How do we stop the next round of games industry mass layoffs?

Thoughts from Larian, union advocates, Motion Twin and industry lobbyists

Image credit:Official GDC

According to one unofficial tracker created by video game artist Farhan Noor, there have been 8000 layoffs in 2024 so far, following an estimated 10,500 layoffs in 2023. The leaders of Microsoft , Embracer Group , Epic and other industry giants have made swingeing cuts to their workforces. While larger companies have inevitably seen the largest reductions, many smaller developers and publishers have also cut staff or even closed their doors . Circumstances vary by company, of course, but as regards the biggest publishers, there are some broad overlapping causes: reckless or, if you prefer, “overambitious” expansion and overhiring during the pandemic lockdown gaming boom; lower-than-hoped returns on new technologies and business models such as NFTs; and rising global interest rates, which have scared away potential investors.

The carnage was uppermost in Larian CEO’s Swen Vincke’s mind when he accepted Baldur’s Gate 3 ’s Best Narrative gong at the GDC Awards last month. According to Vincke, the layoffs can be traced straightforwardly to a pattern of executive greed that sees company leadership betting the livelihoods and stability of their workers on whatever new idea seems capable of delivering instant growth for shareholders.

Image credit:Official GDC

“I hear these [key performance indicators], because I spend a lot of time with these people,” Vincke told me after the show. “And I hear the craziest things. And the only way that you can reach those goals is by doing stupid things - you know, somebody finds a good game mechanic, and here we go, we’re gonna make 100,000 of them, right, and we’re just going to pump it up artificially until the players get sick and tired of it. And then oh shit, it doesn’t work any more. Let’s fire everybody. Oh, there’s a new one. Let’s do it again. Every single bloody time.”

Vincke’s point that industry layoffs are cyclical is worth stressing. Such has been the bodycount this and last year that it’s easy to think of the 2023-2024 reductions as an aberration, whereas they are aberrations only in terms of their scale. ‘Hire-and-fire’ is intrinsic to capitalism, but in Vincke’s analysis, many of today’s videogame executives are particularly guilty of repeated flights of short-termist thinking. Too often, he continued, publishers give serious thought only to the next financial quarter - “if you’re lucky, they think a year ahead” - and CEOs specifically are motivated by their quarterly bonuses to seek out quick-fix strategies for growth.

“You see it and you hear it and you know it when they’re telling you - you say look, two years from now, plenty of people are gonna get fired,” he went on. “This is what’s going to happen because of these choices that are being made right now, but [some people] will have their high bonuses, and that’s just a stupid system. I don’t think it’s a good system.”

‘How do we stop all this happening again?’ was a question I asked several developers and industry figures at GDC. I’ve come back with a cross-section of responses, many of which reiterate the importance of unionisation. “That’s a very sad reality of our current industry - the cyclical nature [of the layoffs],” International Game Developers Association president and Astral Interactive CEO Dr Jakin Vela told me, against the slightly confusing backdrop of a huge agriculture convention that had booked half the suites in the same hotel. “There’s no stability, and without stability, there’s a very disturbing lack of root chances for sustainability.”

Unionising isn’t a magic panacea - there’s not much any individual union can do about rising global interest rates, for example - but negotiating as a block will help workers temper the ambitions of management, and encourage leaders to think beyond the next quarter. “Will unionisation solve all of our problems? No,” Vela continued. “Can it support workers having a voice at the table? Absolutely. And so I think that’s sort of like the lowest hanging fruit in terms of what developers can do today.”

Image credit:Official GDC

There’s been plenty of union advocacy in North America and Europe since the Game Workers Unite movement stormed GDC 2018 . Unions have scored a few successes during the latest mass layoffs - this February, for example, the recently ratified Sega of America AEGIS union announced that they had negotiated the preservation of some roles and severance for departing temp workers during a round of cuts . According to a couple of union workers I spoke to at GDC, a big overarching ambition in North America especially is persuading employers that having a unionised workforce is better for business.

