Deathsprint 66 is Mario Kart by way of The Running Man by way of Squid Game

Red shells with a lot more red

Image credit:Secret Mode

If you’re from the USA, Britain or France, and also possibly a Victorian time-traveller, you might be familiar with the dunce cap - a conical humiliation bestowed on struggling or misbehaving schoolchildren, who were then told to go sit in the corner and think about their sins. Well, get ready for the dunce cosmetic. In Sumo Newcastle’s Deathsprint 66 , an 8-player on-foot racing game based on Stephen King’s dystopian novel The Running Man, players build a Hype multiplier by combo-ing stunts such as railgrinds, and also, murdering each other.

Hype unlocks combat abilities in the race itself. Once the race is over, it’s converted into a Fame rating, which can be used to attract sponsors who will shower you in glossy new suits, character meshes and player banners, that you may cut a dash while you’re carving a swathe through the other runners. “It’s important that we have a huge degree of player customisation for when you’re making those kills,” notes game director Andrew Willans. “So you can peacock when you do put someone down - the classic Call Of Duty killcam stuff.”

As any 24/7 streamer knows, however, fame has to be maintained once earned, and nothing turns fans off faster than the sight of their champion getting repeatedly decapitated by a flying buzzsaw. As a “clone jockey” wired into the brain of a freshly vat-grown athlete, you can “die” an infinite number of times in Deathsprint, but every tumble will cost you Hype and Fame - and besides, you only have a limited supply of clones in your sponsor’s colours.

“If you burn through those clones in a race, we put you in the network suit of failure, which is kind of like a dunce’s costume - it’s a crash test dummy suit,” explains Willans. “So there is an element of ridicule there, and hopefully players will enjoy and celebrate that, much in the same way that when you die, it needs to be laugh-out-loud funny. You shouldn’t feel too frustrated by the deaths, because you’re going to see heads rolling and bodies spinning around, and hopefully people will embrace that and lean into it.”

It’s hard to say without actually playing the thing - during the presentation, I only got to see a few minutes of very pre-alpha capture, with the all-important gore yet to be added - but Deathsprint 66 does look quite funny, though I can imagine it falling foul of the “git gud” crowd. It’s also a denser blend of cultural inputs than I was expecting. The Running Man aside, the game’s inspirations include Alita: Battle Angel - “very much the PG-13 take on the concept” says Willans, which I’m not sure is an assessment I agree with, having read the manga - and Netflix show Squid Game, which is now also a videogame because irony is dead.

Image credit:Secret Mode

As a racer, meanwhile, Deathsprint is kind of a mixture of Mario Kart’s maddening yet somehow irresistible unfairness and the snazzier, UK-developed racing games of yesteryear - arcade roadsters like Blur and, sob, WipEout. “I’ve made a lot of racing games over the years,” Willans reflects. “I was on Driver: San Francisco , then we did a lot of driving missions for Watch Dogs , and then we worked on The Crew . So yeah, there’s quite a lot of experience from that side of things in the studio. And also within the broader Sumo family there’s Team Sonic Racing, so it would be crazy to think some of that DNA hadn’t bled into it.”

Going by the presentation, your character in Deathsprint handles more like a car than a person. You hold right trigger on a gamepad to accelerate, and you can drift improbably around corners to keep your combo going between crowd-pleasing moves such as wall-running. It’s no kind of serious racing sim, but there are nuances that remind me of trying to shave off seconds in Mirror’s Edge . You soft-lock to a rail while grinding, for example, but you can also lean with the analogue sticks to increase your speed or avoid a trap. There will also be a decent selection of capital-A Accessibility features, Willans says, including automatic acceleration.

Traps! We probably shouldn’t skim past them. Track hazards include spike pits, swinging blades and lasers, all tricky to avoid when you’re stampeding around a corner, but it sounds like the greater threats are other players. Power-ups include the Buzzsaw - Mario Kart’s unguided Green Shell, except it’ll cost the target limbs rather than coins - and a proximity mine that can be glued both to floors and walls. “Probably a more recent touchpoint would be something like The Boys,” Willans says of the resulting carnage. “We want that those laugh-out-loud, shocking moments of gore and surprise, but not gratuitous, you know, not kind of venturing into SAW territory.”

If Deathsprint 66 draws on a lot of different sources, it’s also a much more focussed project next to Sumo Newcastle’s previous Hoods: Outlaws And Legends, which Willans concedes was wildly overscoped. The new game began life as a PvE escape room experience, closer to the plot of The Running Man book. “But as we kind of followed the fun,” Willans says, “what we found is that we just needed to simplify, and we learned a lot of lessons on Outlaws and Legends - we tried to do too much with that game. There were a lot of mechanics, a lot of features, and a lot of kind of all-or-nothing objectives.

Image credit:Secret Mode

“So we thought, let’s not go down that path again, let’s just keep trimming until we have something which is very pure, you know, an experience where the three C’s [Character, Camera and Control] feel best in class - that sensation of a flowstate should be present at all times. And if people feel that quality, you can add things to it, without people booting it up for the first time and going ‘what am I supposed to be doing, am I running, am I shooting’ - too many kinds of competing objectives.”

