Map Conditions in ARC Raiders: Major vs Minor

24 August 2026 · 8 min read

GameMapa editorial · how we check facts
Checked: Claude (AI) — fact-checked against the Ukrainian original; not proofread by a native speaker

Map Conditions are temporary conditions that activate on specific ARC Raiders maps according to a schedule, and each one is tagged in Embark’s official data as either major or minor. A condition doesn’t live on a map permanently — it appears for a set window of time, and that window shifts depending on which region you’re playing in.

Below is what the official feed actually shows, kept separate from what it doesn’t. The second part matters more than the first, because most fan speculation gets built precisely around “so what does it actually do”.

Where this data comes from

Embark publishes the condition schedule through a dedicated public feed: arcraiders.com/external-api/map-conditions. This isn’t someone’s spreadsheet or a wiki page — it’s the primary source every tracker pulls from.

For each condition, the feed gives you four things you can actually rely on:

• the condition’s name;
• a type field with a value of either major or minor;
• a list of the maps it can appear on;
• time windows for each region.

What the feed doesn’t include is a description. There’s no text anywhere explaining what the condition actually changes — weather, machine behaviour, loot, lighting. Embark hasn’t published that on the web. So everything below is structure, not mechanics.

Major and minor: the honest answer on the difference

There’s exactly one provable difference: the value of the type field. The conditions are split into two groups, and the developers made that split themselves.

Major: Close Scrutiny, Electromagnetic Storm, Hidden Bunker, Hurricane, Locked Gate, Night Raid.

Minor: Beachcombing, Bird City, Harvester, Launch Tower Loot, Matriarch, Prospecting Probes, Uncovered Caches.

⚠️ What we’re not claiming: that major is necessarily “stronger”, “more dangerous”, or “more rewarding” than minor. The words major and minor look self-explanatory, but there’s no official explanation attached to them. Assuming a hierarchy is a reasonable guess — but a guess isn’t a fact, and we’re not presenting it as one.

What you can actually use this for: if you need to get your bearings quickly, look at the specific name and map, not the type. Type reads more like an internal Embark category than a hint aimed at players.

Which condition appears on which maps

Here’s the full picture from the feed — each condition, its type, and the maps it can show up on.

The maps the feed actually shows conditions for: Buried City, Dam Battlegrounds, Riven Tides, Spaceport, Stella Montis, and The Blue Gate. If you’re heading to a map that isn’t on this list, there’s no schedule to check for it. For what these locations are and how they differ, see our guide to ARC Raiders maps and locations.

Single-map conditions vs roaming ones

The table makes it clear these conditions don’t all behave the same way.

Locked to exactly one map:

• Beachcombing — Riven Tides only;
• Bird City — Buried City only;
• Close Scrutiny — Spaceport only;
• Hidden Bunker — Spaceport only;
• Launch Tower Loot — Spaceport only;
• Locked Gate — The Blue Gate only.

These conditions read as “local” — they only make sense in the context of one specific place. Launch Tower Loot points at a launch tower right in its name, and Spaceport is the only map with one. Locked Gate is, by name, about a locked gate, and it lives exclusively on The Blue Gate. We won’t try to decode the rest of the names further — you’ll see what actually changes once you’re in the raid, and that’s a more honest answer than a made-up description.

Show up across several maps: Electromagnetic Storm, Harvester, and Matriarch all appear on Dam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, and The Blue Gate. Hurricane shows up on Buried City and Dam Battlegrounds. Prospecting Probes appears on Buried City and Riven Tides. Uncovered Caches appears on Buried City, Spaceport, and The Blue Gate.

Night Raid has the widest reach of all: Dam Battlegrounds, Riven Tides, Spaceport, Stella Montis, and The Blue Gate. It’s the only condition that reaches Stella Montis at all.

A quick note on Harvester and Matriarch: these names will be familiar to players from another context, and the temptation to “guess” here is at its strongest. We’re not going to do that — the feed doesn’t explain how a condition with that name connects to whatever you encounter in a raid. There’s a separate guide covering the machines themselves: ARC machine types.

Why the schedule is now different across regions

This is the most important change, and it’s officially documented. Since update 1.42.0, the developers moved the Map Conditions schedule to a per-region basis instead of one global schedule. The point is straightforward: conditions should line up with peak player hours in each region, rather than someone else’s middle of the night.

The feed gives each condition its own time block per region:

1. europe
2. north-america
3. brazil
4. east-asia
5. oceania

What this means in practice: someone else’s schedule doesn’t apply to you. If a guide, stream, or chat screenshot shows a condition’s time without naming the region, that time is worthless to you — it might belong to a completely different block.

This also explains the common “I showed up at the listed time and the condition wasn’t there” situation. It’s not a bug and it’s not bad luck — the time simply belonged to a different region. For the details of the patch itself, see our breakdown of update 1.42.0.

The practical takeaway: don’t memorise the hours

The schedule is live. Embark controls it, it changes alongside updates, and the underlying logic has already changed once — from global to regional. Any hour you memorise today could be wrong tomorrow, and you won’t find out until you walk into an empty raid.

Here’s the practical sequence before you head out:

1. Open the official data page right before your raid — not from a week-old memory.
2. Find your region — europe, north-america, brazil, east-asia, or oceania. Do this first, since none of the other numbers mean anything without it.
3. Check whether a condition is listed for your map. If your map isn’t in the list above, that’s your answer.
4. Don’t fill in gaps about what the effect is. You’ll find out what a condition does once you’re in the raid; no source outside the game officially describes it.
5. Plan your run around the condition, not the other way round — especially if you’re heading in as a squad and everyone needs to arrive together.

If you’re new and still not confident about extracting from raids in general, conditions aren’t the place to start. Get the basics down first: your first raid and extraction.

What we’re not claiming

To keep things clear, here’s every “we don’t know” gathered in one place:

• What each condition actually does. Weather, loot, enemies, lighting — Embark hasn’t published a description on the web. Anything you come across that reads as a detailed effect description is someone’s observation, not official information.
• Whether major means “stronger”. The split exists; the interpretation doesn’t.
• How long a condition lasts or how often it repeats. We’re deliberately not naming specific hours, precisely because they’re regional and change.
• Whether this list of conditions and maps is final. The feed is live, and its contents can change with updates. The easiest way to keep track of changes is through recent ARC Raiders updates.

In short

Map Conditions are temporary conditions on maps, split by the developers into major and minor; some live on a single map only, others roam across several, and Night Raid has the widest coverage of all. The key point: since update 1.42.0 the schedule is regional, so check it on the official page for your own region right before you raid, rather than trying to memorise the hours.