What does it mean to recreate your old home in a video game?

Myhouse.dev

Image credit:Fuzzy Ghost

Sometimes a home only becomes a home when you leave. I recently moved out from a London flat I’d rented for over a decade, for instance, and this has properly done a number on me. Being given my notice transformed the place from a transient pile of cadaverous lino and spasmodic plumbing into something mythical and unnerving – a whole chapter of my life completed and reduced to a piece of masonry in the rearview mirror, a relic I had been living in for years without quite realising.

A few video game developers have investigated emotions like these by recreating their current and prior homes as virtual environments: places of mingled memory and invention, expressive of both nostalgia and surprise. At this year’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, I interviewed a couple of teams who are coming at this premise with very different objectives, and somehow, meeting in the middle. One of the games in question is a work of daydreaming fondness, the other of comical anger. Both find a focus in the figure of a matriarch who is kindly in one game, abusive in the other.

My old flat had plentiful downsides, but I at least got on with my landlord. The same can’t be said for your character in Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (And A Witch) . Devised by Australian devs Fuzzy Ghost, it’s a queer horror comedy set in a house where the mould has eyes, the toilet appears to be wallpapered with flesh, and the oven has become a wormhole. As you amble woozily around the house in your pants, searching for your tenancy agreement, the titular Janet begins to haunt you. After all, she has a right to see what you’re doing in her house. Why won’t you answer the door?

Based on 20 minutes with an early build, it’s a clever, shlocky experience that makes no bones of its class politics, without being reducible to them. “It’s about landlord overreach,” explains the Steam page . “It’s about a legal system built by landlords for landlords. It’s about being a queer and having a found family. It’s also about a witch.”

JDM’s paranormal trashpad is, in fact, based on a terrace house in Sydney, which Fuzzy Ghost’s Pete Foley and Scott Ford had the displeasure of renting from around 2013 to 2020. “Sydney is super expensive but this had been a student hand-me-down house for a decade or so, so it was really cheap for inner Sydney,” Foley tells me. “We ended up leaving after we found that the floorboards under the head of our bed had been eaten away by black mould.” The developers were offered a $20-per-week rent discount in return for no longer using the main bedroom. This was “not tempting,” says Foley. (He doesn’t name the landlord concerned, but I’m guessing their name isn’t actually Janet DeMornay.)

One thing that fascinates me about the idea of recreating your home in something as fiddly as a video game is how the process might inadvertently become critique, as the practicalities of adaptation reveal qualities not quite apparent to the dweller. JDM uses fixed camera perspectives, for instance, jammed into the corners of rooms and hallways, and framing things this way has made Foley think twice about the confines of the old house.

“I realised just how wide and long the areas are in the first two Resident Evil games,” he says. “The narrowness of a Sydney terrace has been nightmarish for a set-camera. There’s so many angles needed to show every nook and cranny, and doors in annoying places. It’s been a lot of work trying to choose the right angles to not frustrate players.” Art director Scott Ford has been more “more impressionistic in recreating the texture of the house,” Foley says. “It’s more the feel of it, rather than getting it true to life.”

Image credit:Fuzzy Ghost

JDM might parody the location that inspired it, but it does so… well, I’m not sure “lovingly” is the word, but there’s a certain affection. After all, Ford and Foley lived out many years of their lives in that terrace house, and much has changed. “We often lament that there’s very little film and no games, as far as I’m aware, that capture the Brisbane city that we grew up in, in the early 2000s,” Foley goes on. “And while Janet is set in a fictitious version of Sydney we always hope to try and capture something that records the moment in time, even if it’s just the view of the brutalist UTS Tower out the window being alone - there’s now many taller buildings around it.”

In StudioBando’s Sopa - Tale Of The Stolen Potato (Steam page here ), a magic realist adventure set in South America, home is more a thing to reimagine than recall, because home is where you tell stories. The game casts you as the bright-eyed Miho, who is helping his grandmother fix dinner. Sent into the larder to fetch a fateful tuber, Miho has a confrontation with a giant, thieving frog and is dragged through a portal to the shore of a fabulous river.

After riding the rapids in pursuit of the stolen potato, he ends up in a black market populated by a whole clan of garrulous Kermits, including a grandmother frog awaiting her birthday cake. These bursts of mildly Freudian outlandishness take inspiration from movies such as Spirited Away, The Little Prince, and Coco, but the house that provokes them is based on studio CEO Juan Castañeda’s own childhood.

“It’s almost the exact layout of my grandmother’s house, back in this small rural town, lost in the middle of Colombia,” he says. “Everything is is filtered through Miho’s take on it, but everything does have a reference to some degree, large or small.

“So for example, the river is based on hearing these stories from my family growing up, of a river that ran through the back of their house, and all the stories that they have there. And that would have transformed the house into this magical place. Even the black market in the game is… there’s a lot of places that have that sort of stilt-like architecture, but of course, we’ve pushed it to another degree, to make it feel more magical.”

This isn’t just autobiography, Castañeda qualifies. Sopa makes itself at home in a tradition of oral narrative as much as a specific time and place. “It’s a lot more about taking family stories that you’d hear that would sort of become tall tales, as they were passed down from generation to generation, and sort of what you perceive that story to be, when you would hear it as a kid, and being in that space.”

Image credit:StudioBando

Now that I’ve written both games up, Miho’s relationship with his grandmother feels like the benign version of the friction between tenant and rentier on show in Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (And A Witch). Both matriarchs haunt the location in different ways. Where JDM’s otherworldly elements are invasions, Sopa’s fantastical interludes are a kind of mischievous rebellion. They’re childish projections born of being told to be a good boy, do your chores and stop messing with the furniture.

Miho’s Nana acts as a curb on his delusions, while also being the source of them. It reminds me of how my own dad would try to discourage my infantile habit of seeing flying snakes and crocodiles in the walls, while also telling me bedtime stories about a mad carrot who lived in our fridge.

Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (And A Witch)

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Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato

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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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