We should redefine live service games as the living dead

But which kinds of living dead?

Image credit:Bungie

Why is every blockbuster video game now some kind of live service game? Speaking as a clueless idiot, the explanation I find most convincing is that it’s an attempt to bridge the gap between the returns publishers want from video games, versus how much we’re able or willing to pay upfront. “Triple-A” projects now cost exorbitant sums to develop, partly thanks to wider economic inflation, but also because publishers have spent decades teaching players that every sequel has to be More and Shinier. Premium game prices have not risen in proportion , and investors want growth, as they do.

Live service games sneak around this difficulty by dragging out the time we spend playing them. Whether premium or free-to-play, they seek to install themselves as habits by means of regular, planned updates and additions. This is time that can be monetised by way of a subscription model, time in which other products may be sold to you, like skins and paintjobs, and time that becomes a commodity in itself, “engagement”, which can be transmuted and exploited to various end. I’m not sure it’s ever been expressed this way in any press release boast about longevity, but the unspoken principle/logical extrapolation seems to be that ideally , a live service game should keep us plugged in and plugging away till we die.

Image credit:Ubisoft

While this strategy dates back to the original MMOs, the infancy of Minecraft, and the rise of free-to-play mobile games in the noughties (especially in China), the serious application of live service thinking to all games begins, I think, in the hollering 2010s. Major publishers have done very well out of it: according to one report , EA and Activision grew by around $80 billion as a result of their live service investments from 2012 to 2018. The music is slowing, however. This year has seen some notable live service game flops, amplified by the wider fallout from “over-ambitious” corporate expansion during the Covid lockdown gaming boom. Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad has been written up as a $200 million loss , while Sony’s hero shooter Concord was deemed so inadequate at launch it was actually yanked from sale . Ubisoft’s ten-year “quadruple-A” nautical lifestyle sim Skull And Bones is not expected to break even. While a few publishers continue to push live service game development , others are hedging their bets . The live service element isn’t the only or even primary reason for why the above games have struggled, but I get the sense that the business model’s overt predatoriness and lack of enchantment is finally catching up with it.

Even before they became ubiquitous, live service games felt like a burden. They are inherently exhausting to think about. The business model is the experience in a way that it isn’t for anything you “buy once” and theoretically enjoy in your “own time”, away from the sludgepumps of commerce - it breaks the golden rule that art created under capitalism should at least feel like it’s an escape from capitalism, by forcing you to think of playing as an on-going interaction with an evolving product. Again, the unspoken hope is for that product to evolve indefinitely. Aside from leeching away time and attention from other games, I think this has a cataclysmic effect on the experience of the live service game itself, one we have grown sadly accustomed to. It’s not just that there might be a store full of dodgy microtransactions, which the game is forever trying to nudge you toward: defining the experience as a live service results in a game that is fundamentally devoid of purpose or structure, because it is always bleeding away into the future.

In the fine tradition of armchair leftist mystics who dream of writing That One Passage From Walter Benjamin , I do hereby and henceforth propose a redefinition of the live service game as the undead game, the game that wants to live forever by devouring our time. It’s a framing that allows for some fun distinctions. On the one hand, you’ve got the zombies - cheaply-produced, often free-to-play titles with generic fixtures and minimal story component that gracelessly munch away at whoever they can lay their hands on.

Zombified live service games are where you see the greatest emphasis on progression for its own sake, on the piecemeal acquisition of gear and the incremental improvement of stats, because the promise of quantifiable “more stuff” is the simplest way to keep players coming back. At the same time, there can be no real progression in these games, because when a game is characterised as indefinite, the idea of progress becomes meaningless. There must always be another level to shoot for, more gear and abilities to unlock, more synergies to discover. The zombie’s hunger can never be sated.

