Choosing a loadout before going topside is a regular activity that players go through almost before every raid in ARC Raiders. Sometimes you start a raid with a budget loadout, and sometimes you go all in with your best weapons and items. That all depends on the mood, the team, and the map. This guide will list the best loadouts to use for each ARC Raiders map.
ARC Raiders: 10 Best Weapons To Use in Dam Battlegrounds
When raiding Dam Battlegrounds in ARC Raiders, it’s important to bring weapons that can handle a wide range of dangerous situations.
This guide won’t feature Venator, since it’s a broken weapon and all you need to dominate any map. It also won’t include Epic or Legendary weapons, as they’re expensive and not practical for every raid.
Best Loadout For Dam Battlegrounds
Starting from choosing an Augment and a shield, when building a strong loadout, you need an Augment that supports a Medium or Heavy shield. You also need an Augment that can help during combat, like the Tactical MK. 2, which deploys a small Smoke Grenade when your shield is broken, giving you enough time to reposition your raider. For healing, players will always need something cheap and reliable. Use Herbal Bandages to recover HP, and shield Rechargers to recharge your shield, as they're easy to make and very helpful during combat.
The Dam Battlegrounds map has plenty of wide-open areas spread throughout its hills and forests. It also features a decent number of buildings that players can fully explore, providing raiders with access to every floor and room. That means players will find themselves in long-range combat as much as close-range. For that, it's better to take weapons that work in both situations. Anvil is a hard-hitting Hand Cannon that reaches long, mid, and close range equally. It can take down PvP players just as fast as it handles ARC enemies. As for Stitcher, it's a deadly close-range SMG that also works in mid-range scenarios.
When raiding Dam Battlegrounds, there will be a lot of Weapon Crates scattered across some of its roofs. So, it's always good to bring one or two Ziplines. There are a lot of spaces to cover when walking around, so bringing a few Adrenaline Shots helps raiders navigate the map. Since you may find yourself inside rooms, you can lock a door while you're inside using a Door Blocker, which prevents other raiders from entering the room, giving you enough time to react to them.
Lure and Smoke Grenades give you a great tactical advantage when raiding Dam Battlegrounds. Lure Grenades will help you control where ARC enemies focus their attention, while Smoke Grenades completely take away attention from you for a few seconds.
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Best Loadout For Buried City
For the Buried City map, players will most likely find themselves fighting over roofs or against players holding strong points of interest. It's better to bring a long-range beast like an Osprey alongside Anvil to handle everything else. One tap from Osprey is enough to put enemies in panic mode, while Anvil is always ready to finish the job.
Which Items Are Safe to Recycle in ARC Raiders?
Here are the items you can safely get rid of in ARC Raiders.
Since Buried City is packed with buildings and tight corners, many players tend to camp in these spots, making it harder to move along the map. It's good to get a couple of Smoke and Tagging Grenades to tactically detect campers and avoid them. It's also super important to have one or two Showstoppers, as they're the perfect grenades to toss at campers to stun them while you take over their spot and down them.
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Best Loadout For Spaceport
Spaceport is mostly wide open, with plenty of buildings to scavenge in ARC Raiders. This almost sounds like Dam Battlegrounds. However, Spaceport is really empty, where long-range fights are really long, and close-range combat is really close. For that, it's better to bring the best weapon from each end, where, for long-range combat, Osprey or Renegade works perfectly. As for inside buildings, Il Toro, Stiticher, or Vulcano are the best.
To cover all those empty spaces in Spaceport, you need to build your ARC Raiders loadout with a lot of utility items. You need Adrenaline Shots to travel long distances, and Door Blockers to shut down tower doors while you're looting. But most importantly, you need Barricade Kits to block incoming bullets when you're out in the open. Not to mention, most elevators are surrounded by tall buildings where you might get shot while waiting to finish a raid. So, it's better to open one or two Barricades to block those incoming bullets.
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Best Loadout For Blue Gate
Blue Gate offers a bit of everything when it comes to its points of interest. It also has a full underground area where many players gather to loot its secret and locked chambers. So, it's better to be prepared for any kind of situation, which means bringing a gun like Anvil, Venator, or Tempest. Additionally, in the underground, there will be a lot of close-range combat, so it's very useful to bring a shotgun or an SMG, like Stitcher or Bobcat in ARC Raiders.
ARC Raiders: 4 Most Underrated Loot Spots On Blue Gate
Blue Gate is known for its nature resources in ARC Raiders, but there are also some hidden gems there.
Jolt Mines are always important to bring on any map, but they’re especially valuable in Blue Gate, where you’ll spend more time solving puzzles and clearing certain areas. Setting traps around these spots can help catch incoming hostile raiders off guard. In case you reach an area where a player already solved the puzzle and is inside the locked room, looting, Showstopper is a good grenade to bring if you decide to be the hostile raider in this case.
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Best Loadout For Stella Montis
Stella Montis is all about chaos and close-range combat. Not only that, it's nearly impossible to find a friendly raider there. So, it's better to prepare a loadout that can take on all that chaos. Starting with weapons, it’s recommended to run a full close-range loadout that can handle all the PvP Stella Montis has to offer. It only takes one shot for the entire map to start third-partying any fight. Weapons like Il Toro, Stitcher, Bobcat, Vulcano, and Tempest, shine in those circumstances as they're deadly up close.
Even though most fights are in tight spaces, there will still be situations where an enemy player is holding a corner or hiding behind a wall somewhere. Bringing a Blaze Grenade forces them to leave their hiding place, giving you enough time to melt their shield and HP. Finally, you need to match Stella Montis' chaos by bringing a Deadline. When the fights start getting crazy, and many raiders start gathering in the same room, just plant one Deadline and take everyone down, hopefully not yourself with them.
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ARC Raiders
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 87 /100 Critics Rec: 92%
- Released
- October 30, 2025
- ESRB
- Teen / Violence, Blood
- Developer(s)
- Embark Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Embark Studios
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Extraction, Shooter, Third-Person Shooter, Survival
