Arc Raiders devs triple the frequency of Bird City after time zones locked many fans out of playing, Embark promises to "keep revising" its map event schedule
Embark will "try to find a schedule for all conditions so that all time zones get a chance to play"
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Embark Studios has listened, and boosted the frequency of Arc Raiders' elusive Bird City map modifier event after players complained that it was basically impossible to encounter in certain time zones.
Bird City was released as part of Arc Raiders' Headwinds update, bringing flocks of birds to the Buried City map along with unique new Rubber Ducks to collect and more sellable trinkets to find. Unfortunately, though, being tied to very restrictive time slots meant that many players – especially in European time zones – were struggling to experience it in the first place, with them largely taking place during 9-5 workday hours.
Thankfully, Embark has now made some changes. In a Discord message acknowledging "an issue" last night "with the map conditions schedule" (as highlighted by folks on Reddit, all map events temporarily disappeared), it's revealed that encountering Bird City shouldn't be such a pain going forward.
"We just pushed a update enabling this week’s schedule while also increasing the frequency of Bird City. No download required but please restart your game to update," community lead Ossen writes. "We will keep revising and try to find a schedule for all conditions so that all time zones get a chance to play. There is also no store rotation or patch this week but keep an eye out for the update coming next week. See you Topside."
Looking at the event schedule now (via Arc Raiders Hub), Bird City's frequency has definitely been given a generous boost – looking at the Buried City map, it appears that there are now nine daily one-hour slots for the map modifier as opposed to just three. To be honest, I still don't know why the events can't just be randomized rather than being locked to specific hours of the day, but at least European folks actually have a better chance of trying this one now.
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I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.
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