Once Human review: waiter, there’s some brilliant creature design in my big bland survival soup

Haunted fridges buy you a lot of goodwill, honestly

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Starry Studio

• Developer: Starry Studio
• Publisher: Starry Studio
• Release: Out Now
• On: Windows
• From: Steam
• Price: Free
• Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-8600K, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 2070, Windows 10

So I’ve just hopped on my motorbike, enjoying one of several pleasingly incongruent classical musical tracks that plays from the radio, on my way to tick tasks off a list in the top right corner of my screen by scavenging an abandoned hospital. It’s a great hospital, by the way. Spotlight-headed phantasma shamble about corridors reminiscent of The Division 2 or The Last Of Us ’s naturalia .

Striking, but also within easy reach of comparisons. And if Once Human was purely the collection of x from ys it very much appears to be, I’m not sure I’d have much positive to say about it. On the surface, what you’re getting here is a 6/10 third-person shooter from ten years ago that gleefully spills thumbtacks along any simple paths to progress with live service obfuscation, propped up by a detached crafting and building economy that has you popping mined rocks and chopped wood in the oven then taking out freshly baked shotguns a few minutes later. Its systems run the gamut from numbly enjoyable to being a source of major psychic damage, and even the simple act of replacing your initial tier I rustic baseball cap means navigating several menus, currencies, and resources.

But, look. I’m on the way back from the hospital when I notice a small robot furiously drubbing the road with a pick so fast that its blocky head vibrates, and so rapidly I can’t work out if it’s a glitch or not. I jump off my motorbike and interact with it. My character pats the robots head, after which it disappears. I’ll find out what this robot’s deal is a few hours later, and while it kills the mystery for me, that initial encounter serves to prime my tired eyes for enough additional oddness and creativity that I can’t help kind of liking Once Human, even if I never plan to play it again.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Starry Studio

I kill my first boss solo, but there’s a team gathering menu accessible beforehand where you can rope in temporary allies like a Destiny strike. The boss itself is a giant idiot, a lumpen mass of tissue and metal. It fires angrily at me with a gatling gun fused to its flesh, and when it stops to reload I stroll out of cover, pop off a few shots, and repeat these moves until I win. As a reward, I get a yellow slime with googly eyes I take back to my base and pop in a little containment facility, after which I can deploy it during fights as a big slimy barricade I can duck behind, still with the googly eyes. Travelling around after the boss, I encounter a giant six-legged bus that shimmers with phantasmagorical light. I climb inside of it and my yellow gel friend and I take in the sights as it shambles around the map.

I… god, I’m so sorry. I… think you should play this game?

It’s not good . I need to make that clear. But it’s got a strange sort of soul and even a little sinew, even if they’re both shrouded in a lingering distrust that the player will appreciate them if they aren’t dolled out as rewards for feverishly studying its moth-eaten stacks of proprietaries like a tormented librarian.

Don’t play it if you’ve got literally anything else on, either. The first few hours are a certifiable shite saga. After floating down from the sky on a talking purple bird it takes me twenty minutes to find somewhere to set up my base that isn’t already occupied by another player, after which I’m bombarded by menus seemingly meant to nuke my willpower into a submissive fugue of sunk cost. Open the function wheel, then select Cradle to enter the Memetic screen. Open the Memetic screens and unlock the Disassembly Bench under the Gathering type. Open my skull with a large can opener.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Starry Studio

Getting my first gun involves a crafting pipeline obnoxious enough to inspire eco-saboteurs. Furnace. Charcoal. Ingots. Disassembly bench. Scrap. Need more scrap. I’m given a map marker then sprint for three solid minutes to get there. Open some chests. Shoot one (1) zombie. Teleport back to my territory. I start working my way up the crafting tree to build a shotgun. At one point, I need to craft 30 or so charcoal from wood. It takes 30 seconds. I wait. Copper ingot next. It’ll take two minutes. Suppose I better click on some rocks, then.

But you like clicking on rocks, says Once Human, or you wouldn’t be here. I’ve been known to enjoy a pickaxe in my time, sure. But only, really, when this stuff works towards breathing danger and texture into both fictional destinations and your place within their ecosystem. But there’s something distinctly bolted-on about the survival and crafting here. Absent are the joys of employing necessary resourcefulness in a harsh environment, of mastering an ecoystem like, say, a Green Hell . Neither is there that final tying of the knot, of looping back survival demands into that ritual of crawling back home bruised and parched after a harsh excursion, and how it plays into the rhythms and routines of existing in a new world. The landscape feels like a lobby, even if the UX didn’t feel actively hostile to the idea you might accidentally forget you’re engaging with a product first, world second.

And yet…

Players can leave little buds with messages on for each other. I find one early that reads “Welcome to the unknown. We love it here.” It takes a while to sink in because, honestly, there’s very little unknown about the lake-tree-rock-hill repetition of the landscape surrounding my little patch of territory. But I keep playing and exploring the world, dotted with level-suggestions and mini-dungeons and friendly outposts. Eventually, I start noticing things. Painted murals of cartoon bears in the ruins of bedrooms. Scuttling purple oddities wearing hazard containment tarpaulin like kids dressed as halloween ghosts. Haunted fridges. Corpses stuck in place by a sort of amber-hued bile.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Starry Studio

I start to learn what my favourite activities are. Poaching deer on my neighbours lands with an SMG. Shoulder barging zombies with one of a handful of really quite gratifying melee animations that elevate otherwise weightless combat. Driving around on my bike scouting out new weird creatures. One is a scarecrow. A scarecrow! I’m convinced that the more I learn about how this game actually functions the less intrigued I’m going to be by it all, but I’m left appreciative and also a bit sad. There’s some real artistry locked behind this cage.

Sometimes, games are all about finding our own personal happy place within their many systems. My other favourite activity in Once Human is that thing where you press each of the WASD keys in quick succession so your character moves in perfect circles. I often did this while I was waiting for items to craft. I highly recommend it, but although Once Human is free, is it a 50gb download, and I suspect you might already have something in your library that lets you do this.

I dearly hope the creature designers and whoever was responsible for the more dense environmental locations get to work on a project that’s confident enough to charge upfront, so that everything good about their work doesn’t have to be doled out piecemeal to support such an obtuse and elaborate live service. Ditto a crafting and building system that feels so detached from everything else I can’t take it as anything but trend-chasing.

It all ends up feeling like someone pushed a cult classic console gem through a shredder and filled in the space between the strips with silica gel and sausage rusk and self-assessment forms. But its saving grace lies in the fact that it doesn’t feel cynical as much as it feels adherent, almost like its trapped under a pile of norms and necessaries needed for it to exist in the first place. Maybe you’ll fancy enduring long enough to find the places where it pokes its curious little head out from under that rubble. The little robot was for mining ore, by the way, so it might help.

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Once Human

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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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