Embark Studios is about to give ARC Raiders its largest content drop since launch, and Frozen Trail is not simply a new map bolted onto the existing game. It pushes Raiders past the peaks that ring the Rust Belt, drops a fallen Emperor in the snow, and reworks how weapons, bases, skills, and rewards all function.
Quick answer: Frozen Trail arrives on October 8, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PlayStation 5, bringing Pendola Pass, the Frigate, three ARC enemies, Outposts, amplified weapons, and the Reward Pass.
Frozen Trail release date and what to handle before October 8
The update lands on October 8, 2026 across Steam, the Epic Games Store, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Embark has not locked in an exact go-live time and plans to share one nearer the date. Given the size of the patch, some downtime or login queues on launch day would not be a surprise.
Frozen Trail marks the studio’s first major release after replacing monthly content drops with two substantial updates each year. Players can send questions about the reveal during the update’s developer Q&A livestream on Friday, September 25 at 6PM CEST.
Cred is being retired when Frozen Trail arrives, and whatever balance is sitting in your account at that point disappears. Spend it on Shani and on any unclaimed Raider Deck rewards first. Anything you have already claimed stays with you.
Pendola Pass: the new map beyond the Rust Belt
Celeste and Shani have traced the strange signal ringing across Toledo to Pendola Pass, an old Italian village that doubled as an Exodus transport hub. It sits north of the Rust Belt, behind the mountains, and no Raider has charted it before. Your job there is blunt: get to what fell out of the sky and find a way inside.
It is the largest map in the game so far and the most vertical, with threats above and below ground. The route runs through abandoned homes, factories, research facilities, a supermarket, a dead town square, an observatory, and a buried train depot that once moved people out during the Exodus Project. Towering over all of it is a downed Emperor, one of the giant ARC walkers, with rare technology sealed inside.
The weather is a threat in its own right. Flash freezes tear through the valley as a new map condition, and when one hits you need to be indoors or inside one of the scattered shelters. Knowing where the nearest roof is matters as much as knowing where the loot is, because a long walk across open ground stops being a safe plan the moment the temperature drops.
The Frigate is a boarding operation, not a boss fight
A fallen Emperor is unprecedented, so ARC sends one of its largest vessels to secure the site. Raiders call it the Frigate, and you cannot shoot it out of the sky. The activity is about getting aboard, working through internal passageways, unlocking routes, solving the puzzle of the ship, and sabotaging it while its defenses try to kill you.
Fighting at close range hundreds of feet above the ground creates a challenge unlike dismantling machines across open terrain, while rival squads pursue the same haul. Players must decide whether to work with those squads or fight through them. Designed for experienced Raiders, the Frigate may also appear on maps beyond Pendola Pass. No PvE-only version of this encounter was announced.
Bully, Skulker, and Hydra: the three new ARC machines
The three additions are built around opposite behaviors rather than being tougher versions of machines you already know, and the first two were trained with machine learning to make their movement less predictable.
| Enemy | Behavior | How to handle it |
|---|---|---|
| Bully | Four-legged brute that gallops at you and never backs off | Use cover, keep distance, time your shots |
| Skulker | Small stalker that snipes, hides, and flanks from blind spots | Keep eyes on it or it vanishes and returns |
| Hydra | Fixed turret with three stacked, independent gun tiers | Split its attention, break line of sight, hit the gaps |
The Bully can arrive with varied weapon setups: it may use rocket pods, machine guns, or short-range shotgun fire, and it can jump between elevations to breach what seemed like a safe distance. Aboard the Frigate, the Hydra’s three sections can each track a separate Raider simultaneously, making a clustered squad easy prey.
Outposts extend the Raider Den to the surface
Celeste hands over a home away from home for anyone heading north. The Outpost sits between the Rust Belt and the mountain range, and it is framed as the first real step toward taking back parts of the surface. You pick building modules, arrange rooms, and craft furniture out of salvage, right down to spending Metal Parts on a sofa.
The functional reason to care is the Research Station, which unlocks higher tiers of weapon customization and modding. For now the Outpost is navigated through menus rather than walked around, and Embark describes it as the opening version of a system it wants to grow into a genuinely personal space.
