What Are the ARC in ARC Raiders? Where They Came From, What They Want and Who Might Have Built Them

What are the ARC in ARC Raiders?

The ARC are the hostile machines that rule the surface in ARC Raiders. They first came falling out of the sky over the Rust Belt, wiped out the settlements people had rebuilt there, and are the reason communities now live underground, in places like Speranza. Who built them, who sent them and what they want are all still unknown, as of October 17, 2026.

Sizes run from the Tick, a small spider-like machine, up to giants such as the six-legged Queen, and you’ll want heavy ammo for the armoured ones: lighter rounds won’t finish them. In the game they’re called ARC or ARC machines.

If you’re new to the world, the ARC Raiders story explained guide covers the whole timeline, and does ARC Raiders have a story mode? explains where that story is told.

Where did the ARC come from?

From the sky. They arrived at the end of the era called Sunrise and cut short the first real recovery since the Collapse. The lore never says where they were launched from.

Here is how the machines fit into the history of the Rust Belt, so far:

Era	What happened
The Collapse	It’s said that, many generations ago, floods, fires and earthquakes struck together and devastated the Earth. Legend says a few people fled the planet from Acerra Spaceport aboard the Exodus shuttles.
Sunrise	Settlers at the Alcantara Dam grew food in hydroponic domes, and for a while life looked like it was getting better.
The First Wave	ARC came down and undid what the settlers had built. The Dam’s settlers fought back as the first Raiders.
Victory Ridge	After more than ten years of fighting, the Battle of Victory Ridge drove ARC out of the Rust Belt, at a terrible cost in lives.
The Second Wave	Several years later ARC came back, harder to beat than before. People went below ground, and the city of Toledo took shape there.
Today	You live in Speranza, which is safer from ARC than most of the Rust Belt, and go Topside for the materials the city needs.

The two waves matter for understanding today’s machines. Compared with what came later, the First Wave was the easier enemy to beat, which helped the first Raiders win, and its wrecks, Baron husks among them, still litter the surface. The Second Wave was a harder fight. Some suspect a family link between the Queen and the old Barons; the lore doesn’t confirm it, or say which wave she belongs to.

Who made the ARC?

Nobody knows yet. None of the trader quests, map histories or machine descriptions recorded so far names a builder or a sender, and Embark Studios’ own store description of the game still calls the machines’ origins a mystery. Everything you’ll read about a maker is a fan theory (see below).

What do the ARC want?

Spoilers for trader quests. The game doesn’t say, but what the machines do suggests they are searching, measuring and collecting, not just patrolling. These are the clues so far:

1. They’re hunting for the city. ARC Probes are out looking for Speranza, and Celeste warns that ARC has tracked down others before, with grim results.
2. They may be reporting to something in orbit. Shani, Speranza’s ARC expert, suspects that Surveyors, the big round rolling machines, are transmitting data into orbit, and wonders whether that’s tied to a strange signal the city picked up, unlike anything heard before.
3. They guard what may be extraction sites. Harvesters are mysterious ARC structures. They turn up on the Dam, Spaceport and Blue Gate maps, usually with the Queen standing over them, and she seems to be there to protect them, which suggests ARC values them.
4. They move cargo. Nobody knows where the Couriers are going. Crashed ones are worth cracking open: some hold soil samples, some hold what look like replacement parts.
5. They may be changing. “Even the slightest change to ARC’s behavior could spell disaster,” Celeste warns. In the Prospecting Probes map event, ARC seems to keep probing for longer, sending down probe after probe under guard.
6. Someone else is fighting them. In one quest, Raiders find ARC machines that someone brought down, and Shani is sure it wasn’t Speranza’s people or any lone survivor.

Put together, our reading is that the ARC may be surveying the planet and sampling it for someone, or something, beyond the sky. That’s our interpretation, not a documented fan theory, and no one in the game confirms it.

Who might have built the ARC? The theories

Spoilers as above. None of these is confirmed. They are theories, and the game supports each one only partly.

Theory 1: the people who left on the Exodus

This one turns up in fan discussions and lore videos. The idea: the people who escaped into space during the Collapse built the ARC and sent them down to strip the Earth of its resources for themselves.

• What could support it: the Exodus left from the Spaceport and went to space; the ARC came from the sky; Shani suspects Surveyors send data into orbit; Couriers carry soil; Harvesters look like extraction sites.
• What argues against it: nothing in the game connects the Exodus to the ARC. Even the Exodus is only a legend, and little is known about how anyone got off the planet.

Theory 2: aliens

People often ask whether the ARC are alien, since they came down from above.

