Hauntii review: an adventure as beautiful as it looks

I don’t normally like letting things haunt me, but this is an exception

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Firestoke

• Developer: Moonloop Games LLC
• Publisher: Firestoke
• Release: May 23rd 2024
• On: Windows
• From: Steam , Game Pass
• Price: TBC
• Reviewed on: Intel Core i7-12700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3080, Windows 11

Hauntii sets the scene with a rather magical opening sequence. A beam of light shoots out of a mysterious planet and a zoom in reveals the beam to be an asteroid, but not just any asteroid: a crystal shaped like a teardrop, with a little ghost nestled inside. You awaken as this little ghost, who it turns out, has crash landed in Eternity (and who, it turns out, is called Hauntii). Soon you bump into a ghostly girl, who guides you to a tower that thrusts you both up to a higher plane - but though she ascends, you’re dragged back to the bottom at the last moment by some netherworldly chains. And so, as Hauntii you travel through Eternity to discover who that girl was and, ultimately, how to ascend to those heavenly skies yourself.

You’ll probably be pleased to know that Eternity isn’t an infinite string of procedurally generated mansions where you watch celebrities pretend to get frightened by doors creaking open. Instead, it’s split into a series of worlds, each composed of several stages. Many of these stages are presented as easy to follow pathways of light, with playgrounds splintering off them. There is an ever present threat, though, because if you spend a bit too long in the dark sea between these paths, the music distorts and purple demons clutch at you from beyond. It’s very Super Mario Odyssey: you’re encouraged to explore every inch of a spherical space stuffed with secrets or curiosities.

As you defeat enemies and haunt things, you’ll earn crystals and special world tokens. You can cash these in at merchants, who’ll sell nothing other than fun hats. There are wizard hats, cat ears, beer hats. It’s a laugh and I’m into it. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Firestoke

And also like Super Mario Odyssey, your progression through these worlds isn’t entirely linear. It’s linear in the sense that one stage might lead naturally to another, but during significant moments you’re gatekept by the amount of stars you’ve stuffed in your spooky napsack. Hidden around each stage are a set number of stars and you’ll need to gather as many as you can, whether that’s by exploring optional stages, or by being diligent in your twinkle-detecting on the main path. No need to worry about trawling through old stages, either, as I’m about as diligent as a pat down at a stadium security stand and wasn’t ever frustrated by a necessary star count bump. And even if you need to rummage for a fair few stars, convenient extra zones always seem to spring up like eerie oases.

Thing is, these stars aren’t just sitting on benches toking on vapes. To nab them, you’ll mostly need to complete puzzles that have you employ your superpower: haunting things by spitting energy orbs at them. Hit something that brings up a yellow icon and you know you’ll be able to take control of it. For instance, you can haunt ladybugs that let you glide between trees - the animation here is wonderful, as you rock to and fro with a tiny umbrella nestled between your legs - to reach higher spaces. You can haunt bells to ring with a clang, or you can haunt ghost dogs to reunite them with their worried owners.

A lot of Hauntii’s puzzling is about picking up on cues in each of its clever playgrounds, then figuring out what needs resolving or how you might navigate the dark sea and get over to that suspect island of light in the distance. It’s about haunting these skittish witches whose knapsacks spill light, granting you makeshift stepping stones. Or possessing a creature that’s capable of stomping and using them to plunge a sequence of stumps into the earth. Or becoming a fairground bell just as a titanic ghost smacks you upwards with a mallet, rocketing you to a new area.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Firestoke

Eternity isgorgeousand at times, I wonder if it’s one of the loveliest looking games I’ve ever set my eyes on. All hand-drawn art with a two-tone palette that lends itself to the ethereal, where mostly everything bobs or shimmers at a low frame rate making it seem like a grand odyssey contained in a notepad, but if that notepad sprang to life.Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Firestoke

Puzzles certainly increase in complexity later on, but they’re never truly difficult. And I think that’s nice, because it keeps you flowing through each stage at a pace befitting of the game’s relaxed atmosphere. Sure, some paths to progress can be a bit unclear at times and some worlds might drag on a tiny bit longer than you’d like, but these gripes pale in comparison to the joy of embodying things big or small to prize each star from its lodgings.

Sometimes, prizing stars means turning to violence. Hauntii’s a twinstick shooter in this sense, as the orbs you spit can damage unfriendly ghosts or clear some of the murkiness swiped by tougher foes onto safe surfaces, causing those demonic hands from beyond to clutch at you. Coupled with your dash, fights aren’t ever super tricky, but they’re demanding enough and have an immediacy that contrasts nicely with the game’s scrawled aesthetic and low-frame bobs. Again, you’ll often need to haunt stuff to either up your strength or to defeat baddies who present problems that Hauntii’s default orbs can’t smush. Like Bellsprout-looking plants that thump giant acorns out of their mouths, or devilish shades with fireworks strapped to their backs, whose pyrotechnics work wonders on flying ghouls.

As time goes by, though, the ghosts get beefier. To match their training regimen, stations dotted around the map let you plink your stars into a nightsky and create constellations. Completed constellations earn you shards that you’ll piece together to form a whole, permanently boosting one of Hauntii’s three stats: health, dash, or essence (orb-spitting). It might be a simple system, but I love how it grants the stars an extra dimension, where they aren’t just passports, but currency to get more powerful.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Firestoke

And perhaps one of my favourite touches is the extra, extra dimension to completing those constellations. Every time you create a glistening rabbit or a shiny boat in the night sky, you’ll witness a very brief cutscene of a life once lived. It’s presented as a thought bubble, where line-drawings - reminiscent of the Nintendo DS’ Flipnote studio - show us nice moments or sad moments. And often the simplest of moments, where Hauntii might come across a whale in an aquarium and through just a few scrawled lines, you can see the happiness radiate off him. I think it’s genius really, that those stars act as a way to strengthen Hauntii’s resolve as he pieces together who he was and why he passed. I was, predictably, in bits after some of these short scenes.

Hauntii’s stages are lovely counterpoints to the constellation’s introspective sequences, where the world thrums to a tranquil or playful rhythm, all backed by Michael Kirby Ward’s soundtrack that bops and swells at all the right moments. I like that the ghosts live in fun communities and are upbeat little guys and gals with cute smiles. The world and its inhabitants just sit right, as a dysfunctional underworld family that’s not necessarily out to get you. On occasions, the camera zooms out and lets you take it all in, with one rollercoaster sequence early on hitting me with a sense of disbelief. Quadruple A games certainly couldn’t compete.

Every time I mention Hauntii, I get an “eh?”, or I hear the clack of a pal giving it a search. They always say, “Woah, that looks gorgeous, I’d never heard of it”. And that’s no slight on the game, but rather its relative out-of-nowhere-ness has felt rather nice, actually. That I’ve got to delight in an adventure game so beautiful and unpretentious and clever before it’s released to the masses. It’s a selfish sort of feeling which this job grants us on rare occasions, and as I urge you to give this game a go, I get this deep satisfaction from parting the curtains. Don’t sleep on Hauntii, for goodness sake.

This review is based on a review build of the game provided by the developer.

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Hauntii

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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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