The Maw - 5th-10th February 2024

Our weekly newsblog with this week’s top videogame releases

Image credit:Wikimedia Commons/José Guadalupe Posada

The clouds over London have settled into the shapes of loading icons. The birds are singing old Celtic ditties. There are extinct species of fern growing through the vents of my i7 12700F. All these troubling signs point to but one, dire outcome: it’s time for another week of new videogame releases, and another week of feeding videogame gossip and reportage to the Maw, our weekly news liveblog.

Here are a few games we’re aiming the ol’ scrying crystals at this week: alchemy-themed puzzle adventure CLeM (6th Feb); 1980s-styled “Tetris + flying car” puzzler Space Garbage (6th Feb); Coven-building “4X card game” WitchHand (7th Feb); spoofy sci-fascist shooter Helldivers 2 (8th Feb); alt-theological dark fantasy The Inquisitor (8th Feb). Mind you, this week it’s all about the demos. That’s right, it’s time for another Steam Next Fest - have you had a chance to play any demos so far? Participating developers have taken to stuffing them up a few days in advance to beat the rush.

Our live coverage of this event has finished.

IT IS MONDAY . Spin up the Infinite Improbability Drive and FEED THE MAW.

Early on in development, The Last of Us Part 2 was envisaged as a “purely melee focussed” open world game inspired by Bloodborne, according to co-game director Anthony Newman. You can hear/see more about that in this Making-Of:

In the same Making-Of, we learn that Naughty Dog whizboss Neil Druckmann has ideas for a third The Last of Us game. “I don’t have a story, but I do have that concept,” he said. “That, to me, is as exciting as 1, as exciting as 2, is its own thing, yet has this through line for all 3. So it does feel like there’s probably one more chapter to this story.”

Oh lord, Starfield might not remain Xbox console exclusive , with Microsoft reportedly set to introduce a new strategy of bringing first-party games to Switch and PS5. It makes little direct difference to us over in the secluded solar systems of PC Gaming, of course, but it does mean that online discourse will be extra-stinky this week.

Some insight from Hideo Kojima about the origins of Fragile’s creepy shoulder hands in Death Stranding 2 On The Beach.

The “second hand” on the shoulder of Fragile, played by Léa. During the remote development of the pandemic, I suddenly thought, “I’d like to “like (hand sign)👍” and rest the chin with both hands even when you have luggage in both hands” so I drew a simple rough sketch and… pic.twitter.com/ADZGFIz4a0 — HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) February 3, 2024

A leaker (one of the more reliable ones) claims that there are “five Resident Evil games in development right now, including Resident Evil 9”.

Steam have added “elf” and “dwarf” tags , following a sustained campaign from the creators of Dwarf Fortress and Deep Rock Galactic. Do orcs next please.

They did WHAT?! https://t.co/IzF8MOFsmj — Kitfox Games 🦊 (@KitfoxGames) February 1, 2024

Here’s one we missed from last week - the 1.0 launch of Moonbreaker , a turn-based tactics game and “true digital miniatures experience” from the Subnautica devs. Ed Thorn found the early access build to be a fairly good time back in 2022.

A new Manor Lords video emerged over the weekend which delves into the game’s music. Lots of very nice strings, and some neat talk about the wider process of creating the soundtrack.

Apparently, people are using footage of Dorfromantik to advertise their own games. The developers have put up a Steam post asking players not to call attention to these ads, for obvious reasons.

There’s a demo up for Silent Hilly exclusion zone thriller Hollowbody.

Footgun Underground also has a demo. It’s a roguelike in which you fight things using your soccer skills and some accompanying 2D ricochet physics. I know, it’s a “genre + gimmick”-type thing, but the footage seems fun.

The Caribbean has come to Microsoft Flight Simulator, care of the latest free update.

Last week’s Factorio Friday Facts blog entry was particularly interesting to me. It was all about the sound improvements coming to Factorio’s 2.0 update , and talks through some very cool sound layering implementations, with plenty of demonstration video clips as well.

Spaceship RPG Between The Stars leaves early access on March 7th, adding a full campaign and various other features and fixes. Anyone here played it? I’m not sure anybody in the Treehouse has.

