Gear and loot in ARC Raiders: what to bring on a raid
Contents
Loot is the main currency of progress in ARC Raiders, and gear determines whether a raider makes it to extraction. Below are only the officially confirmed details about weapons, crafting, and preparation, sourced from Steam and the arcraiders.com pages.
Weapons
The official Steam description splits the arsenal into two tiers by complexity:
- Base weapons — submachine guns, rifles, and shotguns.
- Advanced weapons — railguns and energy weapons, which, judging by the description’s wording, are harder to acquire and prepare than the base guns.
Specific weapon models and their stats (damage, fire rate) aren’t broken out on the general game description page — it reads more like a genre primer than a full catalog.
Crafting: kitbashing
Steam describes the crafting system with the term kitbashing — raiders build weapons, gadgets, and gear out of scavenged materials and parts from destroyed ARC machines found directly during raids. That ties crafting straight back into the raid loop itself: the more successful the trip to the surface, the more material there is for the next round of crafting.
- The Workshop in Speranza — the official location where a raider repairs, upgrades, and crafts gear before heading out. The Workshop itself can also be leveled up, per the official description.
- A crafting interface update. The Flashpoint update (March 31, 2026) streamlined crafting: missing materials can now be bought or broken down right inside the crafting window, without switching tabs — confirmed in that update’s official patch notes.
- New weapons from updates. That same Flashpoint update added the Canto, Dolabra, and Surge Coil weapons — the patch notes themselves don’t break down their specific stats, only confirm that they were added.
Skill tree
The official Steam description names three progression branches:
- Survival — tied, by name, to surviving during a raid.
- Mobility — movement.
- Conditioning — physical endurance or resilience.
Steam doesn’t break down the specific skills inside each branch or their numeric bonuses — this is a general structure, not a full skill catalog.
Customization
Beyond combat gear, the official description mentions appearance customization — faces, hairstyles — and cosmetic items for weapons and gadgets. That confirms some of the game’s gear is non-combat and purely decorative, obtained separately from combat upgrades, largely through traders, covered in more detail in our piece on economy and trading.
What is officially NOT said
- The exact number of weapon types at launch or as of August 2026 isn’t given as a specific figure anywhere official.
- Damage formulas or weapon balance details aren’t published officially — Embark Studios doesn’t disclose internal balance numbers in the public materials we checked.
- A full list of skills within each branch of the skill tree isn’t listed on publicly available pages.
- Whether gear has rarity tiers (quality ranks, for instance) isn’t explicitly described in the sources we checked.
How this connects to the raid
Gear only matters in the context of risk — bringing your best loadout means losing more if you fail. The extraction loop itself is covered in our piece on your first raid. How gear and skills grow over time is covered in our piece on progression and the workshop.
Frequently asked questions
How does crafting work in ARC Raiders?
Steam describes the system as kitbashing — raiders build weapons, gadgets, and gear out of scavenged materials and parts pulled from ARC machines found during raids.
What weapons are in the game?
Per the official Steam description: submachine guns, rifles, and shotguns, plus more advanced weapons such as railguns and energy weapons.
What branches does the skill tree have?
Three branches: Survival, Mobility, and Conditioning — that's how the official Steam description names them.
Where does crafting and gear repair happen?
At the Workshop in Speranza — that's where a raider preps gear before heading out, and the Workshop itself can also be upgraded.