Lance’s “A Reveal in Ruins” quest in Arc Raiders sounds simple: head to Buried City, walk into a pharmacy, grab an ESR Analyzer, and bring it home. In practice, the run confuses a lot of players because pharmacies are unmarked, doors are barricaded, and the Analyzer isn’t automatically added to your inventory after you interact with it.
This breakdown focuses on three things: where the pharmacies are in Buried City, exactly where the ESR Analyzer spawns inside them, and what you need to do so the quest actually completes when you extract.
Pharmacy locations in Buried City
Buried City has two dedicated pharmacy buildings that can be used for A Reveal in Ruins. Both are valid for the ESR Analyzer objective, and both are easy to recognize from the street.
| Pharmacy | Zone / Landmark | Rough map position | Visual cues on the building | Extraction nearby |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arbusto Pharmacy | Piazza Arbusto (east Buried City) | Southeastern edge, near collapsed highway | Large green sign with “Farmacia”, green medical cross, directly facing a metro entrance | Eastern Station entrance right in front of the store |
| Rosa-area Pharmacy | Piazza Rosa (southern Buried City) | South, also close to a metro station | Same green “Farmacia” signage and medical cross on facade or side | Metro entrance next to or very close to the building |
Both pharmacies share the same visual language: bright green pharmacy signage with “Farmacia” and at least one green cross. If you’re disoriented in the streets, looking up for that neon-green branding is more reliable than trying to read street names in the chaos.
Arbusto Pharmacy on Piazza Arbusto is the most straightforward option for A Reveal in Ruins. It sits on the eastern side of the map near a collapsed highway and has the Eastern Station entrance almost directly outside the front door. That pairing makes the route very short: breach, loot, take a few steps to the metro entrance, extract.
How A Reveal in Ruins works
A Reveal in Ruins sits in Lance’s medical quest line, following Medical Merchandise. The structure is simple but strict:
- You must get the ESR Analyzer in Buried City and complete all objectives in a single raid.
- You must extract with the Analyzer in your inventory or in a Safe Pocket.
- The pharmacy objective does not complete the quest by itself; you still have to deliver it to Lance back in Speranza.
The game tracks the objective in two stages:
- Search for the ESR Analyzer inside any pharmacy in Buried City.
- Deliver the ESR Analyzer to Lance.
Finishing stage one unlocks stage two, but the Analyzer is treated as a physical trinket item. If you interact with the highlighted spot in the pharmacy and then immediately extract without picking up the spawned item, the quest will appear to move on, but will fail to complete when you get home. That’s the most common mistake.
Getting into a Buried City pharmacy
Both pharmacies are locked behind barricaded doors. You do not need a key, but you do need to breach the front entrance.
- Approach the pharmacy front door and use the standard interact button to start a breach.
- The breach animation takes a few seconds and is loud enough to draw nearby ARC units and other raiders.
- Once the door is open, step inside and close it again if you want a buffer against stray gunfire.
Because breaching can advertise your position to the whole block, it’s safer to clear or at least scan the surrounding street before you commit. At Arbusto Pharmacy, there’s often significant enemy and player traffic around the Eastern Station entrance, so timing your breach between train arrivals helps.
Where the ESR Analyzer is inside the pharmacy
Despite the different locations, the interior layout for the quest target is simple. The ESR Analyzer is always tied to the checkout area.
- Once inside, walk toward the checkout counter.
- Look for the yellow interaction prompt on a small machine placed between two cash registers, or on a highlighted box on the counter depending on the interior layout.
- Interact with the prompt to “search” for the ESR Analyzer.
That interaction does not put the Analyzer into your bags. It spawns the item, usually dropping it onto the counter where you interacted. Immediately after the search animation finishes, you need to look down at the object and pick it up like any other piece of loot.
The Analyzer is categorized as a trinket, similar to other quest items. It will sit in your inventory until you extract and talk to Lance.
How to avoid the most common quest failure
Many players run into the same problem: the in-raid objective shows as completed, they extract successfully, and yet the quest resets or remains stuck on “deliver to Lance”. The underlying reason is always the same: the item was never actually picked up.
Here’s the sequence that works reliably:
- Breach the pharmacy door and clear the room.
- Interact with the yellow-highlighted spot at the checkout to perform the search.
- Wait for the ESR Analyzer to appear, then manually pick it up.
- Verify that “ESR Analyzer” is visible in your inventory or trinket section.
- Optional but recommended: move it into a Safe Pocket slot.
- Leave the pharmacy and head to an extraction point.
- Extract successfully.
- Back in Speranza, speak to Lance under the Traders tab and complete the dialogue to turn the quest in.
Skipping step three or four is what causes the quest to fail quietly. The yellow box or prompt only marks the search interaction; it doesn’t grant ownership of the Analyzer.
Safe Pocket vs extracting normally
A Reveal in Ruins has another twist: the Analyzer behaves like any other loot when you die. If it’s in your regular inventory when you go down and fail to extract, it’s lost, and the quest state will roll back to “find an ESR Analyzer”.
There are two ways around that:
- Place the analyzer in your Augment’s Safe Pocket, if your current Augment has one. Items in Safe Pockets are preserved even if you die in the raid.
- Take a low‑gear run, focus only on the pharmacy, and route directly from the door to the nearest station extraction, minimizing exposure.
Using Arbusto Pharmacy makes the Safe Pocket option less critical. Since the Eastern Station entrance is directly in front of the building, the sprint from the pharmacy door to the extract tunnel is very short. Even so, putting the Analyzer in a Safe Pocket gives you a fallback if you get ambushed on the platform.
Recommended route for Arbusto Pharmacy
For most players, Arbusto Pharmacy offers the lowest-risk way to clear the quest.
- When you spawn in Buried City, check your map. If you’re reasonably close to the eastern side of the city, commit to the quest. If you’re all the way across the map, it’s often faster to skip the quest and try again from a better spawn in a later run.
- Travel toward Piazza Arbusto, aiming for the collapsed highway on the eastern edge. The pharmacy sits just under that area.
- Approach the green “Farmacia” building with the Eastern Station entrance outside.
- Breach the door, grab the Analyzer at the counter, and loot any extra meds if you have space.
- Step back outside, cross to the Eastern Station entrance, and use it to extract.
This route avoids medium and high‑risk zones entirely if you come in from the north or west, and your time spent in the open after grabbing the quest item is minimal.
What happens after you hand in the Analyzer
Once you have extracted and returned to Speranza with the ESR Analyzer in your possession, the only step left is to talk to Lance.
- Open the Traders tab in Speranza.
- Select Lance and start the interaction.
- Turn in A Reveal in Ruins when prompted.
The quest rewards are consistent:
- Experience for your Raider.
- The Epic Tactical Mk. 3 (Healing) Augment, which allows Light and Medium shields and creates a healing cloud when you’re revived.
- One Surge Shield Recharger.
In some cases, the ESR Analyzer may appear to remain in your inventory after completing the quest. When that happens, it behaves like a leftover trinket with no further use in Lance’s quest line. Holding onto it for a few quests is harmless; if no follow‑up objective ever calls for it again, it can be safely discarded.
Once you understand that pharmacies are unmarked “Farmacia” storefronts, that the Analyzer is a spawned trinket rather than an auto‑grant, and that everything must be done in one raid, A Reveal in Ruins turns from a confusing roadblock into a short, clean score: breach, grab the Analyzer, ride the metro home, and let Lance worry about what ESR actually stands for.
