part of the reaction to the fallen Emperor, and unlike most machines hovering above the battlefield, the Frigate can actually be boarded.

That transforms it from a large enemy into something closer to a moving dungeon.

Reaching the vessel is only the first challenge. Once aboard, Raiders enter its internal passageways, unlock routes through the structure and fight their way through ARC units guarding the interior.

The encounter is aimed primarily at experienced players.

Close quarters change many of the assumptions that normally define fighting ARC Topside. Cover becomes more limited, escape routes are less predictable and the fact that the battle is taking place hundreds of feet above the ground makes simply disengaging considerably more complicated.

Other Raiders can enter the same space as well.

That creates exactly the kind of uncomfortable decision ARC Raiders is built around.

Two squads trapped inside the same hostile flying machine may decide that cooperating against ARC is the sensible option.

Or one can wait until the other has exhausted its ammunition and shields before stealing everything.

Embark is deliberately leaving that choice to players.

Bully does not intend to let Raiders retreat

The Frigate is only one part of the new ARC response.

Frozen Trail introduces three completely new ARC enemies, each built around a different type of pressure.

The first is the Bully, and the name accurately describes Embark’s design philosophy.

Bully is an aggressive ground machine that closes distance rapidly and refuses to surrender space once it has committed to an attack. Instead of maintaining range or waiting for an exposed target, it pushes toward Raiders and attempts to overwhelm them through relentless pressure.

Cover and timing become critical.

Players need to create enough distance to exploit the machine’s weaknesses rather than simply continuing to fire while it closes in.

That makes Bully particularly dangerous on Pendola Pass because the environment already restricts where players can safely move. A flash freeze forcing a squad toward shelter becomes considerably more complicated when an aggressive ARC unit is simultaneously charging the same position.

Skulker prefers to wait until nobody is looking

The Skulker approaches combat almost completely differently.

Where Bully announces its presence through aggression, Skulker is designed around patience and opportunism.

It stays near the edges of a fight, uses terrain to remain difficult to track and waits for Raiders to become distracted before attacking.

Lose sight of it and the machine can retreat again.

The next indication that it is still nearby may be the attack itself.

That behaviour makes it especially appropriate for an extraction shooter where attention is already divided between machines, loot, environmental danger and other players.

A squad fighting another Raider team may know a Skulker is somewhere nearby but still be unable to dedicate time to hunting it.

A team rushing for shelter during a freeze may have the same problem.

Embark has spent considerable development effort on machine behaviour as one of the defining characteristics of ARC Raiders, and Frozen Trail continues that philosophy by making the new enemies behave differently rather than simply giving existing units larger health pools.

Hydra controls the corridors of the Frigate

The final new machine is the Hydra, found primarily aboard the Frigate.

Hydra does not roam the battlefield like Bully or stalk players like Skulker.

Instead, it is effectively an advanced defensive turret composed of three independently operating sections, each capable of tracking and attacking threats.

That architecture makes the machine particularly dangerous in enclosed spaces.

A squad cannot necessarily rely on one player attracting its attention while everybody else moves freely. Different sections can control several angles at once, forcing teams to divide its attention, move quickly between cover and attack during relatively narrow opportunities.

It is the kind of enemy that makes considerably more sense inside the Frigate than in an open field.

The vessel is supposed to feel like hostile ARC territory.

Hydra ensures the interior behaves accordingly.

Pendola Pass can freeze Raiders to death

Machines are not the only new threat.

Flash Freezes periodically cut through Pendola Pass, creating an environmental hazard far more severe than simply reducing visibility with another weather effect.

When temperatures suddenly collapse, Raiders caught in exposed areas need to find protection.

That turns buildings and shelters into temporary survival resources and changes the way players plan routes across the map.

On existing maps, an exposed shortcut may simply involve accepting the risk of being spotted by another Raider.

At Pendola Pass, an exposed route can become a death sentence if the weather changes at the wrong moment.

Developer explanations around the map have also described dedicated shelters that become relevant when freezing conditions arrive, turning safe locations into natural gathering points.

That creates another predictable source of conflict.

Everybody wants shelter.

Everybody knows everyone else wants shelter.

And the Raider already occupying it may not be interested in sharing.

It is a good example of how Embark can create PvP tension without explicitly telling players to attack one another.

The environment does the matchmaking for them.

The Outpost finally gives Raiders a home on the surface

Frozen Trail is also making one of its largest changes below the level of individual raids.

The Outpost gives players a new personal space located between the Rust Belt and the mountain frontier.

Speranza and the Raider Den remain central to the game, but the Outpost represents something very different thematically.

Raiders are no longer simply hiding underground and making temporary trips to the surface.

They are beginning to reclaim it.

Players can expand the Outpost through different modules and customise its interior with furniture, creating a personal base that develops alongside their progression.