Among the more depressing ways live service games try to dramatise and redeem their “zombieness” is to pair the live service element with a “forever war” of some kind, akin to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq - a usefully unresolved conflict where players intervene as private military contractors. It’s not always that openly chilly. It might be you’re signing up to the Adventurer’s Guild, rather than joining Blackwater. It may be that you’re a Descendant or a Freelancer , rather than a PMC. But whatever the label you’re given, the basic premise is that you’re a licensed entrepreneurial killer, profiting from a post-historical purgatory of ruins and insurgent factions.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/PlayStation

Helldivers 2 both epitomises the PMC framing and subverts it. The game’s trick - following in the bootprints of Planetside - is to turn the zombie framework of the live service into your unspoken antagonist, by re-characterising it as a series of assignments and rewards doled out by a fascist super-government or “managed democracy”, which players are taught to both mistrust and worship. It takes the cheesy military propaganda satire of Starship Troopers and updates it into a knowing celebration of how today’s online video games stampede us repeatedly into killzones for the sake of gold stars and bigger guns.

Helldivers 2 is a well-made shooter in itself, a game that rewards regular play even without the live service enticements and progression, but one of its key achievements is simply making a running gag of how it treats you like cannon fodder - a running gag that, at its worst, becomes sheer dogwhistle nihilism aimed at those who want to literally cosplay as fascist enforcers. The game’s satire works like armour to shield you against any self-disgust you might feel about being lured back to the charnelpiles of Hellmire, yet again.

“Zombie” live service games are relatively easy to see coming and evade - they wear their progressionitis and dependency on microtransactions without ceremony, counting on an audience of players habituated to their grind, and willing to become zombies in turn. The same can’t be said for the vampires.

These are debonair premium productions that might seem mortal and personable at a glance, with proper narrative components and some sense of style. But if these games offer narratives reminiscent of the great singleplayer yarns of old, the live service element forbids them from offering what stories traditionally offer - an ending and/or some catharsis. A game that wants to eat your time endlessly isn’t allowed to provide closure. Villains are defeated only so that other villains may be introduced. Every finale has its dangling thread. Having seduced the villagers with fancy cinematics and voice-acted prologues, the vampires descend from their castles according to a seasonal cadence of major expansions and chapters, layering up the narrative a little more each time without ever resolving things to your satisfaction.

Destiny is a vampire, I think. I say that as somebody who liked Destiny and still plays the Warmind theme to psych themselves up - I’ve played a lot less of the sequel. The 2014 game arguably inaugurated the current live service craze among North American and European publishers, kindling FOMO in its biggest detractors and supplying other live service projects with a recognisable vocabulary of colour-coded rarity tiers and overall gear levels. As with Helldivers 2, Destiny’s appeal at root is that it’s a very well-made shooter, with sumptuous guns and wonderfully lavish, complex class and ability design. But it’s also appealing, was appealing, because it cultivates lingering uncertainty and curiosity, including uncertainty as to whether the world-building and narrative are anything more than bullshit artistry.

Much of Destiny’s ten-year multiple-release saga is woven around around The Traveller, the vast white orb dangling over the game’s last surviving human city. I admire the spectacle of the Traveller, but it’s high time we conceded that it is basically Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity Cube with the play loops turned outwards. It’s a Big Dumb Object that squats there making your mind itch while you polish off your weeklies, an unanswered question at the heart of many unanswered questions that have fomented years of speculation. It’s the basis for Destiny’s seductive vampirism: surely, there must be more going on here than meets the eye.

These are wonky caricatures, I know. They’re also potentially dehumanising ones: however they function as institutions, live service games are the creations of thousands of people who may care deeply about their design. When live services crumble they take livelihoods with them; much as I’d like such products to go away, their disappearance needs to form part of a broad redistribution of power and resources, rather than mass layoffs and “strategic realignments” that leave the executives and their wealthiest investors in place.

All the same, I hope these are useful tools for thinking about live service games as the triple-A industry weathers its latest existential crisis. Feel free to come up with better analogies, or expand the menagerie: what kind of live service game is a ghoul, a ghost, or a werewolf?

Destiny

PS4 , Xbox One , PS3 , Xbox 360 , PC

Helldivers 2

PS5 , 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.

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.