In a massive article on social media, the team at Embark Studios has revealed a deliberate slowing down of content updates for ARC Raiders, the revolutionary extraction adventure title released in October 2025. The team stressed that monthly content updates, which have been delivered since the game came out, are unsustainable, and the pressure is too much.
Instead, they’ll be delivering two major updates a year, starting with the next big drop, which will land in October, dubbed Frozen Trail. That confirmation also renders part of a recent set of leaks accurate.
It was stressed that a live-service model will still be front and centre, but this is all part of a conscious effort to deliver on ‘the bigger ambitions (Embark) has for this game.’
ARC Raiders Updates Are Taking a Back Burner
In a post on social media, Embark Studios explained:
Going forward, we’ve made the decision to release major updates twice a year – larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game. Don’t worry, a dedicated live service team will continue running ARC Raiders day-to-day: regular live updates, plus balance fixes, bug fixes, store updates, and player events aren’t going anywhere.
The first major update, Frozen Trail, will be the biggest to hit ARC Raiders since the game came out. This follows the underwhelming introduction of Riven Tides, which many thought didn’t deliver on bold promises made.
Frozen Trail will feature an entirely new landscape comprised of the largest ARC Raiders map yet. It’ll also have a new ARC operation that features unique and challenging ARC enemies. The skill system will be redesigned and replaced with something new, and, finally, the ARC’s origins will be detailed.
This is all in addition to new weapons, items, instruments, and more.
The team explained:
It’s important to understand, we’re not just stacking new content on top of the existing experience. We’re refining core systems to support a more meaningful long-term experience – one you genuinely want to keep returning to. Frozen Trail is just the beginning of where we want to take ARC Raiders, and we’ll share more in the coming months.
More content is coming, though. From next week, a new late-game trader will be added to ARC Raiders, entering Speranza from above ground. He’ll be part of a nomadic tribe that roams the surface, and he’ll offer unique rewrads, rare items, and cosmetics, in exchange for higher value items.
Using this trader will also unlock extra stash space and an Expedition Vault that will permit you to carry up to five items over from your Expedition.
Long-term, Embark Studios wants to address progression to firm up the endgame and evolve the Expedition Project, something that has come under intense scrutiny in recent months.
It’s important to us that players understand something about where our collective ‘Embark brain’ is at: our ambitions go far beyond what players have seen so far. We want to go further in showing you the wider universe of ARC Raiders.
We think about ARC Raiders as an experience that should continue expanding over time, and right now we’re still early in that journey. The bi-annual cadence gives us the opportunity to develop to build future updates with more intention, ensuring that gameplay, progression, narrative, and the world itself all move forward together.
In the closing notes of the article, the team stressed this is just the beginning of ARC Raiders, and not a winding-down effort.
Are you surprised by this massive pivot from Embark Studios? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Crimson Desert DLC is being considered
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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