ARC Raiders Devs Tease Blueprint & Expedition Changes After Player Feedback

Exclusive: Embark Studios hints at long-requested ARC Raiders quality-of-life updates tied to blueprints and expeditions.

ARC Raiders' most dedicated players have long been requesting an expansion or retooling to endgame content, namely expeditions and the blueprints they must re-acquire for each wipe. Long after quests and other projects are completed, expeditions and blueprints remain long-term draws for many players, but having to re-acquire them, sometimes via exploring hurricane condiction maps on repeat, is not the type of gameplay players want to spend time on.

On ARC Raiders' 2026-27 plans, we can expect some adjustments to these mechanics.

ScreenRant's Rob Keyes interviewed key figures at developer Embark Studios, including ARC Raiders Executive Producer Aleksander Grøndal, and we asked specifically if there was any consideration being given to how blueprints are acquired or reacquired after voluntarily wiping progress by embarking on an expedition. "There are a few things in motion," confirms Grøndal, "but we're not revealing anything just yet." A bit of a non-answer, to be sure, but revealing nonetheless.

Blueprints are the most valuable items that teach you how to craft a specific piece of gear, unlocking a potentially limitless supply as long as you can provide the crafting components. As it currently stands, however, blueprints are not carried over when you opt into an expedition, you lose every blueprint you've acquired, alongside your inventories, skill points, and other progress.

Despite blueprint scarcity intentionally interacting with expeditions in this way, some sort of reprieve has been requested by players since the very first expedition window. Broadly speaking, it takes much longer to find every blueprint in ARC Raiders than it does to prepare for an expedition, and starting the search again from zero has often been submitted as a reason to forgo an expedition entirely. It's just not worth it.

Grøndal says, "Player feedback is very much part of our decisions" at Embark Studios, and it would seem the regular criticism of blueprint loss is finally going to be answered.

Expeditions themselves have already undergone iteration just last week, by switching their bonus skill point requirements from the player's stash value to how much damage they can deal to enemies in a set amount of time. The comparatively slow rework of blueprints may be a reluctance to compromise their original design – blueprint RNG can provide variety in one's play styles between expeditions. "Our focus is to make ARC Raiders the best game it can be," says Grøndal, "we want to make sure that we keep improving upon what's good and fixing what isn't."

The key is to improve upon blueprints without negating their purpose; they're good in that they work as intended and serve as chase items for longtime players, but need improvement because they currently stand as a possible barrier to engaging with other ARC Raiders systems. Variety – such as that provided by finding different blueprints after an expedition than you did before – is a central component to Embark Studios' design philosophy: "Something we're continuously discussing as a team [is] how to create interesting challenges that invite the players to think and strategize a bit differently than they are used to," Grøndal told us.

Fomenting this change of pace is best done through more overt content additions. Several new ARC Raiders maps are coming alongside the continued introduction of new weapons, gadgets, enemies, and more. If providing novel experiences within the game is the goal, then it's clear why changes to blueprints with regard to expeditions have taken a back seat. An adjustment to how endgame content persists would not be as impactful as, say, changing ARC Raiders' team sizes, which is another thing Embark has considered.

Grøndal says to "expect lots of cool and new stuff" from ARC Raiders throughout the rest of the year and beyond, including a key change to blueprints and expeditions. The further we get from launch, player retention conceivably only grows more important, and endgame feedback is among the most common. Embark Studios is addressing the biggest endgame critique in ARC Raiders, but how exactly expeditions and blueprints are changing remains a mystery.