Deadlock is an adrenaline soaked successor to the brawls of Dota 2 - get it away from me

Dota you want me, baby?

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve

Deadlock gives me the shakes. Valve’s not-so-secret third-person MOBA shooter is a fiercely competitive game of push and pull through monster-peppered city streets. You’ll get into hectic scrapes with a giant blob man and come out of it sweating and swearing, and possibly alive. It is tactical, deep, instinctive, and an interesting work-in-progress. It elicits adrenaline almost as much as it forces murder economics down your piehole. This is the kind of game that puts you into a blistering, exciting (and confusing) battle for survival, then displays a graph when you lose. I need to get as far away from it as possible.

I’ve only played around 8 hours, an impoverished investment when you consider this is the de facto follow-up to Dota 2 , a heavy-hitting PC bruiser that can fluidly funnel away thousands of player hours like some terrifying Los Angeles storm drain for personal time. This isn’t a review though, it’s just some quick impressions based on what’s available in Valve’s ongoing “I know a guy who knows a guy” form of viral playtesting . I won’t get swept away.

If you’ve graced the ooze-stained halls of a multiplayer online battle arena in the past, you’ll recognise the setup. Each team push their way down four “lanes”, killing weak enemy minions and slurping up their souls as cash. Along the way, you encounter large golem-like guardians that act as strategic blockades (the towers of other MOBAs). Kill them to earn yet more souls and handy spell slots, then push on toward the enemy base. Once you’ve arrived, there are some more obstacles to shoot, and a big orbulent and vulnerable “patron” to destroy, which will win you the game. The enemy, meanwhile, is trying to do the same thing in the opposite direction.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve

There’s lots more to it, obviously. This incarnation has fun ziplines to get you back into the action quickly after a death. You can doublejump and dash and slide around. At any moment, you might feel the need to stop pushing a lane and go farm cycloptic gremlins for souls, or pick up a special urn and carry it across the map, or team up and take on a neutral boss in the middle of the arena.

These shifting goals make matches feel more like a battlefield of waxing and waning tactical manoeuvres, at the expense of the tidiness and relative simplicity that comes in other competitive multiplayer games like Overwatch . Its strength lies in complexity, and in the pressure and adrenaline of exciting team fights. To someone who prefers focus and fears percentages, this can make it challenging to get into. Deadlock is a game for violent and quick-witted hummingbirds, and I’m a dumb pigeon.

The complexity is mostly the result of a shop where you upgrade your character as the battle rages. This offers an overwhelming selection of buffing bits and bolstering bobs. There are items that turn bullets into lifestealing biters, others that reduce all negative status effects, others that decrease cooldown times, or boost your stamina so you can double jump more often. Some higher cost items allow you to become briefly invincible, or slow every enemy around you, or summon a magic carpet for a quick escape.

<img loading=“lazy” src=“https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/deadlock-preview-impressions-2.jpg?width=2048&height=2048&fit=bounds&quality=85&format=jpg&auto=webp" onerror=“this.onerror=null;this.src=‘https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhe7F7TRXHtjiKvHb5vS7DmnxvpHiDyoYyYvm1nHB3Qp2_w3BnM6A2eq4v7FYxCC9bfZt3a9vIMtAYEKUiaDQbHMg-ViyGmRIj39MLp0bGFfgfYw1Dc9q_H-T0wiTm3l0Uq42dETrN9eC8aGJ9_IORZsxST1AcLR7np1koOfcc7tnHa4S8Mwz_xD9d0=s16000';" alt=“Shiv considers an item in the shop called “Glass Cannon” which will greatly increase his damage. - 4”>

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve

I’m wording these more succinctly than the game, which splashes a card full of numbers and information into your eyes like the worst optometrist. No item simply does one thing. “Slowing bullets” will slow any enemy you hit, for example, but also grant +16% weapon damage and 5 spirit power (whatever that is - I’m still not sure). A “combat barrier” will give you a shield against bullets but also increase your fire rate and weapon damage while that shield is up. I’m picking the easiest examples, because I have to make sure you keep reading. But there are many items much more intricate in their stat-altering. It’s more or less required that you study and learn the item shop while outside of a game (that’s why Valve put it right there on the main menu for you).

As someone who prefers their rock paper scissoring more streamlined, this library of buffs can feel like an overcomplication of what is, at its core, a straightforward objective: go kill the big monster at the end of the road. But this is a MOBA, after all. The point is to allow for many potential combinations of hero “build”. That menu screen I find so uninviting will be catnip to minmaxers, DPS chasers, and myriad Dota 2 veterans.

