After watching all of those teasers and trailers, I avoided any of the early impressions of Arc Raiders‘ latest update from gaming channels on YouTube and dived right into the new map, Pendola Pass. Embark’s massive 2.0 update introduces a snowy Italian mountain settlement beyond the Rust Belt where one of the enormous Emperor ARC machines has somehow fallen.
After a few raids, I thought I had seen everything, from the new Arc enemies to the new map. But just before I was getting ready to drop into Pendola Pass for the fifth time, that’s when I noticed the Frigate mentioned on Blue Gate. So obviously, I went to check it out. As I first laid eyes on this flying fortress, I knew we’re so back.
A few hours with Frozen Trail, and I’m just as hooked as when the game first dropped. Embark calls it the game’s biggest update since launch, and there is genuinely a lot here: Pendola Pass, the Frigate, Bully, Skulker and Hydra enemies, two new weapons, grappling hooks, tethers, an expanded skill tree, Outposts, Amplified Weapons, and a completely revamped progression system.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of all of that, as I’ve been too busy trying to survive the insane stuff happening.
Pendola Pass is familiar until you see the Emperor
Visually, Pendola Pass didn’t have me that excited. There are stretches where the architecture and layout remind me of locations we’ve already visited elsewhere in Arc Raiders. That makes sense in-universe. This is still part of the same broader region, with abandoned villages, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and remnants of the Exodus Project scattered around the mountains.
Embark’s new map is an old Italian village and transport hub containing a supermarket, town square, observatory, and buried train depot as the main attractions. Coming after Riven Tides, I expected something a little more. I quickly dropped that thought once I saw the giant Emperor.
The machine absolutely dwarfs everything around it, collapsed across the mountain like some dead mechanical god. My screenshots barely communicate the scale properly. One moment I’m moving through an ordinary snowy settlement, and the next I’m standing beneath machinery large enough to make the buildings beside it look like props.
Getting inside it requires progression I haven’t completed yet, so I’m still working toward the full experience. But Embark has apparently put in rare technology that is hidden within the fallen machine, which gives me one more reason to keep going back.
The Frigate knows how to make an entrance
You hear the Frigate before you really process what is happening. There’s this enormous mechanical roar overhead. Then the clouds start clearing around its engines as this giant ARC vessel pushes into view above the landscape. It is one of Arc’s largest vessels, sent in response to the fallen Emperor. This just shows how outgunned the humans are, hopefully.
It wouldn’t be any fun if it just sat there hovering in the sky, so Embark is letting you board it. Players can navigate its internal passageways, unlock paths, fight ARC, and inevitably deal with other Raiders who had the exact same idea. Getting aboard is technically straightforward. You use the circular Reclaimers moving between the ground and ship, with protective shielding around you as you travel upward.
But that’s easier said than done. The Frigate rains literal aerial bombardment down around the approach. Missiles slam into the terrain while you scramble toward the platform.
We formed a tiny army up there
During my first proper attempt, I made it all the way onto the Frigate. In a brief glimpse of the OG Arc Raider lobbies, almost the entire lobby stopped trying to murder each other long enough to form this loose collection of squads working together. For a few minutes, it felt like everyone had a collective goal.
Embark actually designed the encounter around this. The Frigate was made to force Raiders to collaborate or cut through one another while fighting hundreds of feet above the ground. While we did choose collaboration, it didn’t go well for us. We were trying to work through the puzzle inside while ARC kept pouring pressure onto the group, and it quickly became obvious that quite a few of us had arrived dramatically underprepared. People dropped like flies, and I was among the few who made it out alive.
Of course, raiders have already found the evil option
There is one tiny problem with those Reclaimers, and that they make you very easy to camp. Once a team has made it onto the Frigate, they have one hell of a high-ground advantage over anyone trying to follow. If the first squad up decides they want to make everybody else’s life miserable, the landing area turns into an extremely predictable kill zone.
So yes, Obi-Wan was right about the high ground. I can already see this becoming one of those ARC Raiders social experiments where some lobbies cooperate and others become complete nightmares. Personally, I hope Embark doesn’t force PvE modes on everyone, because the uncertainty is what defines the experience. The possibility that another squad might help me, betray me, or simply sit at the top waiting to farm anyone brave enough to ride up there is what makes these encounters memorable.
The Bully lives up to its name
Frozen Trail’s new ARC enemies have been another highlight. The Bully, as its name suggests, is an aggressive machine that relentlessly pushes your position. It’s a bit of a bullet sponge and has surprisingly good eyesight. It seems pretty proactive in investigating nearby gunfires compared to some existing Arcs.
And when it finds you, it hits like a damn truck with its shotgun-like cannon. Breaking line of sight doesn’t necessarily solve the problem either. I’ve watched the thing start launching grenades when it couldn’t get a clean angle on me, which made hiding behind cover considerably less reassuring.
The smaller Skulker is irritating in a completely different way. It hangs around the edges of encounters and chips away at you whenever you look away. Deal with it as soon as you get the chance.
Even extracting is brand-new
Frozen Trail also gave me one of the funniest new ways I’ve ever left an extraction-shooter map. Pendola Pass uses Ballistic Gondolas, which have you climb into this industrial capsule and get shot out of the map. One of my runs made the whole thing even better because I barely reached the gondola after getting hammered by ARC, including a Bully and Firefly. I climbed in with practically nothing left and hit the extraction.
There is still plenty left for me to do, and the new weapons are still evading me. The update is enormous enough that Embark added 22 new quests alongside all of that. So yeah, I’ll be putting in a few hours this weekend.
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