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Embark Studios just pulled the plug on the most profitable 48 hours in ARC Raiders history. Only two days after the massive Cold Snap (Update 1.7.0) launched, the developers released Update 1.7.2 on December 18 to fix a massive oversight in the game’s economy. While the update addresses several critical bugs, the primary focus is a significant reduction in Blueprint drop rates that had players swimming in legendary loot.
The Blueprint “Party” is Officially Over
When Update 1.7.0 went live on December 16, Embark expanded Blueprint spawn locations to help players find items in underrepresented areas. However, the studio accidentally sent those spawn rates through the roof.
Reports quickly surfaced of players extracting with as many as eight Blueprints in a single match. Specifically, the legendary Aphelion Blueprint, recently moved to Stella Montis, became suspiciously easy to acquire.
Update 1.7.2 ends this “gold mine”. Embark has “slightly lowered” the drop rates to restore the game’s progression balance. Fortunately for latecomers, the rates are still higher overall than they were before the Cold Snap update began.
Fixing the “Cold Snap” Environment
Aside from the loot nerf, the hotfix resolves several immersion-breaking technical issues introduced by the winter theme.
- Indoor Safety: Developers added missing “volumes” to interior spaces. This ensures players no longer take freezing cold damage while standing inside buildings.
- Quest Progression: A fix is now live for the “Unexpected Initiative” quest. Previously, quest items failed to spawn, making the mission impossible to complete.
- Connectivity Stability: The patch fixes a bug where players could not perform interactions if they spammed the input while on a poor connection.
- Hardware: The update includes an improved driver warning specifically for AMD GPU users.
What’s Next for the ARC Raiders?
The “Hidden Bunker” map modifier is now re-enabled, adding more variety to the current rotation. Furthermore, players should prepare for the next “Raider Deck” arriving on December 26. This free deck offers five pages of unlockable cosmetic rewards. You can earn the necessary tokens by completing challenges and playing matches.
This hotfix will likely be the final update of 2025. Embark Studios has announced a shift in their schedule, moving regular updates from Thursdays to Tuesdays. The team is now taking a holiday break and will return in January with more content. Until then, they will only monitor the servers for critical stability issues.
