Updated 12 October 2026, 20:00
Embark Studios has detailed everything the Frozen Trail update adds to ARC Raiders, and it is comfortably the largest content drop the game has received so far. The update went live on October 8 and sends you past the peaks that seal off the Rust Belt, into a frozen valley where one of the Emperors has fallen. If you have been waiting for a reason to come back — or to start at all — this is it, and the game’s Steam page is where the PC version lives.
New map: Pendola Pass
Celeste and Shani have triangulated the strange signal echoing across Toledo, and every trace points to an old Italian village and Exodus transport hub called Pendola Pass. The freezing air has preserved the place almost untouched: a supermarket, an empty town square, and obvious fingerprints of the Exodus Project in the shape of an observatory and a buried train depot that once worked as a major transit hub.
The real reason Raiders are being called up there is the fallen Emperor looming over the valley. Rare technology sits inside it and your task is blunt — reach it and find a way in. Expect a scrambled ARC response and brutal flash freezes sweeping through the valley, so this is no sightseeing trip.
The Frigate
A downed Emperor is unprecedented, and ARC reacts quickly by sending one of its largest vessels to patrol the area. Raiders have started calling it the Frigate, and it is aimed squarely at highly skilled players. You need to find a way on board, push through internal passageways, unlock routes and fight both familiar and brand new ARC machines.
You will not have the place to yourself either. Other Raiders want the same loot, so you either cooperate or cut your way through them. Embark points out that close-quarters fighting hundreds of feet in the air can force a very different approach from the one that works on the ground.
Three new enemies
- Bully — a machine-learned aggressor that gives up no ground, gallops straight at your position and chains several lethal attacks. Use cover, time your answers and land your shots, because it is quick on its feet.
- Skulker — the opposite approach. It waits, skirts the edge of your vision and jumps in with a flurry of blows. Lose track of it for a second and it vanishes, only to reappear right on top of you.
- Hydra — a turret split into three stacked autonomous sections whose triple weaponry can handle an entire squad. You meet it aboard the Frigate, and beating it means splitting your attention, grabbing cover fast and striking in short windows.
Raider Den extension: Outpost
Celeste hands anyone who answers her call a home away from home. The Outpost sits between the Rust Belt and the dangerous mountain range and is described as the first step toward reclaiming parts of the surface. You can customize it with different modules and decorate the interior with furniture.
The important part is the Research Workstation, which lets you investigate new elements of the world and unlocks higher tiers of weapon customization and modding. Embark says the Outpost is only the beginning of a feature it wants to push much further, toward a deeply personal space for every player.
Amplified Weapons
Frozen Trail adds new guns, but the bigger change is systemic. With a fully upgraded Research Workstation in your Outpost you unlock a fifth quality level for a selection of weapons. That level opens a branching path of abilities and enhancements that can completely change how a gun behaves — think a fully automatic Burletta, a Renegade with a scope, or a Rattler firing incendiary bullets out of a 64-round magazine.
The idea is to let late-game Raiders reinvent an arsenal they already know instead of chasing only new drops. The system launches with 15 weapons and more are planned. If you want to see where the game stood before this shift, we broke down the previous big patch in our article on update 1.45.0.
New weapons: Stiletto and Bantam
- Stiletto — a light-ammo battle rifle positioned as an early-game alternative to the Renegade. It is cheap to craft and easy to handle, ideal if you prefer fighting at range. The fire rate can be high, but mashing the trigger costs you accuracy.
- Bantam — a snub-nosed revolver on heavy ammo that punches straight through a target. It works against ARC and Raiders alike and comes with a unique hip-fire capability.
Grappling Hook and tether gadgets
The Grapple Hook is built around traversal: climbing to hard-to-reach spots, abseiling off buildings and swinging across large gaps — yes, the Spider-Man kind of swinging. Embark expects creative Raiders to read the terrain in completely new ways.
Two gadgets from the studio’s wider system of tethers and constraints arrive alongside it. The Tether Launcher connects two points with a wire and roots them in place, and you can even attach a Raider to an ARC machine and watch them get dragged away. The Yank Grenade works on the same principle, except the explosion violently pulls a nearby target — perfect for slamming flying ARC into the ground or yanking a Raider out of cover.
Camera, instruments and Weapon Stencils
A fully functioning camera gadget joins the game, with zoom, aperture, manual and automatic focus racking, plus a selfie mode with custom emotes. Photos save into your Codex so you can revisit your best runs from home. Two new instruments arrive as well, the Harmonica and the Banjo, with the Banjo blueprint offered in the Collector Set DLC. Weapon Stencils then let you re-skin your gun — just remember that whoever kills you will happily walk off with your personalized weapon.
Reward Pass replaces Raider Decks
Frozen Trail also launches a new progression mechanic. The Reward Pass is an evolution of the Raider Decks and is split into three tracks:
- Free Pass — rewards unlocked by completing Feats, including 200 Raider Tokens, five new outfits, new gameplay items and 20 cosmetics covering Scrappy Outfits, Furniture, Charms, Attachments and Emotes.
- Premium Pass — premium toggles for all the outfits, exclusive colorways, weapon stencils, hairstyles and 1,150 Raider Tokens.
- Legacy Pass — free for everyone and combining all existing Raider Decks, so no current progress is lost and you can keep working through those rewards.
The Collector Set DLC bundles both the free and premium Reward Passes together with a new cosmetic set called Renzo, the Dragon’s Breath Weapon Stencil, the Bob Hair Style and 2,400 Raider Tokens.
What else is coming
On top of everything above, the update brings 22 new quests, general improvements, a Skill Tree rework with new and improved skills, and a new Map Condition. Embark also held a dev Q&A livestream about Frozen Trail on Friday, September 25 at 6pm CEST, where players could submit questions about the First Look event. The full breakdown sits on the official site.
A free trial and a player spike
Embark paired the launch with an open door: from October 8 to October 12, anyone could play the full game for free on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The effect was immediate — after the update went live, ARC Raiders hit a new 24-hour peak of 185,443 concurrent players on Steam.
That number matters in context. The game launched in October 2025 and set an all-time Steam record of 481,966 concurrent players in January, but by September the daily peak had slipped to 39,900 with an average around 21,000. Frozen Trail pulled a large chunk of that audience back.
It also marks a shift in how Embark works. The studio originally planned monthly major updates, then abandoned that schedule this year because the pace was unsustainable. From now on, big content drops are set to land twice a year, and Frozen Trail is the first example of what that looks like.
Where to go next
We reported on how the update was first revealed in our article about the Frozen Trail First Look, we also covered the PvE toggle test, and everything else we have written sits in our ARC Raiders news section.
FAQ
Frozen Trail went live on October 8, together with the new map, enemies, weapons, gadgets and the Reward Pass.
Pendola Pass is a new map set in an old Italian village that also served as an Exodus transport hub. It sits beyond the Rust Belt peaks and features a supermarket, a town square, an observatory, a buried train depot and a fallen Emperor holding rare technology.
Once the Research Workstation in your Outpost is fully upgraded, you can unlock a fifth quality level for selected guns. That level opens a branching path of abilities and enhancements that can radically change how a weapon behaves. It launches with 15 weapons and more are planned.
No. The Legacy Pass is free for all Raiders and combines every existing Raider Deck, so you keep your progress and can continue claiming those rewards.
Both the free and premium Reward Passes, the Renzo cosmetic set, the Dragon’s Breath Weapon Stencil, the Bob Hair Style, 2,400 Raider Tokens and the Banjo blueprint.
After Frozen Trail launched, ARC Raiders reached a new 24-hour peak of 185,443 concurrent players on Steam, well above the September daily peak of 39,900.