Embark has described the initial implementation as only the beginning.

The studio eventually wants the Outpost to become a much deeper expression of the player’s identity and long-term progression.

For Frozen Trail, its most important function is already significant.

It contains the new Research Workstation.

And that workstation changes what happens to weapons after players have already reached the conventional endgame.

Amplified Weapons can completely change how familiar guns behave

The Research Workstation introduces access to Amplified Weapons, one of Frozen Trail’s most important progression systems.

Instead of simply adding stronger guns above the existing arsenal, Embark is allowing players to push selected weapons into a new fifth quality tier.

Fifteen weapons support the system at launch.

Reaching that level opens branching upgrades capable of fundamentally changing how a weapon behaves rather than simply increasing damage by a few percentage points.

Embark’s examples illustrate how extreme the changes can become.

A Burletta can become fully automatic.

A Renegade can receive a scope.

A Rattler can be modified with incendiary ammunition and a 64-round magazine.

That gives late-game players a reason to reconsider weapons they may have stopped using months ago.

The system is deliberately aimed at solving a problem common to long-running extraction games. Once experienced players identify a handful of optimal guns, much of the armoury becomes economically irrelevant.

Amplification allows Embark to take an existing weapon and give it several possible late-game identities.

It also strengthens the relationship between raids and persistent progression.

Players are not simply extracting loot to earn more money.

They are building the infrastructure required to modify their arsenal in ways that were previously impossible.

Stiletto offers precision without an expensive entry cost

Frozen Trail still introduces completely new firearms as well.

The first is the Stiletto, a light-ammunition battle rifle positioned as an early-game alternative to the Renegade.

It is intentionally inexpensive to craft and relatively easy to use, giving newer or less wealthy Raiders access to a distance-focused weapon without demanding a high-value loadout.

Accuracy depends on discipline.

The Stiletto can fire quickly, but repeatedly pulling the trigger as fast as possible degrades accuracy. Players who maintain a controlled rhythm are rewarded with more reliable precision.

That creates an interesting position in the weapon hierarchy.

Frozen Trail is adding advanced Amplified guns for players who have already exhausted much of the existing progression, but it is simultaneously introducing a weapon specifically aimed at people who are nowhere near that stage.

The update is trying to expand both ends of the equipment curve.

Bantam brings a heavy revolver into the frozen frontier

The second new firearm sits at the opposite end of the fantasy.

The Bantam is a short-barrelled revolver firing heavy ammunition.

It is designed to hit hard against both ARC machines and human Raiders while also supporting a dedicated hip-fire style.

Embark openly describes it as an opportunity to indulge the cowboy fantasy.

That may sound like a purely aesthetic distinction, but the Bantam’s heavy-ammunition profile gives it an obvious role for players who want a compact weapon capable of delivering significant individual hits rather than sustained automatic fire.

It should also pair naturally with the kind of close-range fights Pendola Pass can force when several players retreat into the same building or shelter.

Frozen fingers notwithstanding, somebody is inevitably going to attempt a revolver duel during a blizzard.

The Grappling Hook changes the rules of traversal

The new Grappling Hook may ultimately have a larger effect on moment-to-moment play than either gun.

Pendola Pass contains considerably more vertical terrain than earlier maps, and Embark is giving Raiders a tool designed specifically to exploit it.

The hook can be used to reach difficult elevated positions, rappel down structures and swing across gaps.

That introduces movement options that previously required players to follow the architecture much more closely.

A rooftop no longer necessarily needs a staircase.

A drop no longer means committing to ground level.

A gap can become a route instead of a boundary.

Experienced extraction-shooter players will immediately understand the PvP implications.

The value of a building changes when another player can reach its upper levels from an unexpected direction.

A defensive position that was previously secure because it controlled the only staircase may suddenly have another entrance.

And a player carrying valuable loot may have new ways to escape rather than fighting through the squad blocking the obvious route.

Tethers can attach Raiders directly to ARC machines

Frozen Trail becomes considerably stranger with the new tether system.

The Tether Launcher allows Raiders to connect two separate points with a wire, creating traps capable of restricting movement.

But Embark is not limiting the mechanic to static objects.

Players can attach Raiders to ARC machines.

That produces exactly the kind of emergent interaction the description suggests: an unfortunate Raider can potentially find themselves tethered to a hostile machine and dragged away from safety.

The new Yank Grenade applies the same general principle much more violently.

When detonated, it pulls a nearby target toward the blast.

Flying ARC can be dragged out of the air.

Enemy Raiders can be pulled away from cover.

Someone standing comfortably on the safe side of a doorway can suddenly find themselves in the middle of a firing line.

Both tools are examples of Frozen Trail trying to add systems rather than simple damage gadgets.

Their usefulness depends on creativity, positioning and what else is happening around them.

