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  1. Games
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Embark lowers Arc Raiders blueprint drop rate after setting it too high in the Cold Snap update and making it too easy to grind legendary weapons: "We knew it was too good to be true"

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By Anthony McGlynn published 18 December 2025

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Arc Raiders cold snap
(Image credit: Embark)
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The Arc Raiders Cold Snap event brought with it a substantial update this week, adding in features and fine-tuning various gameplay elements. We've now swiftly had another, smaller patch, this time fixing blueprint drops that’d become slightly too charitable.

The Arc Raiders 1.7.2 update is now live, and chief among the bullet points is another tweak to schematics you can earn. "Blueprint drop rates have been slightly lowered, but are still higher overall than before the 1.7.0 update," read the patch notes.

Of course, the first thing here is I hope everyone enjoyed the heightened amount of blueprints that were appearing while it lasted. No stats are given, but it definitely seems like you could get some legendary equipment noticeably quicker than Embark Studios intended.

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  • Arc Raiders cold snap Arc Raiders brings in skill tree reset without having to do an expedition, and some players think more change is needed
Flickering Flames Winter Event | ARC Raiders - YouTube Flickering Flames Winter Event | ARC Raiders - YouTube
Watch On

Which brings us onto the second: what's the rate now? Still higher than previously, taking the edge off the grind if you've been trying to get a particular weapon but haven't been able to, whether because of limited playing time or some real bad luck, or both.

"Even with them being absurdly high I still never found a Tempest blueprint, week four of spamming night raids for that sucker," reads one comment on Reddit. "We knew it was too good to be true!" exclaims another.

"I think they need to find the right amount where it's not boring to get blueprints but still manageable for players who reset to get their collection back in a reasonable time and they're figuring that out right now," adds another.

They're referencing the Expedition function, where players can restart their Raider from scratch, near enough. Being as popular as it is, there are plenty of Arc Raiders players ready to build another character in the shooter, to try different playstyles and glean other rewards.

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Embark is likely trying to balance multiple factors in the drops, without making them too easy or a chore. Whether they've found the right cadence is up to players to decide. The best time to look for legendaries was yesterday, the second best time is now - get to it.

Arc Raiders players down each other a "surprisingly low" amount, Embark lead says, who admits the dev team are "way worse people than the community"

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Anthony McGlynn
Anthony McGlynn
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Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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