Your friendly neighbourhood TCG fan is here to let you know that a bunch of classic Yu-Gi-Oh! video games are headed to PC - and outside of Japan - for the first time! The Early Days Collection will bring the likes of 2000 Game Boy Color title Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist to the English language and Steam as part of the card game’s 25th anniversary celebrations.

Roblox has added the ability to instantly translate text chat between 16 different languages using an AI-powered tool , effectively allowing for real-time conversation between players speaking different dialects. The developers hope to apply a similar technology to voice chat next, aiming for translation that recreates the speaker’s intonation and rhythm in translated speech.

As Edwin noted this morning, Moonbreaker - the Warhammer-like tactics game from Subnautica devs and Brandon Sanderson - has exited early access into 1.0. There’s a new Boss Run mode, extra painting tools and more besides. Here’s a full rundown of what to expect .

Take the 2D colony management of Fallout Shelter with the trap-laying tower defence of Orcs Must Die, mix them both together in a wizard’s cauldron, and you end up with Artificer’s Tower, a magical tower defence game with just one, really big, tower .

IT IS TUESDAY . Whisper it: feed the maw.

Sorry for the site outages last night everybody. We had a Cascade Event and the Maw expanded past the 19th parallel, overwhelming the server farms. All hope seemed lost - but then, in our darkest hour, young Beetle Brownings, a News Writer Third Class out of Texas, rose from the trenches with a Witcher 4 Linkedin citation in one fist and a Nightingale overview trailer in the other, galloped into the breach and arrested the Maw’s advance for just long enough to allow the Resplendent Journomat to achieve Maximum Torque and reestablish the Wards. Glory to Beetle Brownings! A statue will be erected in her honour.

The creator of Daggerfall’s Unity version is making a brand new, “Daggerfall-style” game, as reported by Dualshockers .

There’s a “future of Xbox” event coming next week, according to Phil Spencer. Does this one involve more layoffs, Phil? Or is it about Xbox console exclusives coming to PlayStation, like the leakers have been saying?

We’re listening and we hear you. We’ve been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned. — Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 5, 2024

Laralyn McWilliams - an influential and widely respected game developer of 30 years standing, whose projects include Free Realms, Full Spectrum Warrior and Sid Meier’s Pirates - has passed away.

Laralyn McWilliams was a fiercely talented game developer who dedicated so much time to sharing her knowledge with others. She was kind and genuine and we will miss her. Rest easy. Spend some time listening to Laralyn today. https://t.co/UK6ocHKnXn — Kari Toyama (@TheDonWan) February 6, 2024

It’s claimed that Tencent have a free-to-play mobile version of Elden Ring on the boil - here’s my full write-up .

Enshrouded has an update that, amongst other things, fixes the unlocking of the Rake recipe and lowers the timer for chunks of world resetting in the player’s absence to 30 minutes.

Here’s a 20 minute walkthrough trailer for Pixelsplit’s Reveil, a Daedalic-published horror game set in a rather nasty circus.

IGN has a big piece on the gruelling development of Ubisoft’s naval pirate sim Skull And Bones, featuring on-the-record comment from the developers. Amongst other things, we hear about the cancellation of a planned single-player campaign and the effects of changes of studio leadership.

Well, this is a surprise. Nightingale is launching two days earlier than planned , devs Inflexion Games have announced. It’s now coming Tuesday February 20th.

Also a quick end of day plug for the brilliant little Bore Blasters Next Fest demo , which is sort of like Vampire Survivors meets Dome Keeper. The full game is also coming to Steam on March 8th.

An end-of-shift demo recommendation from me - Dusky Depths .

Helldivers 2, which is out in a couple of days, apparently has game masters who shape the co-op experience . Essentially developers who have the power to watch your co-op matches and put their fingers on the scales to help you against the aliens - or to help create dramatic scenarios, at least.

Anna Megill, writer on Control, Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider, and the upcoming Fable reboot, has joined CD Projekt Red as lead writer on the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 . Megill’s hiring was announced alongside several other high profile new joiners on the game, which is currently in “early stages of development”.

Crusader Kings 3 is getting another year of DLC, under the name Chapter 3. It includes two major expansions: one which adds the Black Death, and one which adds the Byzantine Empire. The first is called Legends Of The Dead and it’s out in March .

Infinite Craft is a free browser toy in which you can seemingly craft anything . There’s no objective to it, but experimenting with it is great fun.