• What could support it: the machines arrived from the sky, generations after the Collapse.
• What argues against it: there is no sign of any alien makers in the game so far, and nothing rules out a human origin either.

Has the ARC mystery been solved?

No, not in the game’s story as of October 17, 2026. A YouTube Short from July 2026 and a Reddit clip claim the origin of the ARC has been solved, but nothing in the game’s recorded story or in Embark’s own descriptions confirms an answer. Embark’s store text still describes the origins as a mystery.

The Frozen Trail update (October 8, 2026) brought new machines, among them a fallen Emperor and an airborne Frigate, and none of its quests is documented in our lore sources yet. If they reveal who sent the machines, this page will be updated.

What is every ARC in ARC Raiders?

Nineteen kinds of ARC are documented so far (launch to early 2026), counting the Harvester structure and the Courier. Here they are, roughly from the small fry to the giants:

ARC	What it is
Tick	Clings to ceilings in dark interiors, often in twos or threes. If one lands on you, you can’t move until it’s pulled or shot off
Pop	A kamikaze roller with almost no health: it beeps faster and faster as it closes in, then blows up. Kill it at range
Fireball	Rolls in close with a flamethrower. Keep your distance and shoot when its front panel opens, because that’s when the core is bare
Wasp	The basic flying threat: no armour, comes in small packs, and a red laser is your warning that it’s about to shoot
Snitch	A fragile three-rotor scout with no weapon that calls in reinforcements when it spots you
Hornet	Bigger than a Wasp and often seen with them; its front rotors are armoured and its dart stuns
Spotter	A flying helper that marks Raiders with a laser for the Bombardier
Turret	A wall-mounted gun, mostly indoors, that opens fire on movement
Sentinel	A large outdoor gun post on rooftops and ledges that fires single heavy shots from long range
Surveyor	The biggest roller: an armoured ball that pauses to scan. If it spots you, nearby machines learn where you are; shoot it and it usually bolts
ARC Probe	A stationary scanner whose job is to locate Speranza
ARC Courier	A fast flying carrier; where its cargo is headed is anyone’s guess
Rocketeer	Armoured and airborne. Four yellow lasers converge on you and turn red, then a salvo of rockets follows; be behind cover by then
Leaper	Armoured, spider-like and built for ambush: it clears huge gaps and drops onto you from above
Bombardier	A mid-sized mortar machine that is never seen without its two Spotters
Bastion	A heavy, armoured minigun platform on legs; a loud screech is your cue to get behind cover
Harvester	A guarded ARC structure with its own fire and electric defences
The Queen	A huge six-legged machine that guards the Harvesters
Matriarch	A machine found only under one map condition at the Spaceport, protected by an energy dome and its own escorts

Frozen Trail added more: Embark names the Bully, the Skulker and the Hydra, which protects the Emperor and the Frigate. Their full details aren’t recorded yet.

The Queen

The Queen is a giant six-legged ARC, usually met standing guard over a Harvester. At range she shells you with mortars and holds laser beams on you; get close and she switches to a ground slam or an EMP blast. Some suspect she’s a relative of the First Wave’s Barons, but nothing confirms it.

The Matriarch

The Matriarch appears only under one map condition at the Spaceport. Her energy dome blocks weapons fire from outside, so the fight happens inside it with her, under rockets and gas mortars, while her escorts try to keep you off her. Raiders covet her reactor, and few Raiders make it out with one.

Queen vs Matriarch: what’s the difference?

The Queen guards Harvesters, which turn up on the Dam, Spaceport and Blue Gate maps. The Matriarch only appears under one Spaceport map condition, and adds a shield dome and a protective escort.

Bastion and Bombardier

These two are the heavy guns of the ground war. The Bastion is the slow tank of the pair: heavily armoured, aiming its minigun at wherever it last saw you, and often backed by flyers. The Bombardier hangs back and shells Raiders with mortars, which punish anyone bunched together; its two Spotters laser-mark targets for it, and shooting both down only brings two more.

Hornet, Wasp and Snitch

The flying swarm. Wasps are the light, unarmoured ones. Hornets carry more armour up front and shoot a stunning dart. Snitches never attack: spot one before it spots you, because a seen Raider gets a flare and, usually, a Hornet and two Wasps.

What do the ARC beam colours mean?

Watch the light on a machine’s scanner: on most ARC, its colour shows how alert it is.

Beam	What it means for you
White	On patrol; nothing noticed yet
Blue	It heard something minor
Yellow	It thinks a Raider is nearby and is coming to check
Red	It has identified you as a threat

Listen too for the audio cue that tells you a machine has you in its sights.