ARC Raiders First Raid: Prepare a Kit, Find an Exit and Return Alive

Complete the tutorial and check the actual buttons

Play the tutorial before following a route from a video. Identify the map, inventory, interact, reload, healing and ping inputs in your own control settings. Controller layouts and remapped keyboard inputs make a universal key list unreliable. Open your equipped weapon and read the ammunition type rather than assuming loose ammunition will fit. Then locate the distinction between health and shield on the HUD. You need a health-restoring item for injuries and a shield-restoring item for the protective equipment; one does not replace the other. Put the relevant consumables in accessible quick-use positions before deploying.

Choose a kit you can afford to lose

A free loadout can reduce the cost of learning where that option is allowed. Inspect what it actually supplies instead of assuming you will receive your favorite gun. A custom kit lets you select your own equipment from the stash, but also exposes that equipment to loss. For a first custom run, take a familiar, replaceable weapon, the correct ammunition, compatible shield and augment, and basic recovery items. Avoid bringing a second expensive weapon simply because a slot is empty. The spare weight and replacement cost need to serve an actual purpose.

Inspect safe pockets and carrying limits

Read the equipped augment rather than remembering a capacity from somebody else’s build. Backpack slots, carrying weight, shield compatibility and safe-pocket availability differ. The Embark-supported community wiki documents that the free-loadout augment has no safe pocket; do not assume every kit protects a valuable item on death. With a custom kit that provides one, check that the item can actually be placed there. Leave usable backpack space for what you came to collect. Starting almost full means that the first valuable discovery becomes a hurried sorting problem in an exposed room.

Set one small goal before entering

Choose either learning the nearest extraction, finding materials for one visible upgrade, or advancing one clear quest step. Do not combine an unfamiliar boss hunt, a distant objective and a large loot circuit on the first outing. Read the quest wording while still safe: visiting, interacting, collecting and extracting are different requirements. You can scout a location without committing to fighting everything nearby. A sensible learning raid may end after a few containers if you have already found a useful component and a working exit. Time spent surviving teaches more than repeated expensive deaths on the same approach.

Read the map immediately after spawning

Open the map from cover and identify your position, the active extraction choices and any displayed shutdown timers. You may join with less time than the theoretical maximum, so use the clock in your current match. Choose one primary exit and a second option that does not require crossing the same dangerous bottleneck. Trace a route through buildings, walls or terrain that can break lines of sight. A straight map line is not necessarily a usable path: water, cliffs, hostile machines and locked passages can make a short-looking trip slow.

Move through short, deliberate loot stops

Listen before approaching a building and pause somewhere that does not silhouette you against an opening. Search a small cluster, check the entrances again, and move on. Do not keep your inventory open in a doorway while comparing minor items. If a machine or another Raider notices you, decide whether you can disengage behind solid cover before firing. A noisy victory may attract another threat and spend the ammunition intended for the journey home. Keep enough stamina for the next piece of cover rather than sprinting until you cannot react.

Heal behind cover and leave before the emergency

After damage, break the enemy’s line of sight before using consumables. A wall that protects you from one direction may still expose a window or stairway, so inspect the immediate surroundings. Check health as well as shield before restarting the route. Begin extraction with enough time to approach, operate the terminal, wait for the relevant mechanism and handle a detour. Calling an elevator is not the same as already extracting. Watch the doors and follow its departure interaction; do not stand in front of the call panel assuming the whole process is automatic.

Unload and prepare the next inexpensive run

Back in Speranza, remove the loot you intend to keep, check quest progress and inspect damaged equipment. Read the item card and upgrade requirements before selling or recycling unfamiliar components. Keep the materials tied to the immediate upgrade, then clear low-priority clutter so the next return has space. If the raid failed, do not automatically double the equipment cost. Repeat the same small goal with a cheaper kit and change the specific mistake: an exposed heal, a late departure, incorrect ammunition or a route without a second exit. One corrected decision is a useful result.

Your working checklist

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• A completed tutorial and checked input settings.
• A replaceable weapon with matching ammunition, plus compatible equipment.
• Recovery consumables and backpack room for the intended loot.

Put it into practice

1. Inspect the queue, map condition, loadout and available safe pockets.
2. Spawn, find cover, read the live timer and choose two exits.
3. Complete one small goal while preserving healing supplies.
4. Extract, unload, inspect equipment and read the next upgrade requirement.

Common questions