That should produce plenty of situations Embark never explicitly scripted.

A real camera turns the Rust Belt into something worth documenting

Not every new gadget exists to kill something.

Frozen Trail introduces a fully functional camera.

Players have already been using binoculars to frame screenshots and document unusual moments Topside, so Embark has turned that behaviour into an actual system.

The camera supports zoom, aperture adjustment, manual and automatic focus pulling and a dedicated selfie mode with custom emotes.

Photographs can then be stored in the Codex.

That gives players a persistent way of documenting individual raids rather than relying entirely on external screenshot tools.

It also fits the broader direction of Frozen Trail.

The update is expanding ARC Raiders from a repeated loot-and-extract loop into something with more personal ownership: a custom Outpost, personalised weapons, photographs and even instruments that serve no competitive purpose whatsoever.

Banjo and harmonica players are coming Topside

Two new musical instruments arrive with the update.

The Harmonica becomes another tool for players willing to make noise in an extraction shooter where making noise is generally a terrible idea.

The Banjo joins it, although the blueprint is included through the Frozen Trail Collector Set DLC.

Mechanically, neither is going to help somebody survive the Frigate.

Socially, they fit into the same strange space as many of ARC Raiders’ most memorable emergent interactions.

The game’s PvPvE structure creates tension precisely because another human player can either shoot you or behave like an idiot with you.

Giving them a banjo adds one more possibility.

Reward Passes replace the old Raider Deck structure

Frozen Trail also changes how seasonal progression works.

The new Reward Pass system is an evolution of Raider Decks and is designed to solve a problem Embark created with the existing Cred economy.

Players had accumulated so much Cred that newly released Raider Decks could sometimes be completed almost immediately. That undermined Feats as a progression system because experienced players had little reason to engage with them once a new Deck appeared.

Reward Passes restructure that loop around Feats and individual update content.

The Frozen Trail Reward Pass contains 60 levels with free and premium tracks.

Importantly, gameplay-affecting items remain on the free side.

The Free Pass includes the base versions of the new outfits alongside cosmetics, weapons, gadgets, other items and up to 200 Raider Tokens.

The Premium Pass focuses on additional cosmetic content: premium toggles, outfit modifications and colour variants, exclusive Legendary weapon stencils, hairstyles and up to 1,150 Raider Tokens.

It costs 1,150 Raider Tokens.

Completing the track therefore returns the amount required to purchase it.

Embark has also been explicit that gameplay items such as weapons and gadgets are not being locked behind the premium track.

Old Raider Deck progress is not being thrown away

Existing Raider Decks are being consolidated into the new Legacy Reward Pass.

The Legacy Pass is free for all players.

Previously unlocked rewards remain unlocked, while anything missed from the old Raider Deck system can be earned by progressing through the consolidated Legacy track.

That is a useful solution to the transition problem.

Embark gets to replace a progression system it considers flawed without simply deleting months of unfinished player rewards.

Cred itself is another matter.

The currency has been moving toward retirement as part of the transition, making Frozen Trail a much more substantial progression reset than a conventional seasonal update.

The Skill Tree is being rebuilt around stronger choices

Frozen Trail also includes a Skill Tree rework.

Embark has said one of the primary objectives is to give players greater control over what kind of Raider they are building rather than filling the tree with small improvements that feel mandatory or insignificant.

Developer discussions around the new structure describe underused skills being replaced, others being strengthened and branching routes leading toward more powerful end-of-tree choices.

That should complement the Outpost and Amplified Weapon systems.

Frozen Trail is effectively adding new layers of character, base and equipment progression simultaneously.

The update arrives at a point where a substantial portion of the existing community has already reached the old Skill Point ceiling and fully developed its Raider Den.

Adding another map without new long-term systems would provide exploration for a few weeks but do little for accounts that had already exhausted most of their progression.

Embark clearly wants Frozen Trail to last longer than that.

Celeste finally looks like the actor behind her

The launch trailer itself also marks an important production change for ARC Raiders.

Celeste has been visually redesigned to more closely resemble actor Diana Gardner, who has voiced the character since the beginning of the project.

Embark has acknowledged that the old version of Celeste could not fully reproduce the emotional range of Gardner’s performance. Limited facial animation made story moments less convincing than the studio wanted.

Frozen Trail changes that.

The new trailer is the first ARC Raiders cinematic created using full performance capture, including more detailed facial capture capable of translating Gardner’s expressions into Celeste.

The change will not remain confined to the video.

When Frozen Trail launches, Celeste’s in-game appearance will also move closer to Gardner so that the face and voice of the character finally belong to the same performance.

Embark intends to apply similar changes to additional characters in future updates.

That is a relatively small feature compared with a new map or weapon system, but potentially an important one for a game trying to invest more heavily in narrative.