Someone has made a 12-hour long video essay about Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace. Whether someone else has yet had the fortitude to watch all of it, I do not know.

IT’S WEDNESDAY . More steam, more steam! FEED THE MAW.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth got its very own State of Play showcase last night. Embarrassingly for all concerned, the game has yet to be announced for PC, but here’s the video anyway.

Lies of P is borrowing some weapons and gear from Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Worth returning to the game for? I’m still in the opening third myself.

Via DSOGaming , there’s an unofficial PC port of 1999-released RPG The Legend of Dragoon. It’s called Project: Severed Chains. Here’s a video of the graphical tune-ups. Preview: Legend of Dragoon 4K60FPS Update + Upscaled Graphics Mod Watch on YouTube

Valve have added Arms Race mode to Counter-Strike 2 as part of the latest round of tweaks and fixes .

They’ve patched Palworld again . This one fixes “an issue where if a Pal that was manually assigned to a breeding farm went to sleep, it would not wake up forever.” Chilling.

Ed has dug up an offbrand Armored Core game that puts him in mind of certain supermarkets. It turns out the “A” in “double-A” is for “Aldi”.

Final Fantasy 8’s director Yoshinori Kitase has told IGN that if he were remaking FF8, he’d change the game’s combat, and specifically the Junction system, noting that it’s hard for new players to get into. Good lord, the sleepless nights I spent trying to figure out the bloody Junction system. It seems fairly transparent in hindsight, but teenage Edwin was in over his head.

As picked up by PCG , NetEase Games lead designer Paul Sandler has written a blog about Activision’s 2009 firing of Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella. (The pair would go onto form Respawn Entertainment, who are doing pretty well for themselves these days.)

Visual Concepts Austin art manager Brad Bowling says that he and “a group of very talented developers” have been laid off. Visual Concepts are the developers of WWE 2K23, NBA 2K24 and Lego 2K Drive. Thanks, Eurogamer .

Paralives will heat up the race to be the next Sims with its early access release in 2025 , with the life sim’s developers confirming there’ll be no paid DLC - only free expansions.

More details on those layoffs at WWE, NBA and Lego 2K Drive developers Visual Concepts Austin , as mentioned by Edwin earlier.

Don’t expect us to remake Final Fantasy 8 after FF7 Remake , the RPG’s original director has suggested - it’s simply too much dang work.

PlayStation’s creative game-making toybox Dreams apparently almost made it to PC - with ray tracing support to boot - but now it’s dead .

IT IS THURSDAY . The Maw manifested inside a toilet cubicle this morning - we had to go ask the janitor guy from Alan Wake 2 for tips. FEED IT.

A joint statement from Gearbox Publishing and Blackbird Interactive: “After careful analysis of feedback, we made the decision to delay the global launch of Homeworld 3 until May 13, with advanced access set for May 10, to ensure that we’re making the final tweaks needed to deliver at the level of quality that we strive for and you deserve.” I didn’t think the controls were that unwieldy.

cpt_freakout says: Huh, what’s up with The Inquisitor? Had completely missed it, it looks interesting, like a Vampyr kind of thing? Hope you guys cover it!

I’ll see what we can do, but it looks like a larger game - fitting it in might be tricky.

Disney have sunk $1.5 billion into Epic Games and will collaborate with them “on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences”. It can only be a new Unreal Tournament set in Disneyland, right? Fortnite what now?

Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter has a report on the lack of funding for marginalised developers.

NEW: It’s harder than ever for game companies to get funding — and even worse for studios led by marginalized devs. Even at a peak in 2021, $4.1B in VC funding went to 223 companies led by men, while $1.2M went to 5 companies led by women. https://t.co/fnpbLmomj5 — Nicole Carpenter (@sweetpotatoes) February 7, 2024

The latest from Elias Toufexis, voice of Adam Jensen.

Deus Ex got canceled. This other massive game I was both acting and directing on got canceled and a third game I was acting and directing on got reworked and now starting from scratch, whole new team. The video game world is a disaster zone right now. — ᴇʟɪᴀꜱ ᴛᴏᴜꜰᴇxɪꜱ 🖖 (@EliasToufexis) February 8, 2024

Free-to-play turn-based tactics game Feud leaves early access on February 23rd. I’ve not played this but it seems fun. “Imagine chess, but on a four-by-four grid, where pieces are swapped rather than moved, each piece has its own special ability and– OK, not so much like chess.”

