The Fremen are the missing link in Dune: Awakening’s efforts to be more than a survival game

Thoughts from the beta

Image credit:Funcom

Among the first terrain fixtures you discover on Dune: Awakening ’s Arrakis are moisture seals: puffy wads of fabric that fill cave entrances to create makeshift microclimates, where travellers can escape the constant threat of dehydration. Awakening’s moisture seal are, in practice, the paper lid on a tube of wilderness Pringles: poke through with your dagger to find resources and the occasional hostile NPC. But what if you could place your own moisture seals, rather than just tearing open the ones left by NPCs? I’d love to play a game in which you are constantly reading the barren landscape for the shallowest of shady depressions that can be plugged and converted into shelters. Think of the attentiveness it might teach, the sensitivity to the geometry of a world that can drain your O2 bar dry in moments.

Dune Awakening is not currently that game, unless I missed some unlocks in this weekend’s beta. It is a routine-feeling survival MMO in which you wave your magic build-o-wand to create a perfectly cuboid, holographic “sub-fiefdom”, then populate that cube with boxy habitats, power generators and 3D printers. These structures aren’t artfully tucked into the geography, like the moisture seal shelters, but plastered rigidly on top of it. The beta’s opening rock outcrops are absolutely clogged with them, most now forgotten as players hasten onward to the next objective, hence developer Funcom actually calling on people to clean up their old bases as they go.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Funcom

Naturally, you’ll need resources to conjure yourself a habitat, which means you’ll need to constantly tap buttons as you explore to accrue gobbets of copper and plant fibre. The presence of a mining minigame, where you scan larger objects for cuttable seams, is designed to make resource-gathering feel like a mindful pursuit. In practice, it just forces your attention onto something that will never be more than a chore.

Awakening is also, in fairness, a game that extracts some fun and even novel mechanics from the workings of the Dune fiction. Heat stroke, for one: to avoid it, you’ll need to cling to shadows as they shift around at the behest of the day-night cycle. This is the kind of attentiveness I was yearning for above: it’s like a stealth game in which your enemy is a star. I enjoy hiding from the sunlight a lot more than defeating the early “Scavenger” opposition - these raggedy vagrants come in melee and projectile flavours, and are easily ambushed and outwitted by means of basic parries and peek-shooting.

More thrillingly, there are the sandworms. These omnivorous burrowing megafauna prowl the open desert between the rockier stretches, and are drawn to the sound of feet and engines. I’ve spent my first couple of hours in the game hopping between outcrops, and it’s pleasantly alarming to feel the ground heave a little, scry an approaching sand cloud… and risk sprinting across the gap regardless. Later, there’s the prospect of siccing those worms on rival players in the course of running a spice mining guild, by which point you’ll hopefully have a grander, permanent base stocked with ornithopters and tanks.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Funcom

Still, for every moderately distinctive thing Dune Awakening does, it lumbers you with another overfamiliar survival game routine. I am about 3.6 hours in right now, and the task at hand is to research and construct a more powerful power generator. These generic activities are more stupefying for being foisted on such an engrossing setting. Perhaps worst of all, there’s Awakening’s approach to the extraction of drinking water from blood, one of Dune’s ghastlier and more personal rituals. Here, it’s just another thing to farm with no apparent social context: the Scavengers respawn, so by all means go full Fallout Vampire.

The other way of framing all of the above is that Dune Awakening does not, currently, let you play as the Fremen - a nomad society who have developed their entire culture in response to the rigours of survival, from their justice system through the development of hermetic stilsuits, to the sanctity they attach to sharing blood. Instead, you play a wayfarer from another planet, sent to Arrakis by the scheming Bene Gesserit to search for the Fremen, who - in this particular narrative continuity - appear to have been wiped out by the Emperor and his Sardaukar shocktroopers.

During an initial, forboding interview with a Bene Gesserit matriarch, you get to choose a homeworld and a childhood mentor which equate to a starting class, abilities and skilltrees. Those who trained under an Atreides swordmaster get melee buffs and a staggering knee-charge; those with a military background get a grappling hook and prowess with firearms; those who were schooled by the Bene Gesserit can hypnotise and compel NPCs.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Funcom

All of these skills and abilities match the game’s opening trials and hazards, but they do, nonetheless, come across as impositions. It’s as though Awakening’s very survival game component were a cluster of imperial technologies clumsily applied to an unreceptive planet. Perhaps the point is to transcend them. In setting out to rediscover the Fremen, you are, of course, loosely following the narrative arc of Dune’s Paul Atreides, who came to Arrakis as a viceroy but later learned Fremen ways and transformed himself into their messiah (thereby hijacking a prophecy seeded by the Bene Gesserit, centuries before). The opening story beats - which are crudely mashed in amongst the on-boarding screens for crafting and research - involve playable dream-visions of Fremen teachings. It seems likely that Awakening’s lategame will feature a Fremen skilltree or two.

Still, I get the sense from interviews that Dune Awakening is less about refiguring the survival game as a narrative prop, and more a show of adherence to convention and boilerplate ideas about fun. The developers experimented with sandwalking, for example - the Fremen trick of dragging their feet to mimic the settling dunes and so, avoid rousing the local sandworm. Fancy crouch-walking, you could sneeringly call it, but still, I love the idea of a ‘stealth mechanic’ that challenges you to step like a desert, to observe and follow the cadences of shifting sand. Funcom binned the functionality , however, because “it looked ridiculous, and it made you walk really slowly.” Pooh!

Perhaps players will devise their own, janky equivalents for sandwalking as they learn to manipulate the worms, akin to bunny-hopping in shooters. Or perhaps Funcom will belatedly revisit the idea in the course of adding other features, like worm-riding. Or player-planted moisture seals. I am crossing my fingers, because while Awakening leaves me newly enthused for Dune - a fiction I haven’t hitherto spent much time with - this is quite a frustrating adaptation so far. Like many a survival game before, it basically feels like an exercise in ruining its own world, colonising away all the things that make it intriguing.

Dune: Awakening

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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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