Deathsprint 66 will release with one core mode, the 8-player gallop. The developers have experimented with other modes, including team-based and last-person-standing modes, which might end up in the game, but for launch, they’re trying to conserve their resources and avoid splitting the (skill-based) matchmaking pool. I’m definitely going to end up in the shallow end of said pool, “suit of failure” and all, but I do like me some dystopian arcade racing with buzzsaws now and then, and this has the makings of a champ.

Deathsprint 66

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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Bloody on-foot racer Deathsprint 66 is getting singleplayer PvE modes with grisly challenges

Bloody on-foot racer Deathsprint 66 is getting singleplayer PvE modes with grisly challenges

Anger Feet

<img loading=“lazy” src=“https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/4_h5MNAvC.jpg?width=690&quality=85&format=jpg&dpr=3&auto=webp" onerror=“this.onerror=null;this.src=‘https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhe7F7TRXHtjiKvHb5vS7DmnxvpHiDyoYyYvm1nHB3Qp2_w3BnM6A2eq4v7FYxCC9bfZt3a9vIMtAYEKUiaDQbHMg-ViyGmRIj39MLp0bGFfgfYw1Dc9q_H-T0wiTm3l0Uq42dETrN9eC8aGJ9_IORZsxST1AcLR7np1koOfcc7tnHa4S8Mwz_xD9d0=s16000';" alt=“A single “clone jockey” runner jumping through a hoop in Deathsprint 66. - 20”>

Image credit:Secret Mode

The situation: Sumo Newcastle are making a dystopian on-foot multiplayer racing game called Deathsprint 66 , in which you control one of eight Running Men hurtling through the spiked and bladed contours of a futuristic megacity. The complication: competing against other actual human beings isn’t always pleasant or desirable, especially when hurtling through the spiked and bladed contours of a futuristic megacity. The solution: Deathsprint 66 is getting a set of PvE-focussed “Episodes” in which just one human player plus optional bots hurtle through the spiked and bladed contours of a futuristic megacity.

These Episodes consist of 3-5 stage tournaments, and they aren’t just the same old neon pain gauntlets as in the core eight-player mode. They’re custom challenges with “mechanical twists”, sayeth the press release. Some of those “twists” take the form of additional spikes and blades.

One of the Episodes is Killing Time - this starts you off with just 15 seconds to reach the first checkpoint and top up your timer before your head explodes. In Five Lives, meanwhile, ‘first or last’ rules apply and you only have five “clone jockeys” (respawns) to burn through. And then there’s Bloodbath Circuits and Bloodbath Sprints, in which maps feature extra hazards and all Tributes (power-ups) are offensive in nature. Catch some of that in action in this here audio-visual montage of people playing Dodge The Chainsaw, an Episode of my own devising which I generally suck at.

I caught a hands-off alpha build of Deathsprint 66 at GDC this year and swapped a few words with Sumo Newcastle - amongst other things we discussed the “suit of failure”, a crashtest dummy outfit with no sponsor logos or other commercial bling, which you’ll be contemptuously awarded if you kill your clone jockeys too often.

I’m on record as being a bit sick of satirical deathgames in video games, but I like this one because it reminds me of Blur and because they keep the wisecracks to a minimum. It sure looks… zippy. More WipEout than Blur, perhaps. The full game releases on 12th September.

Deathsprint 66

PC

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Still Wakes the Deep, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and Deathsprint 66 makers to lay off hundreds of staff

Image credit:Focus Entertainment

Sumo Group, the British video game collective which owns developers Sumo Digital, publishers Secret Mode and more - including Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture devs The Chinese Room - is laying off hundreds of staff, cutting 15% of their workforce “to better navigate the upcoming challenges expected in the coming months”.

The news came just a couple of days after Secret Mode showed off upcoming PC releases Critter Café, freerunning Mario Kart-but-deadly-a-like Deathsprint 66 and The Chinese Room’s next moody title Still Wakes the Deep during Summer Games Fest over the weekend, with Sumo Digital chirpily celebrating the “busy weekend” on Monday . The very next day, Sumo Group - which owns the various Sumo Digital studios - released a separate announcement of layoffs, stating that they would be “reshaping operations” to “to ensure the security of the business going forward”.

The layoffs will hit up to 15% of the entire group’s workforce across its 19 UK, Canadian, Polish, Czech and Indian offices - meaning up to 270 people may be affected, going by the latest headcount of 1,790 on the company’s website .

Well… we’ve had a busy weekend! 😅 ICYMI @WeAreSecretMode announced @CritterCafeGame at @_WholesomeGames AND showed exclusive gameplay of @DeathSprint66 at the @pcgamer Show, alongside a haunting launch trailer for @SWTD_Game 🌊 ..We’re off for a lie-down! pic.twitter.com/nHtDCJXxHc — Sumo Digital (@SumoDigitalLtd) June 10, 2024

“This is an incredibly challenging process to go through for everyone at Sumo and our focus is now on supporting our people and working with our partners on their games as we move forward to ensure we emerge from this difficult time, ready for the future,” Sumo wrote. Good luck to all those affected.

Deathsprint 66

PC

Hogwarts Legacy

PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S , PC

Still Wakes The Deep

Video Game

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

PC

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