It’s hard to like the heroes of Wuthering Waves when they keep soiling you with dictionary vomit

The Lament

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Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Kuro Games

Understanding any given sentence in Wuthering Waves is like trying to discern sensible meaning from the back of a rain-bleached Doritos packet you found while cleaning your gutters. Last week, players of the character action gacha asked for more freedom to skip story scenes and dialogue . Having sunk a bunch of hours into the game, I can see why. The combat may be swish and the traversal across its rolling landscape flowing and carefree, but the lore-obsessed babble of its characters is mind-numbing. Wuthering Waves has been this month’s lightning rod for hype. But it’s worth dissecting what it’s actually like to play.

The simplistic answer is: it’s like Genshin Impact but rougher. It still looks to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for inspiration (an inspiration so direct it features the familiar sight of a mountain cleaved in two as a central landmark). And it is still, transparently, a gacha game . Combat is an admittedly snazzy button-mashy affair, with a sly dodge button, basic counter-attack openings, and a creature-summoning side hustle. You control a whole cast of fighters with different powers, styles and weapon types. A core desire (in theory) is that the player will want to combine the many available characters into powerful compositions, pairing icey impaler Sanhua with unflappable healer Baizhi, for example, then throwing in lightning swordsman Calcharo for cool factor. To get the characters you want from the full roster of 18, you’ll have to churn the virtual crank of the gacha gizmo and hope that your desired anime beau appears.

I’d rather leave them all in the machine.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Kuro Games

Chatter between characters has me spacing out within seconds. It might just be overwritten, yet something about the wobbly rhythm makes me suspect it may also be the victim of questionable localisation. A lot of sense seems to have been stripped away (or I just don’t get a lot of things that are culturally significant to Chinese players - a definite possibility). Either way, it’s hard to know exactly why the dialogue lands with all the weight of a watery soap bubble. But it’s enough to observe that it does.

The player is machine-gunned with proper nouns and abstract lore. Ad hoc world-building is emptied out onto the floor in front of you like an upturned bucket of fifteen different jigsaw puzzles packaged together. Characters are given weird moments of focus in which other characters will remark on their personality, as if to say: “Hey, player! Have you noticed that this character is what they call ’tsundere’? Wow!”

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Kuro Games

I understand that, to many, expecting a decent story in a gacha game is like expecting McDonalds to season your fries with pink Himalayan salt, but when the dialogue is there in such overwhelming volume, it’s hard to dismiss. You are hit with scene after scene of forced interactions as the introductory zones take you through the features and tricks of the game - crafting, fast travel, combat, grapple hooking, and so on. The developers have responded to complaints about localisation (alongside log-in problems, overheating, and other issues) and the solution seems to be, yes, let the player skip as much of this stuff as possible.

For those who don’t care about storytelling, that’s the problem solved. For others, like me, who like to get invested in the hopes and fears of aristocrats and lowlifes from other worlds, skipping scenes simply unmoors you further from that world. If I don’t care about these characters, I won’t want to collect them.

The lack of polish goes beyond unskippable cutscenes anyway. Dialogue gets cut off, or occurs calmly in the middle of a battle, as if you weren’t stabbing the speaker in the head. Characters chat to you with the tone of someone standing right next to you, but are nowhere to be seen, inexplicably buried inside your own body. When playing on PC the menus will ask you to “tap” the screen, a reminder that the core audience is rooted in legions of phone and tablet users. During dialogue the screen will often fade to black and say things like “You showed Yangyang and Chixia the tokens’’ or “Jianxin explained why she wanted to leave the city” - the substitution of animation with superfluous stage directions.

The whole plot seems to hang together with glue and duct tape. Wuthering Wave’s publisher famously splashed out on advertising by hiring every billboard in New York’s Times Square . Yet so much of the game itself brings to mind the flimsy plastic toys you get in the gachapon machines of reality.

Even tutorial screens (the one place you want meaning to be clear and concise) are a cat and mouse game of meaning, a Reader’s Nightmare of Many Title Case nouns and Directions without Sound Punctuation or Context. It’s not a huge deal. Once you’re in the actual fight, you can muddle through and learn by doing. But look at this screen and tell me if you can get halfway through the first couple of sentences without leaving your own body.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Kuro Games

You can’t just roll for a character, you must “Convene”. You don’t find a stack of cash, you earn a “Voucher of Reciprocal Tides”. Players of free-to-play games will recognise the kelp forest of currencies that awaits on the store page of the pause menu. There are Radiant Tides, Lustrous Tides, Forging Tides, Lunite, Hazard Records, Data Sets, Astrite, Afterglow Coral, Oscillate Coral, Sonance Caskets… This deluge of doughs isn’t anything new to the genre, or free-to-play games in general. A Destiny 2 player can rattle off the countless coins and coin-adjacent non-doubloons they will need for their favourite cosmetic. But this in itself might just qualify as another mark against Wuthering Waves. Even its free-to-play psychic warfare is uninspired.

It is, as you might expect, a completionist’s game. There may be solace to map-revealing wanderers like myself in the satisfaction of going off to find all the Resonance Beacons in the land (the monoliths that allow you to fast travel). I’ve enjoyed the game most when I completely abandon the quests or battle events and go wandering without purpose. The speedy clambering up cliff sides, the grappling hook points that criss-cross the city - it’s clear that smooth traversal was high on the list for developers to nail. At the top of that cleft mountain you will discover a small sanctuary of felines at the summit. My favourite moment so far has not come from unlocking characters, beasting bosses, or navigating the lines and lines of lore-filled diatribes, but in giving a chicken drumstick to a cat.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Kuro Games

It is hard to build a sense of motivation around that alone. The rest of the game, its gacha galumphing and unreadable sentences, present a world that feels superficial at best and soulless at worst. It is as if all the constituent parts of a video game have been grown in a lab and stitched together, for no clear reason other than it might make some money. When Nintendo makes a game like Breath of the Wild, other creators open their eyes wide with glee. They take away its clever ideas. What if the player could climb almost every surface? What if the player could put their own stamps on the map? The main thing developers will take away from Wuthering Waves, I fear, is the confirmation that overwhelming advertising still works.

Wuthering Waves

Android , iOS , PC , Windows Phone

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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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