Sand Land review: a boring Mad Max lite that should have been very exciting

More like Bland Land, am I right?

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco

• Developer: ILCA
• Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
• Release: April 25th
• On: Windows 10
• From: Steam , Humble
• Price: £60/€60/$60
• Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-11340F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060, Windows 11

Sand Land is like a sanitised manga-ish Mad Max Fury Road, where there are fewer explosions and nobody huffs paint and screams “Witness me!”. So, arguably, a less cool Mad Max. In this incarnation it’s an open world action game with light RPG elements; in previous incarnations it is a manga and anime by the creator of Dragon Ball . My takeaway from playing Sand Land the game is that it is a tremendous advert for the manga and anime, in the sense that everything good about Sand Land the game is from those, and I would rather be reading or watching them instead.

The plot of the game follows - as far as I can gather, because I’m not familiar with the source material - the plot of the anime, which expanded the original manga. You play as Prince Beelzebub, a small but very powerful little demonic scamp, who, along with his friend Thief (a thief), joins an old soldier from the human army to bring water back to the giant desert that is Sand Land. Ever since a war for the remaining water source decades before, the King has kept control of a secret water source - and thus control of the population of his kingdom. You (spoilers) do manage to liberate the water in short order, at which point a threat from the neighbouring Forest Land reveals itself.

You’re aided in your quests by Ann, an ace mechanic with Daisy Dukes and a secret, who builds Prince & Co. a selection of vehicles and mechs (referred to as bots) to speed them on their way. First off you get a tank, then a jump mech and a motorbike, but you can get others like a hopper and a hover car. You can upgrade them, and customise them with new weapons and extra abilities - a flaming thruster, seeker missiles, or just better armour. When you’re out and about in the world you can switch between them as the need dictates, or hop out of them to biff enemies directly.

Around this you can do some bounty contracts, save some locals, get in regularly scheduled boss fights, have a house, and speed around the environment collecting crafting materials by slamming into trees or shooting dinosaurs. You can upgrade yourself and your mates with new combat abilities (punch very hard, etc.). Sometimes there is a stealth section, but they’re so rare I almost forget to mention them. Sometimes there is what I will, with the lavish generosity of Harvester’s limitless salad bar, refer to as a puzzle dungeon.

I am explaning the basic functions of the game to you in a very dry way firstly because that is thematically very apt, and secondly because in practise it is all tremendously boring. This is kind of an achievement because the characters and premise are great; Prince’s rare interactions with his father are very funny, Thief, just, as a concept is a favourite of mine, and the animation and direction on cutscenes are fabulous. I particularly loved a recurring family group called the Swimmers, a buff middle-aged man and his large adult sons who cut about in speedos, and General Krowa, a teddy boy with a motorbike and an army commission.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco

But most of this can, presumably, be credited to the source material, which does seem terrific. Translated to a game, though, and you’re just travelling through mostly empty spaces at medium speed. The vehicles you do this in do feel different to handle, but the weapons have little to separate them, so you only really change between bots when you have to get in a mech that can jump - a feature of the repetetive dungeons which quickly becomes infuriating, when you have to swap from the bike into your jump bot to leap over a slightly-too-tall crate, and then get out of it to walk through a small gap as Prince. This feels less like fun and more like a test of engagement, like when Netflix asks if you’re still watching to make sure you haven’t died in your chair in front of eight hours of Physical 100.

Building vehicles is somewhat fun, and finding a new gun or engine out in the wasteland does ignite a brief spark of excitement in your chest. But you have so many types of vehicle it ends up feeling more like admin, and is missing some stuff - like being able to pin the resources you need for a part to make it an active mission - that would make it easier and more engaging. You also lack the buy-in you get with, say, the actual Mad Max game, where you had just the one vehicle that you poured all your time and attention into, making it like a partner and not a means to an end. That doesn’t happen in Sand Land.

In fact there’s very little to attach you to anything. The side quests to grow your home base, Spiro, are almost all ‘kill X monsters’. The dungeons are ditchwater dull. The world is larger, but impressively empty. There are hidden caves and traversal challenges, but you quickly realise that these all just house resource crates, rather than anything actually surprising or delightful - and the map doesn’t mark them off once you’ve done them, which is very annoying. After the first stage of Sand Land, the expansion of Spiro kicks in and you can explore more of the map, so things get a tiny bit more interesting. But Forest Land just reskins the experience with some trees and grass, rather than adding actual substance. And it takes - I can’t emphasise this enough - fucking ages to even get to that point: at least ten hours of pissing about back and forth over the same small bit of desert. There is a lot of going to a town to have a single conversation and then immediately leaving again, which doesn’t treat a war with the kind of urgency I think it needs.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco

Combat, whether in or out of the cockpit, feels weightless, like you’ve disassociated from the controller. It becomes especially rote in boss fights, where the difficulty - which you will find trivial until the boss fights - rubberbands into being artificially hard by dint of it taking place in a weird arena with lasers. Combat barks are repeated with a punishing frequency (after one fight with Krowa I had “How ‘bout a molotov! " pinballing around my skull for hours). By rights this should be a very exciting game.

Despite Sand Land being a game with an emphasis on traversal, I mostly used the fast travel, because there was never anything happening in the world that I was afraid to miss. It all made me feel listless and petulant - oh, but I don’t wanna go there! - which is, I suppose, sort of in character for playing a young demon with limits on his gaming time. I’m going to watch the anime instead now.

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Sand Land

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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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