The highly anticipated ‘big October update’, Frozen Trail, comes to Arc Raiders on Thursday October 8, and Embark Studios has confirmed exactly what to expect. Expanding the story, Celeste is sending raiders to the surface to investigate signals that are coming from a downed walker. As one of those raiders, you head to the game’s new map, Pendola Pass.
Situated on the northern edge of the Rust Belt, Pendola Pass is a harsh, snowy mountain map, which is larger than most of the locations you’re familiar with in Arc Raiders. Verticality is increased, as you’d expect, but there is also a massive downed Emperor Arc for you to explore for the best loot.
To get around easily, Embark is also finally adding a grappling hook item for you to take with you on raids. Instead of having limited uses, the tool uses stamina, meaning you can use it however much you want during a game. It also lets you absail down the outside of buildings, reaching windows and surprising other players. Hopefully, it’ll mean Pendola Pass isn’t a chore to get around.
You’ll also find new weather effects and enemies that are exclusive to the new map. On the snowy mountain tops, you’ll be at the mercy of ‘flash freeze’ which pushes you towards shelter and damages you if you stay out in the harsh cold for too long.
While exploring, though, you’ll come across the three new Arc added in Frozen Trail. The highlight is the Frigate, which Embark says is “a massive airborne carrier that presents a high-stakes challenge for experienced Raiders.” Essentially, you climb on top of it to complete puzzle based challenges, taking on Hydra enemies at the same time.
On the ground, you’ll also encounter Bully and Skulker bots, each of which has to be approached in a different way. For now, only the Frigate of the three new Arc will appear on other maps, but that’ll change in the future.
To help you take on the new enemies, you’ll be able to amplify your weapons. With a new research bench, you can level guns up to what is essentially a fifth quality level. However, instead of improving the weapon’s stats, the upgrade adds an extra feature. For example, amplifying the Renegade will add a scope to it, making it much more useful in long-range fights.
For those of you looking for something endgame, however, you might still be waiting after the Frozen Trail launches. Embark told us that it’s working on an Expeditions redesign for the end of the year, but only minimal adjustments have been made for October’s big update.
Changes have been made to the skill tree, adding and removing a selection of skills, and there will be some where you have to choose between two boosts, which will differentiate player builds. The new quests coming with the update will also be more robust than previous ones, and hopefully the rewards are actually worth going after now.
On the cosmetic and social side of things, some fun items and features are being added. First, there will be a new Reward Pass, which is like a season pass as you’d see in Fortnite. It consists of 60 levels of in-game rewards, and two tracks, one being free and one being paid for. The Premium Pass costs 1,150 Raider Tokens and includes 50 additional rewards and enough Tokens to cover the cost of the pass.
You’ll then be able to show off any of those cosmetics by taking pictures in raids with the new camera item. Fitting with a selfie function, the camera can be used to capture the prettiest or dumbest things you can find on the Rust Belt. You could even take the new Banjo and Harmonica items with you to set up and band and take promo images.
Finally, a new outpost feature is being added. The location, which you cannot walk around for now, will be a place of your own to personalise. You can put you trinkets in it to show them off, and change aspects of it to make it a home of your own.
The Frozen Trail update will go live in Arc Raiders on Thursday, October 8.