Paradox respond to the accusation that they fix games with paid DLC - “we try to find a middle ground”

Victoria 3 launching without proper warfare was a “fail”, acknowledges deputy CEO

Image credit:Paradox Interactive

Fire up the Steam page for Stellaris , one of my favourite space sims, and you will see 28 pieces of DLC, ranging from free character portraits to £35 expansion passes that span a bunch of species and story packs. Stablemate Europa Universalis 4 has 37 DLC packs under its banner, while Cities Skylines is streets ahead with a whopping 62. Paradox Interactive have long built their core game business around putative forever-projects that trail an enormous mantle of paid expansions. It’s seemingly this, as much as their institutional expertise with 4X, that justifies their commitment to grand strategy games, whose worlds and systems can be fleshed out for literal decades.

One drawback of this approach is that Paradox may at least appear to be deliberately withholding features in order to sell expansions down the road. It’s certainly a fair conclusion to make when said DLC expansions are later folded back into the base game , which implies that they should have been there to start with. Pretty much every Paradox game I know of has a vociferous group of players who accuse the company of releasing games that must be “fixed with paid DLC”. This is especially true of sequels, which inevitably look skinny and malnourished next to their much-expanded and updated predecessors. At the company’s Media Day last week, I asked deputy CEO Mathias Lilja how exactly the company assign resources between main game and DLC development, and how they address the perception of “fixing with DLC” - especially given their more recent experiments with subscription models , which arguably bake in the practice of holding material back.

Lilja began by making what struck me as a slightly unhelpful comparison with painting, designed, I think, to illustrate that game development is a messy, open-ended process. “I think that’s one of the things that we’re trying to do - to address that [perception],” he said. “The reason that our business is sustainable is that we launch a game, that is good enough. But, like a painting - when is a painting done? When you stop painting it, I guess. Game development is quite a lot the same.”

More intelligibly, Lilja suggested that Paradox’s developers have long had a kind of unspoken agreement with dedicated players that they will build a business around DLC without taking the piss. “That’s the deal we have with our fans - we will continue to develop these games as long as you play it, and we can sell DLC. That’s our sustainable business, and that’s how we get these games that live for - [in the case of] Europa Universalis 4, it’s about 10 years now. It’s now called Early Access, but we did that earlier and we didn’t call it that. We developed as far as we thought would [make for] a good game. And if we have fans that want it, they will play it, and then we can continue to build on it.”

Lilja thinks that “expectations are higher” today with regard to how much goes into the base game - a continuation of sentiments from earlier in the interview about how “accepting” players are that technical problems will be fixed after launch . But he still thinks Paradox are walking the line well enough. “If you look at Crusader Kings 3 , it was a really solid game at launch and it now has DLC,” he said. “But we also offer another subscription model, so people can come in and at least try content without having to invest as heavily. And some stay in the subscription model, some convert to DLC, when they’ve had a chance to feel around. So we try to find ways for people to not have to say ‘yes, all in’ or ’no, never’ but to find a middle ground.”

Lilja also shared a little about how exactly Paradox first-party divide their resources between developing for the base game and for post-release expansions, including some thoughts on when and where the developers may have gotten the ratio wrong. “We build games of systems - it’s a system of systems, that’s mostly what our games are,” he said. “Not all systems are created equal. So the question is, what systems are core to this game. The experience of Hearts of Iron 4 - what is the most important system to have fully fleshed-out to make it a good game, that has to be there? But maybe we don’t do everything because again, we would never be done.”

“When we fail, it looks something like Victoria 3 ,” he went on. “People wanted more warfare. It existed in the game, but it was barebones - you could go to war, but maybe that was not the [focus]. So you had other things, diplomacy, economics, building your country, whatever. But people wanted the warfare. So there we maybe missed it a bit. Maybe we should have focused on that, because that was part of the fantasy that people wanted in this game.” Paradox are still “catching up” with Victoria 3, he added.

What does this division of labour and resources translate to in hard numbers, I asked? How do Paradox allocate time between the launch game and post-release development? It’s obviously quite a broad question - different projects have different ins and outs, and Lilja didn’t give me a very granular answer. But he did estimate that, right now, a Paradox grand strategy game might take around five years to make, versus around a year for a larger paid expansion.

“Five years to make, depending on the length of the concept phase, which can be quite long as well, and then a DLC takes maybe a year,” he said. “So it could be five to one, for the base game versus the first big DLC expansion. We can do smaller content, but it’s very clear that people prefer the bigger DLCs. That’s what people like - the smaller content pieces are maybe nice to have, but it’s the bigger pieces.”

The picture is always shifting, however. Echoing other industry executives , Lilja observed that development costs have gone up dramatically over the past decade. “Generally speaking, the requirements on games, have grown over time,” he noted. “People get accustomed to a certain standard, I guess. And they expect that or better. So team sizes over time have grown quite a lot. I think generally that is also part of the problem, right now in the games industry, that teams are huge. Our teams aren’t huge, but they’re way bigger now than they were a couple of years ago, or 10 years ago. It’s a big difference.”

Paradox’s team sizes have expanded partly because they want their grand strategy games to reach players who might find grand strategy absolutely impenetrable. “We want our games to be more accessible, so we need to focus more on that than just the core features - we need to build out around these things,” Lilja said. “But it also means that every piece of content we make becomes more expensive.”

The unspoken context here, of course, is that Paradox have been doing a lot of cost-cutting over the past two years, closing studios, cancelling games and laying people off. This seemingly has less to do with the publisher’s tentpole grand strategy business than with their outside bets on new genres, such as XCOM-style turn-based tactics games and life sims . But Paradox’s grand strategy forever-games haven’t all escaped the guillotine: the publishers stopped supporting updates for Nimble Giant’s unfortunately titled Star Trek: Infinite the year after launch.

I spoke to Paradox’s chief creative officer Henrik Fåhraeus after my chat with Lilja. He had less patience for the charge of “fixing games with DLC”, arguing that Paradox have a decent track record for overhauling and adding to their games at no further cost. “That’s the negative way of looking at it,” he told me. “This game will live for a long time and even if I don’t buy anything, it’s going to keep getting better, right? That’s what we’re after.”

Fåhraeus did caveat that Paradox have gotten a little “lost” recently with regard to their paid DLC strategy. But he also told me that you can’t please everyone. “Since this is subjective, there will always be people who think that every game is incomplete, when we release it, and that it needs more of something,” he said. “So there’s no getting around that, but what we can do is do our utmost to ensure that it feels like a really good game, that the quality is high and that it meets player expectations. What do players expect? Quality.”

This news piece is the fourth in what I would have branded the Paradox Files, if the conversations were slightly juicier, or if I had slightly less shame. Elsewhen at the same event, Lilja aired his current expectations for the much-delayed and shuffled-around Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 , which increasingly feels like it should be called something else. He and Fåhraeus also talked about what went wrong with Life By You, and why they’re still keen to publish a Paradox life sim .

Crusader Kings III

Video Game

Europa Universalis IV

PC , Mac

Victoria 3

PC

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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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