Kind Words 2 review: as good-hearted as a city built on the internet can get

Worriers Anonymous

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Popcannibal

• Developer: Popcannibal
• Publisher: Popcannibal
• Release: Out now
• On: Windows
• From: Steam
• Price: £17/$20/€20
• Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10

It’s a simple world of comfortable and colourful dioramas, which you navigate as a big-eyed avatar in cute glasses or baggy tracksuit bottoms. Yes, there’s a fashion shop with a limited collection of clothes. And your own home (a simple room with a window and a writing desk) can be decked out with items and decorations earned as gifts from other players. But this isn’t really the type of game about investing in your character’s appearance. It’s more about the act of writing to others.

There are a bunch of ways to communicate. The one that will feel familiar to players of the first Kind Words is the act of sitting at your writing desk and replying to “requests”. These are short cards another player has posted, lamenting recent break-ups or venting about an annoying family member. You type out a reply to these and send it off. Or you offer your own worry as a prompt and wait for the advice and sympathies to roll in.

But this is just the most vanilla of back-and-forths. There’s also a shop specialising in asking for recommendations. What’s some good Spanish language music? (Ana Tijoux). What should I play on browser during my lunch break? ( Scrambled Maps ). Outside, you can scribble a sadness or a joke into one of those paper aeroplanes and send it off into the ether. Or you can have a piecemeal “chat” with other avatars in the street, again more akin to snail mail than an actual chatroom (the wandering characters aren’t directly controlled by other players either, but simply represent them).

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Popcannibal

I sent off a letter in which I worried about a recent disastrous moving plan (an apartment I was due to move into fell through). I got three responses - two of which felt nice to hear but didn’t shift my feelings all that much. The final one, however, made me feel better simply because the reply came from someone in a very similar position to me. Sometimes all it takes is to be shown you’re not alone. This is something Kind Words 2 does a lot.

There are yet more places to share thoughts. There’s a hot spring full of people trading wisdoms. And a notice board that simply asks for cat descriptions. There’s an open mic café where you can write poetry or listen to other people’s free verse (think Comedy Night but without the heinous offensiveness ). One interesting feature is a big blobby monster called the Wiggling Void, who will simply eat your words without recording or sharing them at all.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Popcannibal

At the top of a mountain, there’s also a bench where you can look at the stars and make a wish. I found something particularly moving about this spot. It was stirring to just sit here for a moment, listening to the game’s lo-fi warbles and reading people’s desires. Their hopes for a steady job, a healthier body, more cats. Overwhelmingly, people wish for connection: friendships, family, and romance. Given that close relationships are increasingly found to be the basis for a life of happiness , it makes sense that loneliness is the number one source of hurt.

In this, and in other ways, Kind Words 2 brings up a lot of feelings. It’s like taking a hot bath in other people’s emotions. Inevitably, some of your own will come sweating out. It is cathartic and fleeting all at once, and reminds me a little of the feelings-first vox pop videos of Thoraya . I would call it therapeutic, but don’t want to prescribe this game as some sort of substitute for true human bonding and support, even if it is a comforting balm. Much of the connection and release offered here is still better experienced in the real world, by talking to strangers or confiding worries in real friends (this is comforting, because Kind Words 2 will someday lose its playerbase - something hopefully not applicable to the real world any time soon).

It also brings up some worries of “toxic positivity”. It’s evident that some elements of the game are ferociously happy, as if by mandate. All the hairstyles have names like “great”, “happy” “desirable” “neato” - you won’t find a “meh” hairstyle here. There’s a “pop-up” stand that offers a simple question every day to people gathered in the plaza. A recent one was: “Pumpkin spice latte. What is its place in the world?” Which made me wonder if the developers pick purposefully mild and uncontroversial topics (pineapple on pizza did not even make the cut). This fits with the idea of a space designed to avoid conflict and nastiness. The game is called “Kind Words 2” after all, not “Reddit 2”.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Popcannibal

Yet despite the framework feeling almost repressively nice, it’s not fair to say it is toxically so. The notes you get are often full of hurt or trouble. People share thoughts of violence or painful memories. Many messages are not solvable problems (at least not by you), they can be missives of anxiety, fear, rejection, loss, and friendlessness. If you chose to respond to these with a relentless attitude of positivity - (“Don’t worry! Everything is actually okay and good!”) then that might not be truly helpful. But from my experience, most replies are along the lines of: “That sucks, me too lol.”

Your requests and prompts can feel helpful in the short term, in other words. I struggled for years to discern the difference between “personal” thoughts and “private” thoughts. Still do sometimes. But more and more I understand that sharing a messy bit of your brain is actually a type of social glue. This is just another avenue for practising the habit of sheepish self-revelation. It feels good to throw paper aeroplanes! Even if doing it IRL is healthier.

As for the replies you get, it’s easy to make fun of the truisms and platitudes that come most freely to people when we’re asked to sympathise with others. (“It will all work out!” … “Plenty more fish in the sea!”) And it can feel like there’s an element of performance to some responses you get. But it’s also hard to judge the author’s level of authenticity from behind an avatar. If you can give people the benefit of the doubt, even a cliché can be heartwarming. And I say this as a person who hates clichés, yet has felt their worth firsthand.

Roughly 22 years ago, I was sitting by a shop on a city street, feeling miserable and invisible. My friends seemed to have all evaporated, depression was at the door. As people passed, one woman in a sari smiled as she walked by and looked me in the eyes. She said: “It’s not the end of the world.” And then she vanished into the streets. She was a stranger, all she offered was a simple, commonplace phrase of encouragement. If I remember right, it even annoyed me a little. Why was she so fucking chipper?

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Popcannibal

And yet… the spell of sadness was broken. Her words were enough for me to see that I’d been spotted and noted, that not every passer-by was oblivious to my sadness. I got up and went on with the day. We have this idea sometimes that connections with others must be long-lived to be meaningful. Yet years later, I still think of this random woman who offered me a smile on a grey day. I encountered her for less than five seconds.

Relationships don’t just encompass those with whom we drink our pumpkin spice lattes, or those we work beside, or take out to the cinema, or plan a roadtrip with. There is meaning in the anecdote you share with a train conductor, the mini-rant about the local council you have with a fellow dog walker, even (god forbid) the blue joke you get from a taxi driver. Kind Words 2 isn’t about forming friendships (it admits as much when it asks you never to identify yourself). It isn’t even about community, as every live service game seemingly wants to be for its own purposes. It’s simply about passing someone in the street, seeing their hurt, and telling them it isn’t the end of the world.

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Kind Words 2 (Lofi City Pop)

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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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