Arc Raiders‘ Flickering Flames event kicks off tomorrow, and with it a blanket of snow will land softly over a variety of outdoor maps. While exciting, it’ll make these dangerous maps even more perilous thanks to new environmental effects and frostbite.
This map condition is called Cold Snap, and will be rolled into live servers alongside the regular rotation of Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storms. During the Cold Snap map condition, waters freeze and turn into unsteady ground, vision is limited, and staying outside for too long will damage your raider. You’ll have to rush inside to stave off the frostbite.
Meanwhile, the Flickering Flames event will push the Arc Raiders community to keep things festive. It’s all about gathering Candleberries from out in the world, as well as sources of light and heat to keep things cozy down below ground. This appears to work like the Stella Montis map unlock did, with raiders having to deposit certain resources back at the hub.
Those who go out and gather Candleberries will earn cosmetics, weapons, raider tokens, new items, and more for handing them in. As such, it’s worth booting the game up and getting your foraging gloves on. You’ll have until the 13th January to earn everything you want.
There’s also a new Raider Deck coming to the game, starting the 26th December. The Goalie Raider Deck will be totally free and permanent, and will work much like the launch Raider Deck did. It’ll come packing lots of rewards as you’d expect, but most importantly a new hockey stick raider tool will be included.
Finally, this December is when the first departure window opens for Arc Raiders, meaning you’ll be able to send your levelled up character off to explore the world permanently in exchange for an XP boost and some unique rewards.
With the conclusion of this Flickering Flames event, we’ll have reached the end of that initial roadmap release by Embark Studios. That means what 2026 will hold for Arc Raiders players remains largely a mystery. I, for one, am excited to jump back in, earn some exclusive rewards over the xmas period, and start fresh next year with a new character.