“A union doesn’t want to bankrupt the company - we want to keep our jobs, we want to keep working, we want sustainability in this industry,” Chrissy Fellmeth, international representative for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, told me on the GDC show floor. There’s a “misconception” among employers that unions are just out to punish them, she said. “What we’re trying to do is work together - we’re not here to tear it down. We’re here to build it. We’re here to make our jobs and our lives sustainable for the long term. And with that is a love for our jobs in the company we’re working at. We’re not just here because we’re mad, we’re not here because we want revenge, we’re here because things can be better. And we want to work with employers to make that happen.”

One way in which unions can both incentivise employers not to take risks and lessen the potential fallout for workers is to haggle for more generous severance packages. Last year’s mass layoffs landed with differing degrees of severity: some developers were strictly speaking entitled to minimal compensation, for example, because they were on probation or classed as working on contract, but unions such as AEGIS have been able to negotiate more substantial deals, here and there.

“If the layoff has to happen in order to keep the company afloat, as opposed to lining stockholder pockets, then what can we do for workers that can secure their future?” Fellmeth went on. “It’s making sure that severance packages are fair, making sure that they have affordable health care plans that are extended past the date of the termination for a period of time, so that they can continue to have healthcare, making sure that the workers themselves can remain on their feet and stay in their homes and provide for their families in the instance that they have to suddenly be terminated from a job.”

“We’re interested in things like multi-employer healthcare plans, where regardless of which studio or employee you are working for, they pay into one collective plan,” IATSE communications director Jonas Loeb added. “And so if you get laid off and then jump to another job, you don’t have to change healthcare, all that paperwork that the company would be doing is no longer necessary. It helps a lot - it’s these little things that add up and let people focus on what’s really important to them, which is building the best games you can do. And you know, I think the business sometimes can step in the way of that. And, at the end of the day, the workers can point out problems on the shop floor and escalate those to management in a more effective way with a union than without one.”

Image credit:Official GDC

While many developers I spoke to at GDC mentioned unionisation, others observed that there’s only so much a union can do to avert recurring mass layoffs because unions are always punching up. Top-down government regulation and oversight are needed to stop companies making disastrous bets in the first place. “Yes, regulation would support it,” Vela told me. “But I think that would be extremely challenging, because especially for such a global industry, there are already such disparate regulations and policies across countries. If we’re talking specifically for like the US market, I don’t know if the current dynamic is really supportive of that.”

Vela suggested that the current debate around “generative AI” tools in videogames could, however, be an opportunity to push for such government oversight and set a few precedents, because these technologies are a source of great suspicion among both players and developers. They’re heavily associated with creative theft, and there’s the on-going concern that automated tools will be a pretext for cutting jobs or rendering certain vocations obsolete. (If you’d like to know more, AI boffin Mike Cook recently wrote a four-part feature series on what “generative AI” is and isn’t, and what we can all do about it.)

“That is where a lot of developer fears are right now, especially concerning getting put out of a job, whether it’s writing, UI, art - there are serious and valid concerns about generative AI,” Vela went on. “So having protective measures to ensure that tools that these companies are using are ethical, that AI data is ethically sourced, that they add up to to enhancement and supplementation, rather than replacement… I think those kinds of regulations could be helpful.

“That may not necessarily support the cyclical [layoff] problem we have, but we have so many problems,” he added. “We have the cyclical problem. But we also have the new technology and fears of the implications of that new technology problem. And we have the harassment problem. I think to tackle the cyclical thing - for us, that might be the hardest at this point. But I think for most teams right now, it comes down to worker empowerment initiatives, whether that’s unionisation or whether that’s working with your current studio or management [in other ways], to figure out the best way for people to have a voice.”

