Nancy Drew: Message In A Haunted Mansion traps you in a ridiculous hotel with an alarm clock for a best mate

The third in the Nancy Drew series doesn’t deliver on the promised haunting and is my least favourite so far

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Her Interactive

It’s been a while, but I’m finally back on the Nancy Drew mystery game train. Choo choo, next stop: San Francisco! This has pleasing synergy with my real life, because I’m currently watching through Monk, a popular detective show also set in San Francisco. Mr. Monk would be displeased by the house Nancy finds herself in this time, which is a mansion being converted into a B&B. The owner, Rose, is working on a shoestring budget and has decided that the best player to add to her renovation team is a young-adult woman who’s a friend of a friend. It all makes sense!

Nancy Drew: Message In A Haunted Mansion is the third game in the Nancy Drew mystery series of puzzle games , and boy does the weird first-person fixed camera work against you here. It’s also a more disappointing plot than the previous games, but it adds in a new time system that, much like Stay Tuned For Danger, is an ambitious move - and in this case I think it sort of works. It’s a mixed bag, is what I’m saying.

• Nancy Drew - sort of not a detective really, is she, just kind of freelancing as a painter and decorator this time?
• Rose Gruen - the owner of the mansion under renovation, and is friends with Nancy’s housekeeper, which is how Nancy has ended up here. I consider this to make no sense, but I guess that’s how cash-in-hand employment works. Notably terrible voice acting, like the actor read the script for the first time as she was saying it out loud into a mic.
• Abby Sideris - is the co-owner of the mansion and is obsessed with the supernatural. Her room is a maximalist mess and she does seances. Honestly the most sensible person present.
• Charlie Murphy - an inexperienced handyman (seriously, Rose?) who is mostly painting the same small piece of wood in the basement. He has the vibe of like, if porn had extras - he’s a plucky young man here to fix your pipes, ma’am, but he’s not actually competent enough to be allowed near the real action.
• Louis Chandler - smarmy antiques dealer who is hanging around for unclear reasons, but may as well have “It’s me, I am the villain, I did it” tattooed on his forehead. It’s so obvious that I don’t even consider saying this to be a spoiler.

You can also ring your friends Bess and George to get a hint on what to do next, or a local journalist you know who exposition dumps (and for some reason sends you a letter at one point), but they don’t really count as people. In terms of boots on the ground characters, this is a much more restrained list than Stay Tuned For Danger, and it’s all the better for it.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Her Interactive

I’ve maybe buried the lede on what Nancy is up to here. She’s around to help with the renovation, sure, but more specifically there have been a bunch of accidents on site that Rose is concerned about, and as a player your raison détecter is: what’s up with those accidents? The answer will present itself extremely quickly in the form of some secret, possibly bootleggery hints about treasure, and Abby functions (in concert with the presupposed haunted status of the title, which doesn’t even make sense, but I won’t rant about that or it’ll take up the entire article) as a red herring for the fake hauntings.

It’s a bit of a shame, because by the time you start hearing spooky laughter or mysterious shapes disappearing round the corner, you’ve already debunked ghosts as a factor. The story behind the hidden treasure is actually quite sweet, but the letters are all hand-written and hard to decipher, so it’s a time that this game could have benefited from Nancy going full Aloy and narrating how nice the love story at the heart of it all was.

You spend most of your time running between rooms to cross-reference how to play notes on a piano, or write down Chinese words, in service of puzzles that range between extremely finnicky jigsaws to intelligent exploration. I liked a bunch of them and hated a bunch of others, especially one involving a safe lock. That’s par for the course. I was shocked that, despite the size of the building being smaller than previous games, I got lost and accidentally spun in circles - because of the weird fixed camera angle thing - more often. It’s particularly disorientating in the hotel, because the aggressively neutral hallways of hotels are tough to navigate in actual real life, let alone a video game with click-to-reorient-camera controls.

Ah yes, everything is now clear from reading this very legible document |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Her Interactive

The B&B itself is also a hilarious collision of influences and decor styles, the likes of which you would probably only see on a 90s episode of Changing Rooms. People keep saying that it might have been a hotel at one point, but there aren’t any records of that time, despite the fact that during your investigation you find many records of that time mentioning that it used to be a hotel, one of them in a book in the selfsame building’s library. Also, there is a bar in the basement. Which doesn’t seem usual for a regular home that was not a hotel.

Sudden Timed Life-Or-Death Situation After you’ve done enough poking around - including having a seance and bypassing someone’s computer password by playing a 3D maze game. A note is pushed under Nancy’s door telling her to leave. You go downstairs, but find that a small fire has been set in a box in the living room, and must, therefore, source a fire extinguisher (which is kept in a silly place). As Sudden Timed Life-Or-Death Situations go, it’s a step down from an IED in a tape player. It’s not even really aimed at our Nance.

The reduced scope of Haunted Mansion vs. Stay Tuned does work in its favour as you try to get around. There are no secondary locations, and you’re just tooling around the place. There’s also an alarm clock in your room that functions as a skip time ability, allowing you to trigger the next cardinal story simply by going to sleep, or wait until Abby has gone out to go through all her weird crystals in her room. I was surprised that the timing system worked so well, and that I didn’t get annoyed by it. I loved that alarm clock, dammit.

The more manageable scope helps with the other, more 90s restrictions of the game. I did have to consult a walkthrough again, because these games are hard as nails by today’s standards, and sometimes you have to talk to someone, go to sleep for a bit, and then talk to them again to trigger the next event. Doors or chests you’ve previously unlocked must still be manually unlocked every single time you want to open them, there’s still no autosave, and you can still insta-fail at a few rare points. You do have a kind of quest log this time, though! Although it’s a briefly updated notebook you keep in your suitcase in your room. You must manually unlock the suitcase every time, of course.

So we can see that Message In A Haunted Mansion is making moves towards the future by giving you your inaccessible notebook (which was useful to me exactly once), and taking the day/night cycle of Stay Tuned and making it a full 24-hour cycle. But when you factor in the reused and extremely obvious plot elements, it smacks a bit of polishing a proverbial. Not a turd, because it’s not terrible , but Haunted Mansion is definitely my least favourite so far. But that’s okay, because we still have loads of these to go.

Case Rankings

1. Secrets Can Kill (1998) (-)
2. Stay Tuned For Danger (1999) (-)
3. Message In A Haunted Mansion (2000) (New entry)

Nancy Drew: Message In a Haunted Mansion

Nintendo GBA

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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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