ARC Raiders guide to the Pendola Pass and Frigate quests

Since 8 October, ARC Raiders’ Frozen Trail update has opened up Pendola Pass, a snowbound map dominated by the carcass of an Emperor, a giant ARC that has crashed to the ground. Embark Studios added 22 new quests with it, and five of them take place on this map or aboard the Frigate, the new ARC vessel. Quest names, objectives and rewards come from the game data listed on ARC Tracker, and the routes from guides by TheGamer and games.gg. If you’re new to the game, it’s free to play until Monday 12 October at 9am BST.

At a glance

Exploring Pendola Pass: a guided tour of ARC Raiders’ new map

Celeste hands you this first ARC Raiders quest, which takes in the key spots on Pendola Pass. According to the quest’s entry on ARC Tracker, you need to destroy 20 ARC enemies, search the control room at the Cielo Sereno Observatory for power, use one Wire to patch into the antenna on top of the tallest tower in the Railyard, and search three containers inside the Commissary Supermarket. The quest gives you three Ziplines when it starts, which is exactly what the antenna calls for.

Collin MacGregor of TheGamer sets out the route in his walkthrough of the Pendola Pass quest. The observatory sits on top of the mountain in the north-east corner of the map: head up to the second floor, move to the southern part of the building, and the control room looks out east over the cliffs. For the tower, go to the south-east corner of the Railyard, get onto the roof, then climb with a Zipline, Grappling Hook or Snap Hook up to the antenna on its western edge.

At the Commissary Supermarket in ARC Raiders, simply opening the containers counts, even if you take nothing, and the breachable room to the east is full of them. Watch out, though, as an ARC patrols the building. You can tackle the objectives in any order and spread them over several raids. The reward is a Breathtaking Snow Globe, a Medium Shield and an Osprey I.

Tracks of the Beast: mark a Bully and a Skulker

This time it’s Shani who sends you to the Northern Tracks, then on to the destroyed station at the end of the line. After that, you have to mark a Bully and a Skulker, two of the new ARC in ARC Raiders. A simple mark is enough, so there’s no need to destroy either of them for those two objectives. If you’d still like to take on the first one, our guide to beating the Bully in Frozen Trail covers its weak points.

In ARC Raiders, the quest then carries on with three Skulkers to destroy and a Skulker Targeter to deliver to Shani. To help you out, she hands over two Lure Grenades and three Adrenaline Shots at the start. In return, you get three Showstoppers and a Grappling Hook.

Sizing Things Up: up close with the Emperor

Celeste also gives you this ARC Raiders quest, along with a Basic Camera to get it going. The first step is to take a photo of the Emperor’s leg near the bridge outside Old Town. Next, you open the probe wreck near the Emperor’s leg close to Almatera Station, then examine its circuits.

After that comes analysing the exposed area at the top of the Emperor’s leg near Railroad Junction, then reaching the Emperor’s base. Finally, you search the Buried Harvester Payload next to it and bring the ARC Conductive Coupler you find inside back to Celeste. This quest sends you across most of the map, so pack plenty of healing. The reward is three Adrenaline Shots, an Exodus Technical Handbook, a Bettina I and 60 Heavy Ammo.

Boarding and Disrupting the Frigate: the two ship quests

The Frigate is the big new challenge Frozen Trail brings to ARC Raiders, and Celeste gives it two quests in a row. To get aboard, the games.gg guide suggests climbing onto one of the circular drones the ship sends down to the ground, then disrupting it so that it carries you up. Boarding the Frigate then asks you to damage a Hydra, a Vaporizer and a Rocketeer, and pays out a Snap Hook, a Wolfpack, a Rascal I and three Launcher Ammo.

The follow-up, Disrupting the Frigate, asks a great deal more of you in ARC Raiders. You need to destroy the power cores at the top of the ship, reach and loot its cargo hold, and take out a Hydra, two Rocketeers and two Vaporizers. According to the Frigate guide published by games.gg, the central reactor only rises once three players activate three nearby controls at the same time. That makes it a genuine wall for solo players, so go in with a full squad. The same guide warns against going near the edge of the cargo drop, because of a bug that eliminates you on the spot. The quest gives you a Powered Descender and a Vita Spray, and rewards you with a Hullcracker I.