Even those versed in the genre might make it difficult to decipher the facts of the battlefield, though. Who is hitting who, and with what? Never mind the matrix of potential hero builds, there is more flashy VFX occurring during a battle than a lapsed Overwatcher can reasonably track. This is basically where endless nights of Deadlock sessions will come into play, practice gradually filling gaps in your understanding and reflexes. Like Dota 2 or many other competitive games, Deadlock is shaping up to be a game you must not just learn to play, but also learn to read.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve

It sounds like a chore, yet is also meant to be this way. Valve’s longtime game design ethos has been to lean into the messiness of criss-crossing percentages and the attention-fluttering multi-tasking of their most financially successful multiplayer game. But tinkering with an economy of health talismans and bullet trinkets has always been less interesting to me than the other major method of designing for fun ’n’ games - ie. to actually change the nature of play by giving somebody a big stretchy boot, or a wand that turns concrete walls into a cloud of butterflies, or whatever. Deadlock does follow both approaches. It’s a hero-filled MOBA after all - the abilities of each bulletbastard is what makes the game work. Those abilities need to be distinct and interesting, though. And I’ve struggled to find characters that really interest me.

For many matches I went with the bullet-hosing minigunner McGinnis, because she has some handy turrets that do a bit of shooting for you. I’d equip her with items that granted her an even bulkier magazine and she would eventually shoot toxic bullets at an increasingly powerful rate. As the match continues you unlock “flex” slots, which let you pile even more buffing items into your bulging minmax monstrosity. Here, I liked to slide a “Leech” ability, which made my bullets slurp the life out of any enemy struck by them.

Likewise, I enjoyed the roly-poly nuisance behaviour of Viscous - a green goo guy who can transblobbify into a rolling ball of gunge, reminiscent of violent hamster Wrecking Ball in Overwatch. The vampiric beeflord Abrams was also good fun, in the sense that just being near him is undesirable, because he might at any moment start sapping the life of all within a fifteen foot radius. The high level fun will come in how good teams bandy their abilities together. I felt smug about any blockading wall I summoned that stopped an enemy escaping from the bullet horror of another character, Wraith, who periodically unleashes a very Reaper-like dance of death.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve

And yet, due to the nature of the game’s item-grubbing and upgrade-chasing, the pure utility of hero abilities can feel obscured. Every death, every misjudged charge into a fateful fray will bring questions. Did death come swift because that samurai has a bunch of items stacking DPS? Or because he did some ability I missed? What is allowing this hero to silence your powers - is it one of their innate abilities, or an item? How has the enemy team farmed that many souls already?

There are answers to these questions in the damage reports that pop up when you bite the dust, in the post-match summary, and that dreaded graph of failure. But, again, it requires a considerable investment (and probably lots of YouTube tutorials) to fully grasp the ins and outs of exactly what you’re doing wrong. That may give the game a type of sports-like longevity, but it is the kind of dopamine-delivering hamster wheel of victory-chasing I am a little afraid to embrace right now.

I can’t deny the fierceness of Deadlock’s hectic play. Many final stands and perilous pushes into contested turf reliably squeezed all the alert juice from my adrenal-gland, leaving me with the recognisable post-game heartbeat of a close Overwatch map or a tough Tekken fight. This is the feeling all murderously competitive games seek to bring forth. It makes it easy to view the unfinished Deadlock as already being a success, a sure thing, destined to be played endlessly by millions (also: it’s a Valve game with lots of hype around it).

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Valve

But that prophecy is not set in stone. On top of the fact that “games as a service” can easily lose their appeal (and audience) in a relatively short time, there’s also nothing truly revolutionary about Deadlock in its core design. Strip it back to the fundamentals, and it remains Dota 2 in third person. All the interesting bits and bobs come in its subtleties - elegant to the MOBA elite, and harder to notice for anyone else. From a business perspective (ugh) Valve are essentially competing against their own most popular game.

So if, like me, you see a lot of friends dipping into Deadlock, and you’re getting that familiar curdling feeling of FOMO in your belly, you need only ask yourself:

1. Do I have a thousand hours to spare?
2. Have I bounced off Dota 2 or Smite or Overwatch in the past?

Deadlock is more approachable than Dota 2, that much is true. But what game isn’t? There’s not much in its essential design so far to suggest it really wants to meet the MOBA-skeptical halfway. If anything, it leans into that field of ever-increasing complexity, throwing new globs of goo at the wall to see what sticks. Me? It’s intoxicating goo. I’m desperately washing it off.

Deadlock

PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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