Arc Raiders Shared Watch Guide: How to Farm Merits (And Not Die)
It is genuinely funny that a game built on paranoia and betrayal is now asking us to hold hands and sing Kumbaya while shooting robots.
The "Shared Watch" event is officially live, and for once, the objective isn't to steal loot from your neighbor's cold, dead hands. It is about collective destruction. The ARC is the target, and if you want the new cosmetics, you need to focus your fire on the machines rather than the players.
I jumped in expecting a ceasefire, but let’s be real, this is still Arc Raiders and there’s always a few people lurking around, hungry for the peaceful lobbies their kitted out hullcrackers... But if you want to actually finish this event tracker and get that sweet Scrapy hat, you need to change your playstyle. Killing players gets you exactly zero progress.
Here is how to grind through the event efficiently without wasting your time on pointless PvP skirmishes.
How to Earn Merits (The Smart Way)
The currency for this event is "Merits," and the math is simple: damage ARC, get paid.
This is purely a damage check event. You earn Merits by damaging, destroying, or assisting in the destruction of ARC units. That is it.
The Golden Rule: Ignore the Players I cannot stress this enough. Killing a fellow Raider gives you zero Merits. Looting their corpse gives you zero Merits. Completing standard quests gives you zero Merits.
If you spend twenty minutes stalking a duo across the map and kill them, you have accomplished nothing for the event. You are just wasting time. If you see another squad engaging the Queen, don't flank them. Help them. You both get credit for the damage. It feels weird, I know, but you have to suppress that urge to murder.
Target the Big Boys You can grind this out by shooting Wasps and Ticks, but that is painfully slow. I found the best return on investment is hunting the massive world bosses.
Load into a Matriarch or Harvester event. These things are bullet sponges, which is exactly what you want. I took a Hullcracker into a Matriarch fight, unloaded everything I had, and extracted with over 220 Merits in a single run. That is four levels of the battle pass done in ten minutes.
The Cold Snap is Back (And Annoying)
While there isn't a new map event, the devs brought back "Cold Snap" from the Flickering Flames update. If you missed it last time, here is the deal: it’s a blizzard.
It takes place on every map except Stella Montis. The visibility sucks, and if you stay outside too long, you get frostbite. You will see snow building up on your character model, that is your visual cue to get inside. Find a roof, wait for the snow to melt, and head back out.
A Note on Candleberries You will see those glowing Candleberries all over the map again. Do not pick them up.
In the last event, they were crucial. In Shared Watch, they are useless. They aren't used for crafting, and they don't give you event progress. Unless you are desperate to sell them for pocket change in Speranza, walk right past them. They are bait.
The Rewards List
There are 21 tiers of rewards to grind through. It is a linear track, so you can't pick and choose. You have to earn them in order.
The total cost to finish the track is 1,050 Merits. If you are averaging 150-200 per boss run, you can knock this out in a few solid evenings of grinding.
The event runs until February 24th. That gives you roughly two weeks to get your act together. Grab a Hullcracker, ignore the temptation to shoot your neighbors, and go smash some robots. Good luck.
