ARC Raiders’ Soul’s Offering Raider Project Starts 27 October

Embark has dropped a moody little teaser for ARC Raiders’ next Raider Project, Soul’s Offering, and it starts on Tuesday 27 October. That’s three days before the game’s first birthday and smack in Halloween week.

What we know

• It’s a Raider Project. That’s ARC Raiders’ recurring community event format; the last one, Ascending the Mountain, kicked off the fifth expedition.
• It starts on 27 October. The title card says “Live October 27”. Embark hasn’t given a start time yet. Recent updates have landed around 9 to 11am UTC, which would be roughly 10pm to midnight NZDT on Tuesday night. That’s a pattern, not a promise.
• The theme is remembrance. The official blurb reads: “It’s time to honor Toledo’s fallen. Light up the night sky and offer remembrances for the Raiders that came before.” Toledo is already part of the game’s lore; Celeste’s “Tribute to Toledo” quest has you chasing a Power Rod.
• The teaser: a Raider lighting a match in the dark, then an offering table with candles, a mask, pomegranates, medals and an old cassette tape. It has very Día de los Muertos vibes.

What we don’t know yet

• What you actually do: the activities, community goals and rewards haven’t been announced. Past Raider Projects were community-goal events with rewards, so expect something along those lines.
• Whether it’s free: Embark hasn’t said. Previous Raider Projects have been free for everyone who owns the game, so it would be a shock if this one wasn’t.
• Halloween: Embark hasn’t called it a Halloween event, but the timing, the candles and the “honor the fallen” wording do a lot of the talking.
• The anniversary: ARC Raiders launched on 30 October 2025. Nothing has been announced for the birthday itself yet.

Where ARC Raiders is at

• Frozen Trail (the 2.0 update) landed on 8 October, and Embark called it the biggest update since launch. It brought the Pendola Pass snow map, new ARC (Bully, Skulker and Hydra), the Bantam and Stiletto guns, a skill tree redesign and a 60-level Reward Pass.
• Player numbers: with the free weekend and a 50% sale, Steam peaked at 131,388 concurrent players on 8 October, the highest since April, according to PlayGround.ru. It was sitting at around 88,000 when we checked Steam’s API today.
• The PvE toggle beta ran from 13 to 20 October. Players fired more than 30 million shots in PvE mode. Whether PvE sticks around permanently is expected to be decided in November.
• Store Update 2.2.0 on 20 October added the Wreck Set and ended the PvE test. A few quest bugs and some Xbox instability are still listed as known issues.
• Price: ARC Raiders is NZ$69.99 on Steam and is also on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Our take

A remembrance event for dead Raiders, in an extraction shooter where you die constantly, is honestly a pretty good bit. Half the server will be lighting candles for the loadout they lost to a Rocketeer five minutes ago.

The real question is whether there’s substance behind the vibes. Frozen Trail gave the game its biggest bump since launch, and the smart move is keeping that momentum through the anniversary rather than letting it drift. A teaser with no details four days out is a bit cheeky, though. Show us what we’re grinding for, Embark.

Still extracting after Frozen Trail, and what do you want from Soul’s Offering? Tell us in the comments, or squad up in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• IGN (YouTube): ARC Raiders, Official Soul’s Offering Teaser Trailer (start date and official description)
• ARC Raiders: Live Update 1.45.0 (the Ascending the Mountain Raider Project)
• PC Gamer: Tribute to Toledo quest
• God is a Geek: ARC Raiders Frozen Trail update
• ARC Raiders: PvE toggle, what to know
• ARC Raiders: Store Update 2.2.0
• Steam news: ARC Raiders (player peak and PvE stats via PlayGround.ru)