The latest round of generative AI tools are certainly proving an interesting test space for union action. Microsoft recently came to a “first of its kind” agreement with ZeniMax union workers to give them consent over the usage of such tech in the workplace. Loeb suggested that people working in “animation, concept art and illustration, all of that stuff, are the folks who are the most afraid” of the introduction of generative AI tools. “And we need to be able to, again, have that ability to negotiate, and to have that consent over its use, so that we can create sustainability and longevity in our careers.” He argued, however, that focussing on the potential harms of generative AI tools might be counterproductive - what unions and employers need to do is thrash out a broader, enduring agreement about the introduction of ‘innovative’ technologies at large.

Image credit:Official GDC

In general, Loeb feels there needs to be more collaboration between unions, and especially between workers rights advocates in different countries, to stop international companies simply shuffling their projects and resources around to avoid compromising with workers in any particular region. “We’re working with a lot of stakeholders internationally, in order to set standards across the board. It applies in one place and not another place, and things can move around, and that is just not a good option for anybody. It creates a precarious working environment for everybody.”

While evidence of this happening is sketchy, it’s possible that the scale of the industry’s layoffs last year will motivate more developers to seek out alternate forms of collective working. Take co-operatives, in which there is no traditional management hierarchy and no board of investors not-so-discreetly steering the ship. “Our structure is so unique,” Yannick Berthier of French worker’s co-operative Motion Twin told me during a showing of new roguelike Windblown . “It’s not like it’s better, but it’s different - really different. We are all partners, all sharing the pay, the vote, the decision, how long we work. Everything is really equal, or at least we want to turn towards that as much as possible.” There are few outfits like Motion Twin in the traditional games industry, which is indicative of the fact that getting such a framework going is hard work. Given the equality of status between employees, it boils down above all to working with people you can trust.

“Divesting” from the world of publicly traded companies doesn’t waterproof you against larger catastrophes, such as the economy going to shit. Motion Twin have had their “dark” spells and staff departures over the years, Berthier noted. “It’s not like we are an exemplar and everyone should be in a worker’s coop, or whatever. It’s super tough.” There are also practical challenges other companies don’t have to reckon with. “For example, we cannot keep money inside the company legally. [At the end of the year] we have to legally save some and the rest we have to share between the workers and but there is nothing left in the company, just small amounts so we can pay the bills mainly. That makes it super risky, because if you have a really, really bad year that’s finished, you don’t have a treasure chest where you save for the future.”

In general, Motion Twin don’t feel their experiences of running a worker’s co-operative give them special insight on the past year’s layoffs. But team members are proud that the studio has endured this long, and as with many indies, they regard the precarity of their situation as “the price we pay to be free,” in the words of another Motion Twinner, Thomas Vasseur. “We don’t have to convince any investors, because you cannot invest in our company,” he told me. “Legally speaking, you can, but it will be worthless because they won’t have votes, because we are bound to be controlled by the workers, no matter what.”

Image credit:Official GDC

Perhaps the experience of 2023 and 2024 will spark the creation of more studios like Motion Twin. Perhaps it’ll drive a serious rise in union membership, too - a few unions have already been founded in explicit response to the 2023 mass layoffs, such as the Polish Gamedev Workers Union , which came together in the wake of reductions at Cyberpunk 2077 developers CD Projekt. In the short term, however, the people in the games industry with greatest ability to ensure the long-term livelihoods of workers remain the executives and their investors.

Vincke had more advice for fellow company leaders when I spoke to him at GDC - albeit, advice he doesn’t expect to be heeded. “It’s never going to happen, what I’m saying, but it should be about the love of the material, of the craft of what you’re doing, creating the feeling in players, which is really what most developers aspire to.

“And that’s so easily exploited, right? It so often gets exploited. There’s a lot of developers who are left brain only, not necessarily right brain - I don’t remember which one is the one that goes for profits! I’m not saying that it’s bad that companies seek out profit, but you don’t necessarily have to sacrifice everything for its sake. Especially if you take a little bit of a longer term view. If you have a strategic view, don’t make those tactical mistakes, you’ll be all the better for it, and you’ll get better games and you’ll make even more profits. You just have to be a little patient.”

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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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