ARC Raiders Players Aren't Happy About New Map Condition

The ARC Raiders community has once again been left disappointed by the shooter’s newest map condition, Bird City, as players around the world believe the map event is scheduled for inconvenient times. This isn’t the first time ARC Raiders players have complained about the timing of map modifiers, which has led the community to call on Embark to add a more dynamic schedule that would allow more players to check out the events.

Earlier this week, Embark debuted the first major content update of the year for ARC Raiders. The highly anticipated Headwinds patch officially kicks off the game’s 2026 roadmap, which will see significant new updates released every month between January and April. The first arrived on January 27, adding a controversial new 1v3 matchmaking option, a map modifier solely for Buried City, a new store bundle, and plenty of bug fixes and general improvements. Unfortunately, it looks like a large portion of the community still hasn’t had the chance to check out the new Bird City map modifier, as the timings of the event are inconvenient for most of the world.

ARC Raiders Free Loadouts Could Be Changing, Say Devs

A lead developer at Embark Studios comments on the possibility of some major changes to the free loadout system in ARC Raiders.

ARC Raiders Want Scheduling Changes Made to Its Map Conditions

Bird City is the latest map modifier to be added to ARC Raiders, joining the likes of Electromagnetic Storm, Launch Tower Loot, Lush Blooms, and more. However, it seems to have reignited fan disappointment regarding the timing of this mini map events, as players are calling for Embark to change them to a more dynamic schedule. In a new post on Reddit, one user has garnered over 1,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments after calling the new Bird City map modifier a “non-starter” for those in the GMT timezone with regular day jobs. The event is live in-game between the hours of 8AM – 9AM, 4PM – 5PM, and 12AM – 1AM, making it nearly impossible for those who work the standard 9 – 5 to play. “I wish Embark would consider a dynamic schedule to give everyone across the globe a chance at all game modes,” the user said.

Clearly, this user isn’t the only one with the same frustration, as hundreds of other comments agree that something needs to change. “I will, literally, never be able to participate in the event,” a fellow player in the US, EST timezone, said. They then said that the schedule should be rotating or shifting by an hour or two every night to make it fair for everyone. As this has been a common complaint for quite a while now, one user said they “don’t mind seeing this complaint every day until [Embark] change it.”

A dynamic schedule for the game’s map modifiers is one of the most common requests the community has had since ARC Raiders launched late last year, but it’s not the only demand players have. With the majority of players now max level with tons of rare gear and weapons, many have called for Embark to add high-value raids to ARC Raiders, preventing the use of free loadouts. While the studio has acknowledged these requests and admitted that it has toyed with the idea, fans were left disappointed by the Headwinds update this week after it added a new matchmaking option that quite literally nobody asked for: 1v3.

The update also made some accidental changes to some ARC Raiders weapons, as fans quickly discovered that the fire rate of the Kettle and Venator had been reduced. Thankfully, Embark says this was not something the studio intended to change and released a hotfix update the very next day to revert these changes. However, fans also noticed that looting was much slower following update 1.13.0, but Embark said that this is an intentional change and that the speed at which loot is revealed was not correct before the patch.