Dread Dawn review: dawn’t bother

Is this the end of zombie Shakespeare?!

Image credit:Kioop/Rock Paper Shotgun

• Developer: Kioop
• Publisher: Kioop
• Release: Out now
• On: Windows
• From: Steam
• Price: £15/€18/$18
• Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-12600K, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 2070, Windows 10

There’s a genre of lesser fun that only makes itself known to me once I’ve completely given up on enjoying a game in any traditional sense, lurking under the surface like a silly icon on a losing scratchcard. I’ll call it ‘system tourism’ in lieu of something better. It’s not like the actually fulfilling virtual tourism you might do in something like Yakuza’s Kamurocho, where you’re scarfing down deep fried whiskeys, entranced by the lights. It’s more like doing a Google street view tour of Venice’s canals to see if you can spot someone taking a leak off the side of a gondola - hunting for anarchic anomalies because, honestly, the sights just aren’t grabbing you.

At the risk of sounding like some sort of horrible joy-mathematician: My experience with open world zombie survival game Dread Dawn involved precisely two and half discrete instances of fun, plus some additional appreciation for a few genuinely good ambient bits I’ll get into shortly. With a significant overhaul of basically every player interaction Dread Dawn offers - from the abysmally tedious looting to the rusty combat - it might some day be worth your time. It harbours some incredible ambition, though it’s surrounded by murk and detritus, like a dictatorial rat in a toilet bowl. Mostly, though, I can only give you advance warning to avoid it.

Image credit:Kiopp/Rock Paper Shotgun

I’m a big fan of advance warnings these days, actually, after being given none by the fighter jets that occasionally decided to carpet bomb the streets I was running down and instantly burned me to death…

It all started so promisingly, too. I’m hiding out in a school filled with other survivors following a garden variety zombocalypse, and the way the isometric camera pans over the corridors - full of sleeping bags and makeshift fires - feels urgent, almost desperate. What’s really incredible here is the soundscape: a chaotic, filthy melange that transcends clear audio design to deliver something I’d imagine is pretty close to how your terrified ears would actually translate a shart show of this magnitude. It’s all alarms and panicked chatter, flames lapping and dogs fitting in the distance. Sometimes there’s sobbing, shrieking - individual and collective anguish. It sounds like refried hell, and it’s Dread Dawn’s best feature by quite a way.

My first task is to go check on my character’s sister in the girl’s dorm. On the way, I run into one of several footballs scattered around and accidentally pelt it at a dude lying on sleeping bag, who then jumps up and follows me around for about a minute, knocking me to the floor every time I get up. I’m not sure if this was a quirk, or a sly tutorial on aggroing other survivors, but the game’s full of hints at this sort of systemic messiness (complimentary). They never really amount to much, but they do occasionally bubble to the surface, threatening an interesting scenario before popping into nothingness.

Along the way to the dorm, I loot a few bookshelves. Looting is such a monkey’s paw here. The stuff you find is intriguing, but the act of acquiring it is a real pain. The result is one of Dread Dawn’s worst features sitting next to an otherwise interesting time, like a marauding bus farter plonking themselves down next to you just as your book’s getting good. Itemisation is where the game most closely resembles something like Dead Rising , letting you load up on mostly useless, but inspired bric-a-brac to inhabit the sort of dude who collects marbles and rocks and pots full of stationary to throw at zombies when in possession of a perfectly okay gun. At one point, you get a skateboard. It’s good for about five minutes until you realise the streets are too crowded to avoid knocking into zombies and subsequently sampling pavement every few minutes, but hey, at least it made me grin. I’ll take what I can get.

