I asked about Arc Raiders' mystery ships and a dev told me the same thing Embark is now teasing online: "I think you'll have to keep an eye on the sky for now"

The big Arc Raiders Flashpoint update is fast approaching, and ahead of the March 31 rollout, developer Embark Studios has begun a social media campaign teasing what looks like a powerful new Arc enemy.

A short clip with robotic captioning suggests a few innocent raiders got themselves vaporized. Imagine the Queen's laser attack, but smaller and with more lightning. That looks to be what this new mystery Arc is packing. The caption reads:

"C0NTΔCT L0ST… M3LTΞD >>> ________

[ team ] NΞVΞR RΞTURNΞD // signal.err

VΔP0R1ZΞD // signal.err

[ no signal ]"

The reply to this post is what raised my eyebrow. "[ watch the sky ]," it reads, with a nod to Flashpoint's pending launch.

At GDC earlier this month, I spoke to Arc Raiders production director Caio Braga. During our interview, I asked him point-blank about the mysterious flying ships that players have spotted in various maps during the hurricane map condition. His response is on my mind today: "Ooh, that's an interesting one. I think you'll have to keep an eye on the sky for now."

Braga and Embark have, for now, stopped just short of connecting those mystery ships (assuming they really are ships) to Flashpoint, but the verbiage perked my ears right up. We won't be getting a new endgame, Queen-tier Arc until the larger Riven Tides update due in April, but if there is a connection here, Flashpoint could end up being more dangerous than initially expected.

Arc Raiders once had an Arc called The Cylinder of Pain, so I asked Embark about The Cylinder of Pain, and it turns out The Cylinder of Pain was a proto-Bastion with a big cylinder – of pain.