Fresh wipes at the Arctic Research Base come with an annoying wrinkle. The doors into the laboratory sections are sealed behind temporary barricades, so the crates, the keycard rooms, and the snowmobile inside are all off limits until that wall comes down. There are only two ways through it, and one of them costs explosives.
Quick answer: Blow the barricade with 1 Timed Explosive Charge, 2 Rockets, 5 Satchel Charges, or 64 Explosive 5.56 Rifle Ammo — or wait roughly 25 hours from the start of the wipe and it decays on its own. Either way, it stays gone for the rest of that wipe.
When the barricades appear at the Arctic Research Base
The barricades are a wipe-day feature. They spawn when a server resets and sit in the doorways leading into the lab buildings of the monument, which is tucked along the edge of the map in the snow biome. They are not a puzzle element and no keycard or fuse interacts with them. They are simply destructible obstacles on a timer.
Because they only show up at wipe start, most players who arrive mid-wipe will never see one. If you land on a server a day or two in and the lab doors are already open, someone either paid the explosive cost or the timer ran out.
Explosive cost to break a barricade
If you do not want to wait, one barricade goes down to any of the following. These are per barricade, so budget accordingly if more than one doorway is blocking the route you want.
| Explosive | Amount needed |
|---|---|
| Timed Explosive Charge (C4) | 1 |
| Rocket | 2 |
| Satchel Charge | 5 |
| Explosive 5.56 Rifle Ammo | 64 |
Satchels are the cheapest realistic option on wipe day, since five of them are far easier to put together than a C4 or a pair of rockets in the first hours of a server. Explosive 5.56 works but 64 rounds is a heavy spend for a doorway.
Note: gunfire and explosions carry across the snow, and the monument’s scientists heal themselves over time. Clear them out first rather than fighting while your charges tick down.
Waiting out the 25-hour decay timer
The free option is patience. Each barricade decays and disappears about 25 hours after the wipe begins, without anyone touching it. On a weekly wipe that means the labs are open for the vast majority of the cycle, and spending explosives only makes sense if you want early access to what is behind them.
There is no way to speed the timer up, and nothing in the monument resets it. If you arrive shortly before the 25-hour mark, waiting is almost always the better trade than burning a C4.
How to confirm the barricade is cleared
Success is obvious in the world itself. The barricade model vanishes from the doorway and you can walk straight through into the lab interior. There is no prompt, no message, and no unlock notification tied to it.
The important part is that it does not come back. Once a barricade is destroyed or has decayed, that doorway stays open for the remainder of the wipe, so you only ever pay the cost once per server cycle.
Radiation here is low rather than absent, and the cold is a bigger threat than the rads. A hazmat suit covers both problems comfortably, but a full set of decent cold-resistant clothing is enough for a quick trip.
What the open lab doors give you access to
Behind the barricades sit the interior sections of the monument, including the two blue keycard rooms. A single Blue Keycard opens both. One holds a snowmobile, the only place in the game these spawn, and the other contains a Red Keycard worth grabbing on the way out.
The rest of the run is the usual draw of the monument. Crates, low-grade fuel, food, and a recycler on site, all guarded by self-healing scientists. Clearing a barricade on wipe day mostly buys you a day’s head start on everyone else farming it, which is worth weighing against the cost of five satchels.