Image credit:Kiopp/Rock Paper Shotgun

There’s just too much stuff, though, and looting both containers and corpses takes a slow-cooked eternity. Trying to pixel hunt individual deaduns from a slain horde is a nightmare, and containers impose a brief loading bar on you before you get inside. Inventory space is limited, so ‘loot all’ soon becomes useless, meaning you’ll spend a lot a time dragging items. The worst thing, though, is the unavoidable FOMO. Dread Dawn’s economy is bizarre, with $800 cooked chickens and $200 guns, so you end up wanting to shove everything in your pockets in case it’s useful later, but this slows things to a crawl. I ended up feeling pang of anxiety for each zombie I didn’t loot. Sometimes, that meant around 80 pangs of anxiety. That’s at least two pings of anxiety! It hangs over you, resulting in exploration that mainly inspires regretful second-guessing.

Anyway, a bit of oddly translated dialogue later, and I’m out in the open world, following red arrows to find my sister (you get main quests and side quests, and occasionally you’ll have to stop what you’re doing to run back to the school and see off a wave of zombos using the defences you’ve built up). To pass through one street, I have to get past around fifty zombies. The hordes in Dread Dawn are massive, although easily avoidable due to their tendency to follow a single leader and bunch up behind you once you’ve got their attention. Thing is, the game doesn’t really tell you this, so I spend longer than I’d like to admit looking around for an alternative solution. At this point, I’m armed with a screwdriver. I find a pistol soon after, and learn that it’s actually less useful in terms of stopping power and damage than the screwdriver. If this suggests the screwdriver - or any melee weapon - is enjoyable to use: they aren’t. You’ve got a quick stab that zombies barely flinch from, or a ponderous heavy that does the job, but feels awkward and limp.

I’ll skip to the conclusion here by saying this: once you realise the writing in Dread Dawn isn’t interesting, the crafting and tower defence stuff is rote, and the exploration is painful, all you’re really left with is the appeal of killing lots of zombies: Name me ten zombie games, and I’ll show you ten better ways to spend your time killing zombies.

Strangely enough, I’d have a hard time showing you ten better water hoses, though. I… don’t know what happened here, really. It’s not like you encounter these hoses very often. They’re conveniently placed near fires, as you’d expect. They’re also just oddly better than anything else in the game, snaking around obstacles and squirming as you carry you them. You can control the intensity of the blast, and it’s just plain satisfying to quench flames. This should have been the game, Dread Dawn! Just call the water ‘zombie killing juice’ and give your character a backpack full of it and a permanent hose weapon. That would have been good!

Image credit:Kiopp/Rock Paper Shotgun

Unquenchable, unfortunately, are those carpet bomb fires I mentioned above. You’ll occasionally run into fights between the military and zombie hordes. You’ll snake your way through, maybe jump behind a turret for a bit, leave towards your objective, then bammo! Bombs out of nowhere. The initial bombs don’t hurt, just knock and stun you. It’s the ensuing flames that do it. The autosave is quite generous, and thank zombie Shakespeare. Stupid deaths included zombies being right on top of me when I loaded into a new area, and certain spots en route to a critical objective suddenly being full of hostile gun turrets with no warning and also being right next to an area filled with friendly turrets. There are right ways to make a world feel dangerous, and these aren’t it.

A couple of caveats to round out, then. I didn’t come close to finishing Dread Dawn. I hit a point where my only way forward was to run back and forth for fifteen minutes luring a massive horde twelve-at-a-time to a machine gun placement. This is roughly where I started finding the game physically painful to play, so I stopped. I feel much better now. Thanks for asking.

Image credit:Kiopp/Rock Paper Shotgun

Secondly, I’m not a fan of gathering wood and rocks at the best of times. After chopping down my first tree, I wrote down “I would rather be waterboarded with a cloth made out of woven pig nipple hair and a bucket of rat sick.” I don’t actually mean that, but the chopping is both lusterless and very slow. It’s such a core interaction and Dread Dawn couldn’t even manage that. If you’re a die-hard survival glutton, and you wait a while for updates, you might find some fun here, since the framework does have those tiny sparks of playful ingenuity I’ve alluded to. Otherwise, uh: game bad. Don’t buy it!

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Dread Dawn

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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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