The UK games industry has a class problem - here’s how one organisation is trying to fix it

Image credit:Coal Supper

“Last year we ran a big games careers festival in Downham , on the border of Lewisham and Bromley in London, in a leisure center in the heart of a very deprived community that hasn’t seen anything like this in that space,” Into Games CEO Declan Cassidy tells me over a call. A UK-based non-profit focused on enhancing social mobility in the UK games sector, Into Games reported last year that, in terms of socioeconomic access, game development has one of the worst records “of any creative or technical sector”.

2022’s UKIE census found that only 13% of UK games professionals are from working class backgrounds, a figure Cassidy has said would be closer 37% if it reflected society as a whole. It’s a complex issue, but Cassidy’s work starts in a simple place: letting working class young people understand that there’s a place for them in games to begin with.

“There’s that famous thing: you can’t be it until you see it,” Cassidy says, “If you can’t see these roles, then you’re not going to even aspire [to them]”. Into Games brought eight big names to Downham, including Ubisoft, Rocksteady and Splash Damage, alongside local colleges and universities. 500 local young people turned up and took part in one-to-ones with 50 sector professionals, “which then meant they could see career pathways for themselves.”

Cassidy gives a talk at Games Talks Live. |Image credit:Declan Cassidy

“People from these backgrounds are central to the kind of work that we’re doing going forward,” Cassidy says. “You can run this kind of stuff at a kind of shiny, glitzy place in the center of a city, or a big university. But often there are certain people that just don’t leave their area, you know, because they feel comfortable there, because they feel safe there, because their families and friends are there. So it’s really important to bring this stuff to them and to those communities, to get the kind of visibility that we need. To get these people to understand that there’s a place for them in the sector”.

Even if you’re from outside the UK, you’re probably still aware of the UK’s famously byzantine, crusty, and somewhat arbitrary norms around ‘class’. That 13% figure from the UKIE report uses the term “semi-routine / routine” - things like manual labour, as distinct from managerial work. A caretaker. A waitress. A factory worker.

“Working class is really what your parents did,” says Cassidy. “It’s not necessarily anything to do with income. It infers low income just by what those kind of working positions are. But it can, in essence, be a little bit clumsy in its more broad use”. They often use the term “under-resourced” as a more accurate reflection of the place between low income and working class. “Working class doesn’t necessarily mean low income.”

The sort of social mobility problems Into Games aim to tackle with events, research, courses and bursaries for training, networking and equipment aren’t necessarily unique to games. “It’s small for the entire creative sectors. Not just the creative sectors, it’s also small for any of the major professional sectors,” says Cassidy. But the UK games industry does present a unique circumstance: the pipelines into many of those other roles aren’t filled with people from working class or low income backgrounds to begin with. “Whereas the pipeline for games roles, it kind of is. We haven’t got an issue with attracting people into games roles at all.”

“People from working class and low income backgrounds are not only financially poor, but often time poor as well.”

The issue, says Cassidy, is the challenges under-resourced people face in the last mile. The place between graduation and actually landing work. “People from working class and low income backgrounds are not only financially poor, but often time poor as well,” Cassidy says. He estimates that around 6000 yearly graduates are competing for “maybe 500 at a push” yearly entry level roles. “It doesn’t take a maths genius to work out that there’s a serious competition issue that happens at that late stage.”

“You can see a situation whereby you’ve got a bunch of people from working class and low income backgrounds who’ve overcome lots of challenges along the way,” whether that be holding down a job alongside study, or having to return home to care for family. For “their more well-resourced peers,” - those who didn’t have time taken from study, who had access to a good PC and time to work on their portfolio - “naturally, those pieces of work are going to be better. Those people have more time to network, have more time to meet people and create their own opportunity”.

It’s not through lack of talent or willingness, either, says Cassidy. “It’s just that, ultimately, it’s also about finding the best talent for a role. Which it kind of should be, right? But I think hand in hand with that comes the importance of creating equity to find those best people. Those best people are there, but they could be hidden by a range of factors that are completely out of their control. So it’s about: how do you try and eliminate those factors that are essentially hiding the best talent.”

And it’s also not that the industry doesn’t want to create these opportunities in the first place. Just 4% of people from the sector polled for Into Games’s 2024 report felt like enough was being done to address the imbalance. “As equally brutal as it can be when it comes to careers and work - we’ve certainly seen that happening with the layoffs over the last few years - I think once you strip away the kind of ‘company’ from that, you have the people,” Cassidy says. “And the people within it are often very kind, very open, very willing to want change and to do the best possible thing.”

