Arc Raiders was an unbelievable sport when it launched virtually precisely one 12 months in the past. It joined Sea of Thieves and Left 4 Lifeless as considered one of my favourite co-op video games ever. Many others cherished it too, and it rapidly surged to turn into considered one of 2025’s greatest sellers and largest tales. However within the months that adopted, a big portion of gamers fell off the sport’s live-service carousel–or possibly “jumped off” is a greater approach to put it.
Embark Studios announced in May that it was moving to semi-annual major updates to create a more healthy atmosphere for builders and gamers alike, because the month-to-month cadence started to really feel like constructing a aircraft whereas it was already within the air. The workforce wanted extra time to ship updates that felt as significant because it meant, and as participating as gamers anticipated.
Quick ahead to this week, and we lastly have the primary main replace for the reason that workforce introduced these modifications. Having performed it for just a few hours, I discover the Frozen Path replace to be a hefty, thrilling, creative makeover that reaffirms why I really like Arc Raiders a lot, although it does really feel prefer it’s for gamers like me: gamers who by no means left or desire a good excuse to come back again. Like what Bungie is realizing with Marathon, I count on Arc Raiders’ Frozen Path replace will even function a reminder that this style’s attraction merely has a decrease ceiling than one thing like Fortnite, however is not that high-quality?
Frozen Path provides a frosty new map, a serious map occasion that acts as a puzzle- and combat-filled raid, new weapons, enemies, an overhaul to the talent tree, customization areas known as Outposts, a brand new in-game system for buffing your weapons, weapon cosmetics, and a multi-tiered battle pass. It is an enormous replace, and organized in sequence like this, it already suggests a proof of idea for the workforce’s resolution to spend the additional time. No replace of this scale ever got here to Arc Raiders prior to now.
The truth is, that is not even the great listing. Alongside bug fixes and different quality-of-life modifications additionally baked into the October 8 patch, my favourite a part of Frozen Path is its new devices. Two totally different in-game cameras debut with the replace, giving gamers an official (and diegetic) picture mode, together with the power to show the digicam round for a selfie. Extra musical devices are on the way in which too: harmonicas and banjos, permitting for extra various sounds and grander performances once you come throughout others prepared to jam with you whereas topside.
The Tether Launcher is a handheld gun that shoots a wire between two factors of your selecting. They must be comparatively close to each other, extending for a number of toes however not one thing like from one nook of the map to a different; in any other case, it is as much as you find out how to use it. It could imply tying two flying Arc machines collectively in order that they collide mid-air, or connecting one other raider to the Leaper patrolling outdoors your door, or no matter else you provide you with.
I typically liken Arc Raiders to Sea of Thieves for the way it expresses the identical credo that offers Uncommon’s pirate sport a lot of its attraction: “instruments, not guidelines.” The Tether Launcher is a superb instance of that strategy. Give the group a cool toy and see what they provide you with. Even when Arc Raiders’ hype and updates slowed, this remained an intrinsic a part of its magic.
The Yank Grenade works equally, although extra routinely. Throw one, and it will rapidly explode and deploy a tether, tying no matter is nearest to a sturdy base like the bottom or a rooftop. It is best utilized in extra determined occasions when you possibly can’t take the time to manually purpose the Tether Launcher.
However my favourite of all of them is the grappling hook. You would possibly suppose the Snaphook that has been within the sport since launch was a grappling hook, and certain, it was a kind of grappling hook, however the brand new one in Frozen Path doesn’t change it; it lives alongside it, with some key variations.
For one, the Snaphook behaves like Batman’s grapnel gun, rapidly pulling you towards your goal in a straight line. The grappling hook is extra like–well, okay, Batman has considered one of these too, however I am going to liken it as an alternative to Nathan Drake’s hook in Uncharted 4. You possibly can swing throughout gaps, throw it over a roof after which stroll up or shimmy throughout partitions, and even use it to climb down extra safely from a excessive level. In case you use it properly, it could erase the specter of fall harm in plenty of conditions the place it could’ve been your doom. It is slower than a Snaphook–in testing it, PC Gamer’s Morgan Park and I discovered it is roughly as quick as scaling a ladder–but it is extra versatile, too, and solves issues the Snaphook cannot.
In my early play periods with Frozen Path’s toybox, nothing was extra thrilling. I spent a complete 30-minute spherical experimenting with it, nevertheless it additionally helped me get out of a jam once I was chased by a number of flying machines. Badly wounded, I discovered myself in search of refuge in a warehouse with just one obvious exit–the one the machines waited at–until I noticed I might use the grappling hook to climb some cabinets and bounce out of a again window I could not have reached with out the hook.
It is particularly cool that it has no cooldown and no sturdiness. Until you lose one to being knocked out by a raider or machine (or possibly a botched swing, on this case), it appears it will be yours to maintain, no repairs required. Like defibrillators and my Photoelectric Cloak that hides me from the machines with the ability of America On-line noises, I am going to by no means go away Speranza with out one.
Arc Raiders was a superb sport when it arrived on the scene final October, and it is remained that means for me daily since. Sure, I hated the generative AI elements, too, however the core components of the Arc Raiders expertise imply I would have been completely happy to play it perpetually, even when it by no means bought one other replace. Nonetheless, I perceive many different gamers wished for extra. Frozen Path undoubtedly appears like all that “extra” that Embark promised again within the spring.
It will not make you a fan of the game–or the polarizing genre–if you’ve got already tried it and located it ill-suited to your style in video games. However for gamers who by no means left, wished a motive to return, or have been on the skin questioning if it is for them, tomorrow’s Frozen Path replace definitely makes Arc Raiders a greater, extra experimental sport than it was yesterday.
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