Embark is also experimenting with a PvE-only option after launch

Frozen Trail remains fundamentally part of the PvPvE ARC Raiders experience.

Other Raiders can still kill you, steal what you found and turn a seemingly cooperative encounter into a disaster.

But Embark is preparing to test something players have requested since release.

From October 13 through October 20, the studio will run a limited PvE matchmaking toggle test.

Players taking part will be able to choose between the traditional ARC Raiders experience and a matchmaking option focused on cooperative PvE against ARC without hostile Raider PvP.

This is explicitly a test, not the permanent conversion of ARC Raiders into a PvE game.

That distinction is important because Embark originally conceived the project many years ago as a cooperative PvE title before eventually rebuilding it around extraction PvPvE.

The studio now wants real player data showing how a PvE option affects matchmaking, player behaviour and the wider experience before deciding what happens next.

Frozen Trail therefore launches into a game whose fundamental structure is still capable of evolving.

Anti-cheat is becoming less forgiving as the stakes increase

Embark is also tightening its Fair Play policies ahead of the update.

Extraction games are particularly vulnerable to cheating because losing to an illegitimate player does not simply cost a match. It can erase equipment and loot that took considerable time to acquire.

The studio has expanded its anti-cheat operation throughout 2026, including the rollout of Denuvo Anti-Cheat, additional detection systems and repeated sanction waves targeting bot-like behaviour, item duplication and suspicious high-value transfers.

Its enforcement policy has also become more aggressive.

Embark has increasingly moved toward first-strike permanent bans when detection confidence is sufficiently high, while linked accounts and attempts by repeat offenders to return through new accounts are receiving additional scrutiny.

That work is less marketable than a gigantic flying ARC machine, but it becomes particularly important when Frozen Trail introduces more valuable late-game equipment and a new frontier where players will inevitably fight over rare technology.

ARC Raiders is moving to fewer but much larger expansions

Frozen Trail also represents Embark’s revised approach to live-service development.

Earlier this year, the studio announced that it was moving away from trying to sustain a constant sequence of major updates.

Instead, large-scale releases are now planned approximately twice per year, with smaller balance patches, store updates, events, bug fixes and live changes continuing between them.

Frozen Trail is the first major demonstration of why Embark made that decision.

It is not simply a map pack.

Pendola Pass, the Frigate, new ARC, Outposts, Amplified Weapons, Reward Passes, the Skill Tree rework, traversal gadgets, firearms, camera functionality and broader narrative improvements all arrive as interconnected pieces of one expansion.

That gives the update considerably more weight, but it also raises expectations.

When players wait longer between major content drops, each one needs to materially change what they can do.

Embark itself has repeatedly described Frozen Trail as the biggest ARC Raiders update since launch.

The October 8 release will determine whether the slower cadence can justify that wait.

The entire game will be free for four days

New players will also get an unusually easy opportunity to find out.

ARC Raiders will be free to play from October 8 at 09:00 UTC until October 12 at 08:00 UTC on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox.

This is not a restricted tutorial or curated demo.

Embark says the free period provides access to the full game.

That makes the timing particularly aggressive.

Instead of offering a free weekend during a quiet point in the content schedule, the studio is opening the doors precisely when experienced players are returning for its largest expansion.

New Raiders do not necessarily need to complete the complete map-unlock progression before seeing Pendola Pass either. Embark has confirmed that a new player can enter the map immediately when grouped with somebody who has already unlocked it.

That creates a direct route for existing players to bring friends into the Frozen Trail content rather than making them spend the free weekend catching up.

Frozen Trail is the moment Raiders stop merely surviving underground

The most interesting idea behind the update may be the change in tone.

ARC Raiders began with humanity surviving beneath a surface dominated by machines.

Raiders travelled Topside because Speranza needed resources.

Every expedition was temporary.

Every extraction meant returning underground.

Frozen Trail begins shifting that relationship.

The Outpost establishes a human presence on the surface.

The Northern Route extends beyond territory Raiders previously considered reachable.

Pendola Pass turns an unknown region into somewhere that can be explored repeatedly.

And the fallen Emperor gives humanity an opportunity to investigate ARC rather than simply hiding from it.

That does not mean the balance of power has suddenly changed.

The Frigate arriving almost immediately demonstrates the opposite.

ARC can respond with machines large enough to turn the sky itself into hostile territory.

The mountain can freeze an unprepared Raider before another player ever pulls the trigger.

And every piece of rare technology recovered from the Emperor has to survive the journey home before it becomes useful.

But the motivation is different.

Speranza is no longer only asking Raiders to endure.

For the first time, it is seriously asking them to push outward.

Frozen Trail launches for ARC Raiders on October 8, 2026, opening Pendola Pass, the Northern Route and a new stage of the conflict with ARC across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.