The original Fallout is the perfect antidote to Fallout fever

War did change, actually

Image credit:Bethesda Softworks

He made specific links between the original Fallout and the “robust and dynamic” quest and conversation design of New Vegas, which he feels have outlived some early player upset over the game’s similarity to Fallout 3 . “I think that’s what has lasted,” Sawyer told Jeremy. “The initial impact where people said the gameplay feels very close to Fallout 3 is totally fair. But then as time stretches on, and people play them side by side, the fact that we had so much of our time to focus on the content, I think that’s what people were excited about.”

Image credit:Bethesda Softworks

Sawyer’s association with Fallout goes deeper than New Vegas - he joined Black Isle in 1999, and was one of the lead designers on a third Black Isle Fallout game, codenamed Van Buren, before Black Isle closed in 2003 (Richard Cobbett wrote a piece about it and several other cancelled RPGs back in 2015). Obsidian themselves were founded by former Black Isle developers in the same year. It makes sense, then, that Sawyer would default to viewing Black Isle’s Fallout as “foundational”, though he doesn’t appear to harbour any grudges towards Bethesda’s subsequent takes on the series.

Image credit:Bethesda Softworks

The obvious difference is that Black Isle’s Fallout games are played from a trimetric (aka, elevated diagonal) perspective, with 2D sprites for people and buildings, where Fallout 3 and its successors are first-person RPGs with polygonal “true” 3D landscapes. It’s worth dwelling on how that alters the mood. In the original Fallout games, you never see the sky. All you get is cracked and sterile earth. At the edges of each location there’s an embroidery of angular shadows to indicate that you’re leaving the map. Not being able to see the sun in a Fallout game feels very Fallouty. Even when you exit the Vault during the game’s beginning, it feels like you’ve only strayed into a bigger Vault. It’s as though the game’s trimetric visuals were of a piece with the game’s crushing post-nuclear purgatory.

Bethesda’s Fallout 3, by contrast, is a game of daylight, nested vanishing points, and picturesque horizons. Its signature flourish, I think, is that when you leave the Vault following the prologue, you’re briefly overwhelmed by the sun’s radiance - a characterisation that may apply as much to the player weaned on the Black Isle games as to the Vault-Dweller exiting confinement.

Bethesda have always had a knack for horizons. Their open worlds are magnetic because they give such good landmark, all those sprawling yet well-defined ruins on the edge of vision. I’ve enjoyed all Bethesda’s Fallouts, and I like the contrast they present with the Black Isle games. But the trade-off, of course, is that they feel less oppressive, less engrossingly hopeless, more of a hike through the woods. They’re Fallout tourism, on some level. These are vastly more cluttered environments, too, in a way that is more videogamey than post-apocalyptic. Fallout had its scavenging and vexatious inventory limits, but Bethesda’s RPGs are particularly infamous for turning you into a lumbering packrat.

It’s also worth dwelling on how each game handles sound and audio. The original Fallout’s ambient music has stuck in my memory where pretty everything I’ve ever heard in Fallouts 3 through 76 has faded away. The Black Isle games don’t play out in real-time, which seemingly gives the soundtrack more license to build a mood befitting the landscape, rather than trying to keep pace with the player. In hindsight, they feel deliberately minimalist, with long, slow compositions that settle over you like a radioactive pall. Desert Wind, especially, echoes through my skull in a way that makes me picture it perched on the baking sands, a couple of centuries from now. I love this track. I hate it too. It’s like they took the title music from Alien and somehow made it even more… alien.

Fallout 1 Soundtrack - Desert Wind (The Wasteland) Watch on YouTube

There’s on-going discussion among journos - again with one eye on the Google juice - of which Fallout game is best for any newcomer to the series converted by the TV show. I think the original game is probably the hardest to get into, by virtue of the differences outlined above, however “foundational” it may be as an RPG. Still, I’m sort of disagreeing there with Tim Cain, the co-creator of Fallout, who thinks that the TV show does a great job of capturing the original mood.

“Everything feels like Fallout,” he said in a recent Youtube update . “It feels like Fallout. That is hard to do, trust me. I know how hard that is to do. It’s easy to write post-apocalyptic stuff that doesn’t fit in the Fallout mold, and it would have been very easy for them to accidentally go off, to be too silly, to have things that are like, that’s not a part of Fallout, but they didn’t.”

Cain has found it eerie to see his old concepts for people and places blown up into a world of glistening Hollywood talent and HD props. “[There’s] that surrealness when you see the thing you worked on really hard, and all these ideas and visuals, and just to see it in real life, realized,” he said. “They had huge sets, amazing production values on them, amazing props, the acting was phenomenal. I mean, it was just surreal to watch Fallout recreated in real life like that.” I’ve found it similarly surreal to dip back into Fallout itself, 27 years on. The next step, if I have time, is firing up Fallout: New Vegas to investigate how much Sawyer and Obsidian really took from the first game’s conversation and quest design.

Fallout 3

PS3 , Xbox 360 , PC

Fallout TV show

TV show

Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

PC

Fallout: New Vegas

iOS , PS3 , Xbox 360 , PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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