Amplified Weapons add a fifth quality tier to 15 guns
With the Research Station fully upgraded, eligible weapons can reach a fifth quality level through ascension, which fuses ARC internals directly into the frame. Reaching that tier is not a flat stat bump. It opens a branching tree of modules that can change what a gun fundamentally does, and unlocking individual modules means meeting research conditions such as dealing a set amount of damage with that weapon.
Examples shown include a fully automatic Burletta, a Renegade with an integrated scope, and a Rattler running incendiary rounds and a 64-round drum magazine. The system launches supporting 15 weapons, with more planned later, and the goal is to make late-game players reinvent guns they usually leave on the ground.
Ascension is permanent. Once you confirm it, the module’s ARC internals are built into the weapon and the change cannot be undone. Material costs for individual upgrade branches have not been detailed.
Two new guns: Stiletto and Bantam
| Weapon | Type | Ammo | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stiletto | Battle rifle | Light | Cheap early-game Renegade alternative at range |
| Bantam | Revolver | Heavy | Snub-nosed sidearm with dedicated hip-fire |
The Stiletto is cheap to craft and comfortable to use, built for Raiders with a steady trigger finger who want to fight from medium to long range. It can fire quickly, but mashing the trigger costs you accuracy, so measured shots win.
The Bantam goes the other way. It is a snub-nosed revolver on heavy ammo that punches straight through ARC and Raiders alike, and its fanning hip-fire animation gives it a close-range identity the Anvil does not have.
New gadgets change traversal and cover
- Grappling Hook — climb hard-to-reach spots, rappel off buildings, swing over gaps, enter upper windows, and latch onto ARC machines. It runs on stamina rather than limited charges.
- Tether Launcher — connects two anchor points with a taut wire, rooting targets in place or strapping a Raider to an ARC and letting it drag them off.
- Yank Grenade — after detonating, it forcefully yanks a nearby target toward its anchor. Use it to bring airborne ARC crashing down or drag a Raider out of cover.
- Camera — this full photography tool offers zoom, aperture control, manual and automatic focus racking, plus a selfie mode that supports emotes. Its photos are saved to your Codex.
The Camera finally replaces the habit of framing shots through Binoculars, and the tethers make position less safe than it used to be. Reaching cover stops being the end of an exchange when the other squad can pull you back out of it.
Instruments and Weapon Stencils
Two instruments join the guitar Topside this fall, the Harmonica and the Banjo. Blueprints can be found and crafted out in the world, though the Banjo blueprint comes through the Collector Set DLC.
Weapon Stencils re-skin your guns so everyone knows whose bullet hit them. The catch is that a personalized weapon is still a weapon you can lose, and the Raider who kills you is free to walk off with it.
Reward Pass replaces Raider Decks
Raider Decks evolve into the Reward Pass, which runs across three tracks plus a paid bundle. Existing progress is not thrown away.
| Track | Raider Tokens | Main contents |
|---|---|---|
| Free Pass | 200 | Five outfits, gameplay items, 20 cosmetics |
| Premium Pass | 1,150 | Outfit toggles, colorways, stencils, hairstyles |
| Legacy Pass | — | Free; combines all existing Raider Decks |
| Collector Set DLC | 2,400 | Both tracks, Renzo set, Dragon’s Breath stencil, Bob hair |
Free Pass cosmetics are earned with XP and include Scrappy outfits, furniture, charms, attachments, and emotes. The Legacy Pass is free for everyone, so unfinished Deck rewards carry over and stay claimable. Pricing for the premium track and the Collector Set has not been detailed, and it is not stated whether the listed token amounts overlap.
Skill Tree rework, questlines, and technical work
The Skill Tree is being revised with new and improved skills and less overlap between them, so build choices carry more weight instead of every veteran eventually owning nearly everything. Individual skill details have not been published yet, which leaves the fate of current builds as the biggest open question going into launch.
Frozen Trail also adds questlines featuring more involved objectives and bonus XP for optional goals. Matchmaking, anti-cheat, and stability work will continue as well.
Put together, Frozen Trail reads less like a seasonal top-up and more like a reset of how ARC Raiders plays. A grappling hook alone changes the shape of every rooftop fight, and amplification gives the loot loop a long-term target beyond replacing what you lost last raid. The full picture arrives on October 8.
