ARC Raiders Reveals New Roadmap for 2026

Embark Studios has officially revealed the first half of its 2026 roadmap for its smash-hit extraction shooter, ARC Raiders, detailing all of the new content and changes coming to the game between now and April. After finding monumental success over the last three months, Embark is ready to keep the ball rolling into the new year with tons of new content for the ARC Raiders community to check out, starting with a new matchmaking option, map condition, and more next week.

After establishing itself in 2018 and going on to release The Finals in 2023, Embark Studios, which is formed of industry veterans, cemented itself as the studio to watch in the shooter genre. Then, back in October, Embark returned with the highly anticipated release of ARC Raiders, a new, third-person extraction shooter that had a heavy focus on not only PvP battles, but PvE too. While many expected the shooter to fly under the radar due to its release date being sandwiched between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, two of the biggest releases of the year, ARC Raiders has gone on to sell more than 12 million copies and brings in hundreds of thousands of concurrent players every single day. Now, to keep the playerbase excited for what’s to come, Embark has finally revealed part of the game’s 2026 roadmap.

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ARC Raiders Reveals 2026 Roadmap

While Embark has previously teased new maps for ARC Raiders in 2026, the studio has now finally pulled back the curtain and revealed its full plans for the next few months. To kick things off, a new content update for this month, which will presumably arrive on Tuesday, January 27, will include a new matchmaking option for those who are level 40 and above. This is something that could be an absolute game-changer for dedicated players, as it may see them go in with much more lucrative gear and weapons and possibly be Embark’s answer to requests for a high-value raid option. The update will also add a new player project and a minor map condition. Unfortunately, more specific details on these features remain a mystery.

A second ARC Raiders update will then arrive in February, known as Shrouded Sky, with yet another new map condition, a new ARC threat, player project, raider deck, map update, and the second expedition window. Again, specific details, such as which map will be updated and what this mysterious new ARC threat will be, are scarce. More map conditions, ARC enemies, and player projects will arrive once again in March’s Flashpoint update, but it seems as though April will be the big update that everyone has been waiting for.

According to the roadmap, April will see the release of the Riven Tides update, which will not only include a brand-new map but also a new large ARC enemy. Fans have been speculating for quite some time that players will soon be able to take on the Emperor, as this gigantic ARC has been roaming the outskirts of Blue Gate and gradually making its way inland over the last few weeks. As for the new map, although unconfirmed by Embark, the community is confident that this will be called Volcano Rise and, as the name implies, will be centered around an erupting Volcano.

Embark says fans can also look forward to new quests, gameplay items, cosmetics, and even some quality-of-life updates. Although QOL updates could be a myriad of different things, fans have been calling for Embark to add a saved loadout feature to ARC Raiders as a way to spend less time in Speranza and more time Topside. The studio has acknowledged the requests and says it is “super aware” of the demands, with one developer even admitting that they often run a free loadout because it simply takes too long to keep remaking loadouts over and over again.