Image credit:Into Games

But beyond this, there’s still the 25,000 layoff-sized elephant in the room. Background aside, is it helpful - or even moral - to encourage anyone to take an entry level job in an industry that’s rapidly shedding even established talent? Does Cassidy ever feel like answering “how do I get into games” with “don’t”?

Recently, Cassidy received a message from a “long term lead creative at a game studio” - someone who’s had a long career in games. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this in a bad way. But you guys are called Into Games. You do all this work. Have you ever considered doing something called Out Of Games. Tell people about other places they can go?”.

“It struck a chord with me,” Cassidy says. “We’ve talked about it internally. You look at all these stats pilling up, at how solid a job in the sector might be at the moment. You look at how hard it is to get in - the high bar to entry in terms of quality, the level of competition. You go: okay. Should we be encouraging people?”

“And the place I got to with it was: there are some big positives here as well, right. We know that going to university is the biggest factor in creating a more socially mobile society. It’s the biggest thing that you can do to, in effect, get a better job than your parents. We can say, okay right, not all these people are getting jobs. But they’re going to university. They’re developing a whole range of skills which will give them jobs elsewhere”.

Game skills, Cassidy says, are also being utilised more in other sectors. “That’s not going away, that’s just ramping up. If a game job at the end is the definition of success here, then you know, maybe not. But, if we’re looking more broadly - the employability of someone, their social mobility as they go forward, their skills and confidence as an individual - then there’s still nothing wrong with going down that route.”

Gears Tactics studio Splash Damage have got involved in recent Into Games events, alongside studios like Ubisoft and Riot. |Image credit:Splash Damage

Cassidy admits that their 2024 report was, in some ways, “quite cold hearted. It kind of says that we can’t help everyone. The games sector can’t help everyone. There isn’t a role for everyone in games. It still has to be someone that’s really committed and willing to put the time and energy in to become absolutely excellent at their craft, whatever background they’re from. There’s still a gap there, but that’s quite an easy gap to solve. A bit of cash, a bit of equipment, and more opportunity on the other side”.

Next Wednesday, April 9th, Into Games are running a day long workshop as part of the London Games Festival , aimed at helping 16 to 21 year olds discover creative careers in games. Among the speakers are staff from Gears Tactics studio Splash Damage and Riot Games, alongside things like portfolio Q&A sessions.

What Cassidy enjoys most about these kinds of events, he says, is that they don’t “just come in and kind of dictate from upon high”. For the Downham careers fest, “It was something that we worked with the local council and then grassroots youth and careers organizations on the ground to help create. The actual thing was run by volunteer young people on the ground”.

“If you’re not drawing from an experience that you know a large majority of your player base are experiencing, then you’re missing out as a game developer.”

But as Cassidy has said: at the end of day, talent still matters. Whatever the industry could be doing to help under-resourced people, it’s about what those people can offer the industry too. There’s that underutilised talent pool, of course. But it also just means better stories.

“There’s a large number of people in society from working class and low income backgrounds, right? So it makes sense that you want to be including them in the cultural mediums that you create, whether that’s the characters or the look or feeling, or just the way that people talk, what they’re saying, or their background. Because it’s going to make for more powerful player experiences. If you’re not drawing from an experience that you know a large majority of your player base are experiencing, then you’re missing out as a game developer.”

Image credit:Coal Supper

I mention how refreshing it felt, playing Heaven’s Vault , to hear protagonist Aliya speak in an accent similar to my own and the people I grew up with in an economically deprived Essex seaside town - an accent I’d only really heard in games from orcs and bandits . He mentions Thank Goodness You’re Here! . “A modern title that comes clearly from a very regional, working class experience, that’s telling that kind of story in a really authentic way that’s also fun and interesting.”

There’s a whole wealth of this stuff, says Cassidy, that can be applied to games that we’re missing out on. He mentions an anecdote from their 2024 report. “Somebody who’s really high up in the industry as an artist,” from a very poor family, talking about how they’re only doing what they’re doing now because GoldenEye studio Rare took the time to reply to a letter. “They sent them a little bit about careers in the sector, a little brochure about Rare. And just said ‘keep going’. That person was like, that was just what I needed at that time. I would 100% not be doing this if it wasn’t for that letter”

The best way to support Into Games’s work, says Cassidy, is through the Slow Game Club - a subscription based monthly book club for games with a Discord community for discussing them afterward. They’re currently running a Noir & Mystery theme.

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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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