Kadokawa Corporation have - no, I refuse to make the obvious joke here - bought Acquire, co-developers of Octopath Traveler and, way back in the day, the developers of Tenchu and Way of the Samurai. Here’s Gematsu’s report .

Turn 10 are overhauling car progression in the latest Forza Motorsport.

Do you like Elden Ring? Not as much as this guy (spotted by Alice0), who has created a 600-page illustrated manuscript of his entire playthrough.

I just wishlisted this new point and click adventure Whirlight on the basis that one of the screenshots appears to reference Audrey II from The Little Shop Of Horrors (as well as many classic point and click adventures). My largest complaint right now is that the genius scientist should be the woman and the eccentric artist should be the washed up dude in shorts, but we can’t have everything.

Whirlight is out in 2025Watch on YouTube

Ooh eck, I like the cut of Hyperspace Deck Command .

CVC Capital Partners, backers of Six Nations Rugby, are rumoured to be in talks to buy Runescape developers Jagex for £900m.

I have just stumbled on tasty-seeming 1972-set immersive sim Spectra . Steam blurb excerpt: “You are Number 6, one of the Soviet Union’s top secret agents, sent by your superiors to infiltrate the dystopian fortress city of Hiawatha and help spark a revolution by destabilizing the local warlord, a massive corporation called Saturn.”

Fruits says: The Guardian published an article about games industry layoffs which reads like a more digestible version of that massive report linked in the Sunday Papers last weekend.

It’s a good piece !

Artisan Studios have announced Lost Hellden , a new RPG with contributions from Gravity Rush and FFXIV artist Takeshi Oga and Valkyria Chronicles and Tactics Ogre composer Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Assassin’s Creed’s visit to feudal Japan should arrive before March 2025 according to the latest Ubisoft financial report . The same update also confirms that Star Wars Outlaws is due to release sometime in 2024.

Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton described the survival sequel as a “game-as-a-service” in a financial report, causing much panic among lovers of the original. Developers Unknown Worlds have clarified that it’ll simply be an Early Access release with patches and optional co-op, with no plans for a battle pass or content seasons, in a blog post .

Helldivers 2 has been selling well since its release earlier today, but its Steam users reviews currently sit at “Mixed” due to crashes and matchmaking bugs. Developers Arrowhead say they’re working on a hotfix .

Fantasy roguelike citybuilder Against The Storm has outlined its 2024 development roadmap , which includes two more substantial free updates before its first DLC.

IT IS FRIDAY . The Maw beckons. FEED IT.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has defended the $70 US price tag of Skull And Bones in an investor call , describing the piracy sim as a “quadruple-A game”. Ubisoft will you stop trying to make “AAAA” happen, it’s not going to happen.

Take-Two are trying to reduce costs but have “no current plans” for layoffs, chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick has told IGN in an earnings call. “I would just note that our biggest line item of expense is actually marketing,” he told the site. “We do think we can optimize that. We also have third-party expenses, software, other vendors, supply services. And we always find opportunity there. The hardest thing to do is to lay off colleagues, and we have no current plans.”

Card Craft is a roguelike homage to Final Fantasy’s Triple Triad cardgame. It’s been in early access since 2022 and now has a release date. As a recovering Triple Triad player, I could see myself losing a lot of time to this.

Timemelters - a third-person tower defence game in which you rewind time to fight alongside your clones - also has a 1.0 release date. Set your Tardis to February 28th.

Time Extension has a feature on Perfect Entertainment’s Discworld games, from which PCG plucks the story that they might get a long-overdue re-release - the major difficulty being that only 50% of the rights are now in the hands of Perfect’s cofounder Gregg Barnett. The other half are in the hands of King Charles.

As reported by Eurogamer , the US Federal Trade Commission say that Microsoft’s recent mass layoffs “contradict” what the company said would happen after it gobbled up Activision Blizzard - specifically, that the layoffs undermine Microsoft’s earlier claims that the companies would continue to operate independently.

Pucker up for better kissing when Baldur’s Gate 3’s “hefty” latest update arrives next week , with Patch 6 also bringing new camp idle animations, Legendary Actions for Honour Mode and bug fixes for those less smooch-inclined.

