Major Aiva’s Mementos Location in ARC Raiders · How to Finish The Major’s Footlocker Fast

The Major’s Footlocker is one of Tian Wen’s more personal quests in ARC Raiders. On paper, it’s simple: head to Dam Battlegrounds, retrieve Major Aiva’s mementos, and extract. In practice, vague quest text and multiple look‑alike apartment blocks make it easy to waste an entire raid in the wrong location.

Everything hinges on knowing which building in Ruby Residence to hit, which room to search, and how to keep the quest item safe on the way out.

Major Aiva’s Mementos location (The Major’s Footlocker)

Major Aiva’s Mementos are found in a single apartment inside the Ruby Residence complex on the Dam Battlegrounds map. The quest text points you to “apartments northwest of the dam,” which often sends players to the wrong place; the mementos never spawn in Pale Apartments.

Instead, you need the Ruby Residence point of interest in the northwest quadrant of Dam Battlegrounds, slightly north of the hydroponic dome area and above the swamp. Ruby Residence consists of three nearly identical apartment blocks; the correct one is the western or leftmost building when you look at the complex on your map.

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Major Aiva's Mementos Location

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How to reach the correct apartment in Ruby Residence

Once you deploy to Dam Battlegrounds, set a path toward the northwest. When you close in on the top left of the map, watch for two named apartment clusters: Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence. Walk past Pale Apartments; the objective is in Ruby Residence, which sits slightly further north.

At Ruby Residence, orient yourself using the in‑game map. All three blocks share the same visual style, so rely on the map rather than the facades. Move to the most westerly (leftmost) building in the group and head inside through any accessible entrance.

Inside, the layout is classic stairwell plus branching corridors. Climb stairs until you reach the top full floor of the building:

• Do not stop at the first flight; keep going until there are no more interior floors, only access to the roof above.
• The quest item is never on the roof; if you see open sky directly out the stairwell, you’ve gone one level too far.

Where the footlocker and mementos sit inside the apartment

On the top regular floor, leave the stairwell and move along the corridor into the apartments. Different descriptions of the interior converge on the same outcome: the room you want is at the far end of the usable space, with a window and a desk or table in the corner.

Typical path on this floor:

• Step out from the stairs onto the floor’s main landing.
• Follow the corridor into the primary apartment space (a living room or entry area).
• Move through into the next rooms (a bedroom or kitchen area) until you reach a dead‑end room with a window.

In that final room, look for a small container or footlocker on a desk or table near the window. It usually stands out visually, often with a subtle glow or distinct highlight when you get close enough for the interaction prompt. Interact with the container to trigger the search.

Opening the footlocker does not automatically complete the quest. The container spits out a separate item representing Major Aiva’s Mementos, which then has to be picked up as a physical object.

Picking up Major Aiva’s Mementos correctly

Major Aiva’s Mementos behave like a normal loot item: they drop into the world after you interact with the container and need to be picked up manually. Several small details matter here.

• If your backpack has an empty slot, picking up the mementos will place them there.
• If your inventory is full when you open the footlocker, the mementos fall to the ground and stay there until you make room and pick them up.
• Occasionally, interaction can feel finicky; adjusting your position around the desk/table usually makes the pickup prompt appear.

Safe pockets, augments, and not losing the quest item

The quest only completes once you finish a successful extraction with Major Aiva’s Mementos in your possession. Getting knocked out on the way to a lift or elevator will fail the run unless the item sits in a safe pocket.

There are two main ways to secure the mementos:

• Use a safe‑pocket augment. Many augments grant at least one safe pocket slot that keeps items even if you die before extraction. After looting the mementos, move them into that safe pocket immediately. You’ll still need to extract to turn in the quest, but losing the raid won’t delete the item.
• Run without an augment for the built‑in safe pocket. Going in with no augment equipped grants a single safe pocket even on a free loadout. This is useful if you want to bring a Raider Hatch Key and protect it while still having one protected slot for the mementos.

Extracting safely from Dam Battlegrounds with the mementos

Once Major Aiva’s Mementos are in your backpack or safe pocket, the focus shifts to getting out alive. You can use any extraction method on the map as long as you leave the raid while still carrying the item.

Typical options used for this quest include:

• North Complex Elevator (east of Ruby Residence). A relatively safe choice; fewer players route through here compared to the swamp.
• Central Swamp Lift (south of Ruby Residence). Closer in distance but more contested, since many players farm nearby mushrooms and objectives.
• Raider Hatch exits. If you bring a Raider Hatch Key, you can slip out using a nearby hatch, such as Ben Welder’s Sunroof, which sits down the road to the southwest of Ruby Residence.

Regardless of route, treat the run from Ruby Residence to the extraction point as the real difficulty spike of the quest. Expect:

• Hostile raiders camping popular lifts and elevators.
• ARC patrols crossing the roads and approaches, especially near the swamp and domes.
• Possible proximity chat encounters with solo players heading to the same objective.

Adrenaline Shots help here. Sprint until your stamina bar is drained, then pop a shot to sustain high movement speed and cut down the time spent exposed in the open. The shorter the window between looting the mementos and boarding the elevator, the lower the risk of losing the run.

Turning in The Major’s Footlocker and what you get for it

After extraction, return to Speranza and talk to Tian Wen. Handing over Major Aiva’s Mementos completes The Major’s Footlocker and unlocks additional payoff beyond the usual reputation bump.

The standout reward is the Hullcracker weapon blueprint. Hullcracker is a heavy weapon that fires explosive projectiles and is tuned for punching through ARC armor. It excels against bigger machines like Leapers, Rocketeers, and Queens, where high armor penetration matters more than pure rate of fire.

Crafting Hullcracker requires a level‑three Gunsmith station in your workshop and a specific parts list:

• 1× Magnetic Accelerator
• 1× Exodus Module
• 3× Heavy Gun Parts

The quest bundle is one of the cleaner power spikes in the early and mid‑game: a short raid for a blueprint that stays useful well into tougher activities.

Why the quest directions are confusing (and how to ignore them)

The sticking point for most players is the phrasing “apartments northwest of the dam.” That line describes a whole neighborhood rather than a discrete marker. Both Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence technically qualify, and both sit roughly northwest of the dam structure.

The fix is to disregard that vague text and anchor on two concrete details instead:

• The name “Ruby Residence” on the Dam Battlegrounds map.
• The westernmost building inside that named POI.

Once those two pieces click, The Major’s Footlocker shifts from frustratingly vague to a compact errand that fits cleanly inside a single raid. Grab the correct building, hit the top floor, loot the footlocker on the desk by the window, and leave with the mementos in a safe pocket. The rest of Tian Wen’s story opens up from there.