Does ARC Raiders Have a Story Mode? Where the Story Actually Is (and Whether It Ends)

Does ARC Raiders have a story mode?

No. ARC Raiders has no story mode and no single-player campaign. It’s an online game: Embark Studios sells it as a multiplayer extraction adventure, its store listing names only online modes (player-versus-player and co-op), and it needs an internet connection to play. There is a story, though. It’s built into the same raids everyone plays, and you uncover it one trader quest at a time.

Here’s what that means in practice, as of October 17, 2026:

Question	Answer
Story mode or campaign?	No
Offline single-player?	No. Embark requires an internet connection to play
Can you play solo?	Yes, online. Solo queues mostly meet other solos, though not always
Squad size	Solo, duo or trio
Is there a story?	Yes, told through trader quests, map histories and character backgrounds
Does the story end?	Not so far. Embark plans to keep adding to it

It helps to know the game’s history. When ARC Raiders was first shown at The Game Awards in 2021, it was announced as a cooperative shooter. In 2023 Embark revealed it had turned it into a PvPvE extraction shooter, and that’s the game that launched on October 30, 2025. So if you remember an older trailer and expected a co-op campaign, that’s why.

Is ARC Raiders story based?

It has a real story, but it isn’t story-driven the way a campaign game is. The main loop is going topside, grabbing what you can and getting out alive. The story sits around that loop, and you choose how much of it to follow.

Embark’s store page frames the quests as character work: run jobs for a trader and, bit by bit, you learn their motives and their plans for the city. Its executive producer, Aleksander Grøndal, told GamesBeat in August 2026 that the team knew from the start it wanted narrative and world-building, and that it isn’t saying what the bigger picture is yet.

The setting is simple to grasp. You’re a Raider from Speranza, an underground city where thousands of people shelter from ARC, the machines that rule the surface. The city keeps needing supplies from up there, and Raiders are the people who go and get them. For the full history behind that, see ARC Raiders story explained.

Is ARC Raiders story mode or online?

Online. Every match is an online session on a map shared with ARC machines and, usually, other Raiders. You can go in alone, with one friend or with two, and other Raiders may help you, ignore you or rob you.

If you want the story without the other players, there’s no full answer yet. Embark tested a PvE toggle with no player-to-player damage from October 13 to 20, 2026, but it was a limited beta, not a story mode.

Where is the story in ARC Raiders?

In four places: trader quests, the maps, the characters and the world itself. Nothing is delivered as a separate chapter. You pick it up while you play.

1. Trader quests. This is the backbone. Speranza’s traders give you steady work, and their jobs move the story along. The game had 72 quests in December 2025 (the latest dated count we found), Embark added 22 more with Frozen Trail in October 2026, and quest progress is shared with your squad.
2. Map histories. Each region carries a piece of the past. The Dam is where settlers gathered during the hopeful era called Sunrise, and where, once the machines arrived, they took up arms and became the first Raiders. At Acerra Spaceport, the launch towers still mark where the Exodus left from: the flight into space that a few survivors are said to have made.
3. The traders themselves. Each of the main traders has a backstory. Celeste, who leads Speranza, grew up losing her home to ARC again and again. Shani runs security and is the city’s expert on ARC. Lance, the medic, is an android whose past has been lost to amnesia. Tian Wen, the gunsmith, mostly keeps to herself. Apollo, a mechanic who drifts from place to place, runs a kids’ football team.
4. The world. First Wave outposts, old Raider caches and the husks of downed machines are all over the surface, and many quests send you to them.

Which quests tell the main story?

There’s no single “main quest” line, but a handful of quest threads carry most of the plot. Quest order can vary with the branches you take, so treat these as threads, not a fixed list.

Spoilers for trader quests from launch to early 2026.

Thread	Quests	What happens
Early quests	Topside (Shani), Doctor’s Orders (Lance), The Right Tool (Tian Wen)	Your first jobs for three traders: a first trip topside, a medical supply run and a test of an upgraded gun on ARC
The water crisis	Water Troubles → Source Of The Contamination → Switching The Supply (Celeste)	Speranza’s water goes bad, Celeste can’t rule out sabotage, and you reroute a reservoir from under the Spaceport
The signal	A Bad Feeling (Celeste), Safe Passage (Apollo), Mixed Signals (Shani)	Speranza picks up a signal unlike anything before. Shani suspects the big rolling Surveyors are sending data into orbit
Someone else out there	With A Trace (Shani)	You find ARC machines that someone outside Speranza brought down, and Shani doesn’t believe a lone survivor did it
The androids	In My Image (Lance)	A Raider back from Stella Montis says she saw androids like Lance there, and he sends you to look
The First Wave	The Major’s Footlocker (Tian Wen), Echoes Of Victory Ridge (Celeste)	Tian Wen hopes to find something left by her mother, a resistance fighter in the First Wave; Celeste sends you to a newly uncovered First Wave outpost

Behind all of these sits the question nobody in Speranza can answer: what ARC actually wants. ARC Probes are out looking for Speranza, and Celeste warns that ARC has tracked down others before, with grim results (minor quest spoiler). More on that in what are the ARC.

Does ARC Raiders have an ending?

No, not so far. There’s no final mission that we’ve found, and no answer yet to where ARC came from. Grøndal told GamesBeat that the studio will reveal more about ARC’s origins and purpose over time.

The closest thing to an ending is an Expedition. You spend weeks (60 days in the first Expeditions) building a caravan, then your Raider sets out beyond the Rust Belt, taking everything they own. The lore describes every Expedition so far as a one-way trip. You then continue with a new Raider, who gets lasting bonuses such as extra stash space and bonus skill points.

Expeditions are on hold for now. Embark’s post of August 21, 2026 said the fifth Expedition, which departed on September 29, would be the last one until early 2027, when they return with major changes.

Will ARC Raiders get a story mode?

Nothing announced, as of October 17, 2026. What Embark has promised is a story that grows inside the game. Grøndal compared the plan to the way Destiny moved its narrative forward over time, and said: “We want ARC Raiders to become a 10-year journey.”

The delivery has changed too. In May 2026 Embark announced a move to two major updates a year, and the first, Frozen Trail, went live on October 8, 2026. It sends Raiders to Pendola Pass, at the edge of the Rust Belt, where one of the giant machines called Emperors has fallen. Grøndal said the update sets up the story for what comes next. We’ll update this page when that story is documented.

Want to know what that life is like from the inside? The episode Why It Sucks To Be an ARC Raider is coming soon. Until then, start with the ARC Raiders world page.