Surprise! RuneScape makers Jagex are being bought by the multibillion sports giant behind Six Nations and LaLiga, for a reported £900m.

Ex-Fortnite devs’ ‘collaborative RPG’ Project ORCS aims to let you make your own Baldur’s Gate 3, and it’s launching into early access later this year.

All Rise channels Ace Attorney, Disco Elysium and Slay the Spire in a courtroom card battle to save the planet - both in-game and in reality, having started life as an effort to fund real legal-life battles against corporate polluters.

The Finals’ latest patch makes progression faster along its battle pass , granting quicker access to cosmetics - but not faster access to its weapon unlocks.

Hideo Kojima decided to listen to fans asking for him to return to the action-espionage genre after a serious illness in 2020 made him consider his own mortality . The result is Physint.

WitchHand is a worker placement 4X card game - or, perhaps more succinctly, Stacklands but about leading and growing a witch’s coven . It’s out now.

Steam Remote Play Together 2024 Fest kicks off on Monday with discounts and demos on co-op games - which, let’s face it, are the best kinds of games.

The French union STJV has expressed concerns about worker wellbeing at French developer Don’t Nod. The report includes mention of staff being reassigned at short notice, while teams are understaffed due to the studio working on 8 games simultaneously. In a response, Don’t Nod say they take the allegations seriously, and that they “understand the importance of transparency and accountability, and we are committed to addressing any issues raised constructively.”

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.

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

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.

Bore Blasters and its mix of Vampire Survivors meets Dome Keeper is, dare I say it, a blast

It’s coming out March 8th, but you can play its Next Fest demo now

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/8BitSkull

Many a Survivors-like has come and gone over the last couple of years, but Bore Blasters might be the first one that’s really struck a chord with me. Or maybe that should be struck gold, as this mining roguelike is all about collecting little gem-like nuggets while boring deep underground for treasure and fending off all manner of flying eyeballs, bats and other unmentionable horrors with wings. I’ve been playing its Steam Next Fest demo this morning, and my initial impression is that it’s a little bit Dome Keeper , a little bit SteamWorld Dig , and very, very good. Even better, developers 8BitSkull have just announced it’s coming out in full next month.

Launching on March 8th (with native support for Steam Deck in tow, too), Bore Blasters gets three things absolutely right. Its sound design is impeccable, with the low grumble of your gyrocopter’s guns tearing through rock meshing perfectly with the satisfying blp blp blp of sucking up gold and crystals and the rocky, almost Doom-like guitar wails of its underlying soundtrack. I also love the rush of your special ability, which lets you rip through all manner of rock tiers in timed blasts like a jet-propelled shark. It only lasts a couple of seconds, but really lets you make some headway in getting down to the level’s maximum depth while conserving your limited amount of fuel (which can be topped up by blasting little fuel cannisters along the way if you spot them).

The thing I like most about Bore Blasters, though, is all the lovely chunky numbers. It’s like Borderlands on steroids, and the sheer amount of quantified destruction on display is just, yep, that’s the good stuff right there. Your gem counter is constantly racking up as well, with later upgrades letting you earn more each individual nugget, and at the end of each level you get a full rundown of your earnings, the depth you achieved, blocks destroyed, gems collected, and enemies defeated, all to the tune of chain-like crankings as the numbers tick up in front of you. It’s glorious, and makes every completing a level feel like a real achievement.

Admittedly, the Next Fest demo doesn’t really tap too deeply into its Vampire Survivors -like vein just yet. The levels which do have enemies are reasonably tame by Poncle standards, and since each level ends when you reach its respective treasure, the stakes never escalate to the point where you really need to start thinking about which upgrade you’re going to choose next. Still, as levels get deeper, darker and trickier to navigate, I hope this will come into play a bit more in the final game. I do love how levels start out with great visibility but increasingly rely on your copter’s torchlight to see where you’re going the deeper you go, and I can imagine things getting quite hairy when you’re trying to cut through rock, fend off baddies and not deplete your limited number of shields by crashing into things all at the same time.

Still, Bore Blasters’ 30-minute-odd Next Fest demo is great fun even without all that, so do give it a go when you get a chance (along with all our other Next Fest recommendations ). Here’s hoping its full release on March 8th will deliver the goods on this promising first impression.

Bore Blasters

PC

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.