You can’t have sex with yourself in The Alters, “but it’s not like this topic is totally removed”

And nor is the topic of generative AI

Image credit:11 bit

Call me a Paranoid Android or a Suspicious Stanley, but when I ask a videogame developer a question and the videogame developer pauses for exactly 31 seconds and then says “no”, I tend to assume the answer is, in fact, “yes”. Or at least “it’s complicated”, to channel a bit of antique Facebook coyness. The Alters is a complicated game. It is a moody sci-fi extravaganza in which your character, beleaguered offworld miner Jan Dolski, has to create new versions of himself by branching off his own past timeline using a “quantum computer”, splitting the chain of events at trigger points by, say, having his younger self stand up to his domineering father rather than leaving home.

The result is a rolling space base full of alternate, vat-grown Jans, from bitter repairman Jans to aloof scientist Jans and all the many glittering gradations of Jan that lurk betwixt. The Jans have a hard time getting along, initially. The shared existential horror of everybody being a version of everybody else aside, they all represent each other’s roads-not-taken, a premise that leaves ample room for resentment, envy and contempt. But jolly along they must, in order to operate the aforesaid rolling space station and escape the apocalyptic planet they’re stranded on. Assuming you make the right dialogue decisions as Jan Prime, and ensure each Jan’s material needs are met while upgrading and expanding the station, this practical objective will produce a growing closeness, punctuated by swirly notifications about changes of emotional state, which feels like one big, baroque metaphor for a guy making peace with his own past and warring urges.

Image credit:11 bit

It’s both a fun narrative setup and the makings of a production nightmare, to say nothing of the presumably enormous strain placed upon the vocal chords and mental coherence of Jan’s sole voice actor, Alex Jordan. There’s the intricacy of each Jan’s personality in itself, and then there’s the problem of writing up all their interactions, and how they might develop in response to each other - depending on which Jans the player decides to spawn in whatever order. 11 bit have managed this potential for overwhelming complexity by, firstly, only giving you charge of one Jan, the primary Jan who gets to sleep in the captain’s bedroom at the base’s heart, and secondly, by firmly resisting the temptation to do a Flanders family reunion and conjure up a Jan for every genre or season. There are, as far as I can tell, no Janpunks, Cowboy Jans, Jan 3000 BCs or other Expanded Janiverse misadventures in The Alters. 11 bit have limited the population carefully to keep the quality up and suit the particular dilemmas they want to explore.

“We had the idea of what are the most important problems or maybe decisions that players can relate to, and built upon that was the decision of how many Alters do we want to have,” lead designer Rafal Wlosek told me. “We want to have enough Alters to talk about all those things, but not too many, so we wouldn’t drown in in writing the shallow stories. So there are more Alters hidden [in the game] then you can find in one playthrough, but just enough for us to get deep into each type of decision and where they came from - what type of person will he become? What will he decide to believe in? How does it work for him in his life, for the people around him?”

Looking beyond the tension between multiversal storytelling and project management, the idea of duplicating somebody by reaching into their backstory and yanking levers has a certain amount of overlap with current discussions about generative AI and its questionably legal and often intrusive reuse of data shared online. Jan is not the architect of the quantum computer – he is shocked to discover that it is loaded with his entire life history, with one character noting that he probably should have read the small print on his mining contract. 11 bit had a booth at their Alters hands-on event where journos could chat to AI-generated characters. When I asked Wlosek about this, however, he insisted that The Alters isn’t designed to offer “food for thought” on AI.

“There was a time when we were discussing the idea of an AI being part of the quantum computer - maybe creating a character out of this machine,” he said. “But we wanted to focus on one topic at a time. And we didn’t want to, you know, put the spotlight on too many different aspects of sci-fi.” To be clear, the quantum computer AI would have been a written character, not a piece of text-generating software. “I think it was [conceived] before GPT showed up to the general public,” Wlosek added. “Personally, of course, I’m very interested in how things are going in this area. This is something that probably everyone who knows what’s going on is interested in, and will be watching closely, but it’s not in this game.”

Image credit:11 bit

Among the broader strokes that differentiate one Jan from another is romantic history. Jan Prime has signed up for offworld mining duty partly because he’s broken up with his wife, who plays an active role nonetheless in the plot. One of the other Jans is from a Janiverse where his wife has died, and is naturally frantic to discover that she’s still alive in Jan Prime’s continuity. The topic of lovelives, together with the conspicuously cramped confines of the rolling space base and the emphasis on building a rapport with other Jans, got me wondering just how far Jan’s evident vast self-absorption might go. Is it possible for Jans to romance other Jans? And with a view to getting ahead of the Rule34 crowd - can they bone?

“No they don’t,” Wlosek said, exactly 31 seconds later. “But it’s not like this topic is totally removed. The whole game is about thinking about your decisions, about your life, going back to those decisions, if they were good or wrong, and dwelling on them, and maybe we want to show this from very different angles, to give the player the space to think about it. And in order to do that, we had to take a look at every aspect of life, so I guess that would be my general answer! It’s not like having sex with the other Alters or anything like that, but the romantic relations of a couple of the Alters are very important, and not all of them are with women.”

The Alters

Video Game

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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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