ARC Raiders Finally Lets You Fix Your Build Mistakes, And It’s Suspiciously Cheap
Winter has arrived in the ARC, and it brought the one thing we wanted more than thermal underwear: a way to fix our terrible life choices.
I have spent the last few weeks staring at my skill tree with the profound regret of a man who got a tribal tattoo in the nineties. Until now, if you messed up your build in ARC Raiders, your only real option was the nuclear one. You had to commit to an "Expedition," which is fancy Embark-speak for "wipe your character and start over." It was a hardcore mechanic for a hardcore game, sure, but it was also a massive pain in the ass if you just wanted to swap a few passives.
The 152,000 Credit Bargain
The new "Cold Snap" update (Patch 1.7.0) just went live, and buried among the festive items and snow drifts is the new Skill Tree Reset functionality. I braced myself for the cost. I expected it to be exorbitant. I expected to be grinding for a week just to undo one misclick.
The actual price? 152,000 Creds.
That is it. In the grand economy of ARC Raiders, 152k is practically pocket change. It is the equivalent of finding a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill in your winter coat. I honestly had to double-check that I wasn't missing a zero. For anyone who has been playing the game with any regularity, this is an incredibly generous middle ground. You don't have to nuke your progress via an Expedition anymore, but you still have to pay a toll.
If I'm being totally honest, they could have charged double and I still would have paid it without blinking. This price point makes experimentation actually viable. I can finally stop hoarding points like a dragon terrified of making a bad investment and actually try out different playstyles.
Quality of Life in the Freeze
The respec cost is the headline for me, but the rest of the patch cleans up some nagging issues that have been driving me up the wall. We finally have an option to toggle Aim Down Sights. It is wild that we had to wait this long for a basic FPS feature, but I am just glad I don't have to hold right-click like I'm trying to strangle my mouse anymore.
They also moved the Aphelion blueprint drop from the Matriarch to Stella Montis, which should mix up the loot flow a bit, and they claim to have fixed the spawn distance checks. Hopefully, this means I will stop spawning within breathing distance of another squad, but I will believe that when I see it.
A Softer ARC?
It is a good update. It respects my time, which is rare in the extraction genre. But part of me looks at that 152k price tag and wonders if Embark is going a little too easy on us. Giving us a "get out of jail free" card, or at least, a "get out of jail for a very reasonable fee" card, makes the expedition an even harder choice to make.
I'm not complaining, though. The snow is falling, the Red Lakes are freezing, and for the first time in weeks, my skill tree doesn't look like a disaster zone. I'll take the win.