ARC Raiders has only just been hit by the wintry Cold Snap update, but attention is already turning to what comes next. A new leak points to another global map condition, this time trading snowstorms for poison and sludge under the name “Toxic Swamp.” The same leak also outlines a slate of upcoming Trials and a new cosmetics track for the next Trial Season.
Where Toxic Swamp fits after Cold Snap and Snowfall
Cold Snap introduced Snowfall, a rotating map condition that blankets the Rust Belt in snow and adds the Frostbite survival mechanic. During Snowfall, visibility drops, lakes freeze, and staying outside drains health over time unless you heal or take shelter. It sits alongside existing conditions like Electromagnetic Storm, Hidden Bunker, and Night Raid, which already reshape routes and risk in each run.
Toxic Swamp is described as the next step in that system. Instead of cold damage and frozen terrain, it is framed as a hazardous, pollution-driven variant that would likely layer environmental damage and reduced-safe-space traversal over familiar maps. As with Snowfall, players should expect it to appear as a map modifier rather than a permanent global switch, letting you choose between standard conditions and the new one when matchmaking.
What the Toxic Swamp leak claims
The leak ties Toxic Swamp directly to the next Trial Season. Trial Seasons rotate objective sets and rewards across the game, and the claim is that this season will ship with:
- a new global map condition named Toxic Swamp
- three themed Trial objectives
- an updated reward track, including an “Alpino” outfit
The three Trials named in the leak are:
- Deliver thermal rocks – a delivery-style objective involving a new carryable resource.
- Search frozen Raider containers – a search-and-loot objective tied to special container spawns.
- Throw snowballs at Rocketeers/Bastions – a playful combat challenge that lines up with the winter theme already visible in Cold Snap.
Two of those objectives, searching frozen containers and throwing snowballs at Rocketeers, are already appearing in the game’s rotating Trials list when the client date is pushed forward to late December. The delivery Trial is not yet surfaced, which reinforces that parts of this schedule are still waiting behind internal timers.
The leak also mentions a seasonal cosmetic set, highlighting an “Alpino” outfit as a Trials Season 2 reward. Trials already act as one of ARC Raiders’ cosmetic faucets, so a winter-climbing themed set would fit comfortably next to the Goalie Raider Deck from Cold Snap and the Candleberry-flavored Flickering Flames event.
How players are testing the schedule trick
One detail in the leak has been easy to verify in-game: a suggested way to peek at upcoming Trials. By manually setting a Windows PC’s system date to December 22 or later while ARC Raiders is running, players can force the client to pull in a later weekly Trials rotation.
Doing this currently exposes a list of winter objectives, including:
- Throw snowballs at Rocketeers
- Deal damage to Shredders
- Damage flying ARC enemies
- Open ARC Probes
- Destroy Fireballs
- Search First Wave husks
- Damage Leapers
- Harvest plants
- Search frozen Raider containers
- Destroy Ticks
This method does not expose any Toxic Swamp label yet, and the “Deliver thermal rocks” Trial is still missing from the live rotations. That gap is one of the reasons the leak is still treated as unconfirmed, even if parts of the objective list are already surfacing.
Note: manually advancing your system clock can have unintended side effects on other applications. Treat this as an experimental trick rather than a recommended way to play.
How Toxic Swamp would change a raid
ARC Raiders leans heavily on environmental modifiers to change how each sortie feels. Electromagnetic Storm makes every open field a gamble with lightning strikes. Hidden Bunker drags players toward a contested underground vault. Night Raid pushes visibility down and turns Blue Gate into an ambush-heavy playground.
Within that framework, Toxic Swamp would likely:
- constrict safe movement corridors by flooding low ground and chokepoints with damaging sludge or gas
- punish static play in open terrain, encouraging frequent repositioning and tighter indoor routes
- layer additional management on top of existing extraction stress, similar to how Frostbite forces constant shelter checks in Snowfall
Map conditions in ARC Raiders are not simple skybox swaps; they alter traversal, line of sight, loot placement, and sometimes even ARC behavior. The expectation is that Toxic Swamp will follow that pattern, turning familiar spaces into risk-reward puzzles instead of just repainting the world green.
How it lines up with the ARC Raiders roadmap
Embark’s roadmap for ARC Raiders highlights new map conditions as a recurring pillar alongside new maps, ARC enemies, quests, events, and cosmetics. Cold Snap already delivered one such condition in Snowfall. Before that, a November update added Electromagnetic Storm, Hidden Bunker, and Night Raid as part of a broader “new map conditions” push.
The published cadence so far looks like this timeline:
| Date | Update | Key additions |
|---|---|---|
| November 2025 | Northline | Stella Montis map, Matriarch and Shredder ARCs, roadmap events |
| November 7, 2025 | New Map Conditions | Electromagnetic Storm, Hidden Bunker, Night Raid |
| December 16, 2025 | Cold Snap (1.7.0) | Snowfall map condition, Frostbite, Flickering Flames, Candleberry Banquet, Goalie Raider Deck, Expedition Project |
| December 18, 2025 | Hotfix 1.7.2 | Balance tweaks, blueprint drop rate changes, fixes |
On that schedule, bolting Toxic Swamp onto the next Trial Season is consistent with the way Embark has used events and conditions to keep maps in rotation but feeling different week by week.
What’s confirmed today vs. what is still rumor
Several pieces of ARC Raiders’ winter schedule are already live or locked in:
- Snowfall map condition and Frostbite are playable now across the map pool.
- The Flickering Flames event and Candleberry Banquet Project run from December 16, 2025, to January 13, 2026, offering Merits, Raider Tokens, cosmetics, and utility rewards.
- The free, permanent Goalie Raider Deck is scheduled to unlock on December 26, 2025, as a progression track for Cred earners.
- The Expedition Project opens registration on December 17, 2025, and departs on December 22, letting players reset their progress in exchange for permanent and temporary account-wide buffs.
- Multiple winter Trials, including snowball and frozen-container objectives, are already present in weekly rotations or visible via the date-change trick.
Toxic Swamp, the Deliver thermal rocks Trial, and the Alpino outfit are still on the unconfirmed side. The supporting evidence is a partial match between the leaked Trials list and the client’s hidden weekly objectives, plus the broader roadmap emphasis on rolling out more map conditions through 2026.
Until Embark publishes patch notes or a dedicated announcement on the official ARC Raiders site, Toxic Swamp remains a likely but unannounced addition. The structure around it, though—a new Trial Season starting soon after Cold Snap, with fresh objectives and cosmetics tied to a global map modifier—fits cleanly into how ARC Raiders has been evolving since launch.
For now, the practical takeaway is simple: Cold Snap and Snowfall are already pushing players to rethink outdoor fights and extraction timing. If Toxic Swamp lands next, expect the meta to tilt again, this time away from low-ground routes and into whatever shelter the Rust Belt’s poisoned valleys still offer.
