There’s nothing quite like involuntarily losing all the gear you have grinded for in a video game, and ARC Raiders is looking to change things up.
Account and inventory wipes are commonplace in extraction shooters where players can hoard gear to become all-powerful, so they have been viewed as a necessity up until now. But for Embark Studios, the devs behind ARC Raiders, a new method is afoot.
Here’s everything there is to know about wipes in ARC Raiders and the special feature called Expedition Projects.
Table of contents
Does ARC Raiders have wipes?
Yes, ARC Raiders has something like a “wipe,” but it’s not a mandatory one forced upon all players. Instead, the game uses a system called Expedition Projects that make it optional.
“Just to make it clear, we absolutely see the benefits a global wipe provides,” ARC Raiders design director Virgil Watkins explained. “Veteran players can experience the game fresh, the economy is reset to the baseline, and all players have about the same level of capabilities. At least for a little while.”
This is because, according to Embark, mandatory wipes don’t “respect the investment of those players who do not have as much time to play overall,” so the studio is trying to strike a balance.
ARC Raiders – What is an Expedition Project?
When you reach level 20, you unlock the ability to “reset” your character’s progress similarly to the Prestige system in Call of Duty, but with the flavor of “wipes” like in other extraction shooters such as Escape From Tarkov. If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.
Here’s a quick outline of what you keep and what you lose when your Raider departs on an Expedition:
| This is what is reset | This is what is kept |
|---|---|
| Stash Upgrade Progress Inventory items Blueprints Coins Player level Skill Points Raider Den Workshop Quests |
Unlocked maps Unlocked Workshop Stations Codex entries Raider Tokens Cred Raider Decks progress Active leaderboards Trials Cosmetics Personal event progress Bonus Skill Points earned from Expeditions Bonus Stash Slots earned form Expeditions |
“The Expedition Project will operate on a repeating cycle of roughly eight weeks,” Embark explained. “During the course of these eight weeks, players can contribute toward and make progress on their Expedition Project, which will overall be a somewhat large time investment. At the start of the eighth week, the ability to finalize the project will become available and will remain available for that entire week. If a player has fulfilled all of the necessary stages of the project, they will be able to commit to completing the Expedition during this period.”
Any Project not completed in the time period will have its progress moved to the next time phase window.
ARC Raiders Expedition Project schedule
The schedule for ARC Raiders’ first Expedition Project is as follows:
- Oct. 30 to Dec. 14
- Caravan Construction and Supply Phases available
- Dec. 15 to 20
- Finalization Phase Opens
- Dec. 21
- Completed Caravans depart
ARC Raiders Expedition Project rewards
Embark Studios says it’s still “finalizing” what you get when you depart on an Expedition, which is the entire point of wiping for those who wish to do so, but the dev has teased rewards such as this:
- Permanent account unlocks for each completed Expedition.
- Unique cosmetic rewards for each completed Expedition.
- Account “buffs” that are applied for the duration of the following Expedition cycle.
- Sequential completions of the Expedition Project increase the magnitude of these buffs, up to a limit.
The post How do wipes work in ARC Raiders? Expedition Project, explained appeared first on Destructoid.