The old are dying and the new struggle to be born in Stray Children, an RPG bullet hell of fruitful frustration

This be the verse

Image credit:Onion Games / Rock Paper Shotgun

Stray Children begins with your inexplicably dog-faced orphan being invited out at night by a peculiar, grinning man. You follow him through empty streets to a secret room in an underground train station, packed with elderly computing equipment. The man tells you that this used to be your father’s workplace. He warns you not to touch one of the computers, then shambles off theatrically for an indefinite toilet break. With no other option save heading home alone, you poke the forbidden console and are promptly sucked inside it.

Delivered in the context of what could, for all its Narnian absurdity, be a case of abduction, the patent false choices here deftly preface a fable about toxic power dynamics between adults and children. As the child, you are a force of novelty and change, but to begin with, at least, you must scurry along rails laid down by your elders and betters.

Inside the console, you’re enmeshed in a sequence of gorgeous and emaciated, PS1-era fantasy worlds apparently devised by your missing dad. There are glacial prison camps dedicated to insomnia and litter disposal; clockwork flying islands strewn with smashed claymation statues; salmon-pink, Sergeant Peppery swamps; nicotine-yellow, smartphone-lit labyrinths of Pom Poko commuters. There are also other children, all of them tyrannised, manipulated or besieged by adults who have transformed into monsters such as lustful frog kings and Funko Pop vampires.

These “Olders” rework the menageries of Dragon Quest and co into sets of mutant Jungian archetypes. Their traumas literally split their skins to produce creatures that cartoonify and sanitise problems like workplace burnout, chronic debt and loneliness. Find those molted skins, and you can enter each Older into a bestiary that offers clues as to the creature’s formative dysfunction. As in Undertale , a massive influence here, you can then whisper key phrases to Olders in mostly random, turn-based battles to unclog their emotions and “save their souls”.

Or, you can smash the Older’s gibbering sprite with a spade. While pacifying every Older may seem like the right way to play – if nothing else, it removes that enemy forever from the random battle pool - swatting them all dead possibly makes for a better game, because it does more justice to Stray Children’s gimmick-rich bullet hell elements.

Your offensive options consist only of an attack power QTE, but when the Older hits back, anything might happen. The arena could become an ice block maze where Disgaea penguins pirouette towards you, farting coronas of crystals. Or a Dali clockface that winds and rewinds its payload of green fire. All of these skits are daffy reflections of the Older’s defining trauma, which may prove to be something relatively innocuous. There’s a pig in a porkpie hat, for example, whose squealing assaults embody a dislike of small talk.

Image credit:Onion Games / Rock Paper Shotgun

Surviving the potted bullet hellscapes is less about reflexes, more about tricks such as kiting a targetting halo, with shrewd pattern recognition encouraged by the absence of a dodge or sprint. Chapter-closing boss Olders deliver bespoke minigame elements. You might have to pick from unit cards dealt by a rundown Pennywise. You might have to rip batteries from the motherboard of god.

I love how heedless developers Onion Games are of the hidebound binaries of realism and fantasy, earnestness and irony that govern many other RPGs - that need to either avoid breaking the “fourth wall” or make a point of pissing on its rubble. Even before you venture inside the game within the game, Stray Children seems comfortable with its own status as metafiction, confident that you will feel the weight of its tale even when its allusions provoke whiplash and create the impression that it is copy-pasting research tabs at whim.

The same ad lib crackpot energy informs the business of pacifying Olders, which requires you to feed them phrases in the correct order, based on your bestiary snippets and other hints. An example with no spoilers: when fighting the Slothbell, a doleful pencilneck moth, your options are “higher?”, “lower?”, “tired?”, “slower?”, “on top?” and “get to work!” Make the right choices and the creature will hum with pleasure; make all the right choices, and you can seal the deal with an “Open Sesame”, bursting the arena like a seedpod and sending the liberated monster to heaven.

Image credit:Onion Games / Rock Paper Shotgun

Some of these verbal puzzles are cheap jokes, phoned-in newspaper riddles. A couple are borderline nonsensical in a way that makes me empathise for the English localisation team, teasing together local equivalents for Japanese puns. Some channel Shakespeare, others involve acrostics, and a few are more like reading and keeping pace with state changes in other RPGs.

While feisty of conceit, however, the word puzzles can be very frustrating. Each Older concept invites you to be playful, as much by constraining your vocabulary as by way of the individual keywords and the louche and boggling visual elements. But there is only ever one desired sequence of phrases. Speak out of turn, and the Older may throw a tantrum and hit you with a longer version of a regular attack, then oblige you to start from the beginning. This trial-and-repetition focus has the abysmal side effect of draining your enthusiasm for the accompanying bullet hell bits.

The wrist-slapping roteness of the initially colourful verbal puzzling echoes wider irritation with Stray Children’s overall linear structure. Unlike in the developer’s previous Moon: RPG Remix Adventure, you aren’t given a world to roam freely while you have the energy to keep your eyes open. Instead, you’re chewing through chapters and enclaves of NPCs with many points of no return. Wooing late-game Olders requires that you acquire certain items or insights that are squirrelled away in an alcove or optional dialogue in the opening hour. So as when pacifying individual Olders, you might need to start the whole thing over to get the ending you desire.

It seems cantakerous and arbitrary. And well, isn’t that how adults often appear to children? While I find Stray Children too annoying to complete – hence this not being a full review - I think to complain about the game’s opaque strictness of sequence is to miss how this plays out the wider story theme. I had caring parents and kind teachers as a kid, but I knew plenty of ogreish Olders - so did you, I’m sure. I remember the times when an instruction became less about instruction and more a need for control obliged by exhaustion and inability to explain certain wrinkles of the universe to a ten-year-old. Just do it that way because I said so, you little brat.

Image credit:Onion Games / Rock Paper Shotgun

Of course, I am an Older myself now, and I’ve said things like this to kids, much as I try not to. Kids are a pain in the arse: always banging on doors without understanding what it means to open them, always saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. I feel bouyed by their lack of inhibition but also, god, will you please stop pushing my buttons and leave me alone (running away from battles to gather intelligence in Stray Children is, incidentally, a much sounder strategy than using up patience and healing items, while you figure out a peaceful resolution).

I feel that same yearning and exasperation in the oddly clenched and miserly nature of Stray Children’s construction, for all its occasional resemblance to a series of brilliant and brilliantly mismatched bedtime storybooks, shoved into your hands by a wakeful child. This is a game designed by Olders for Olders who are both deeply aggravated by children, perhaps even afraid of them, and hoping to be saved by them.

Stray Children

PC , Nintendo Switch

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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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