News Tag: Arc Raiders Cold Snap

ARC Raiders recently added a new map modifier, Cold Snap, bringing now the harsh winter conditions of Northern Hemisphere into the game.

Unlike previous maps, this map's environmental conditions are much harsher. Staying outdoors will cause you to be affected by the cold, making outdoor exploration and evacuation extremely difficult. However, to collect Candleberries, you must go outdoors.

So let's see how Cold Snap mechanic works, how to deal with this condition, and how to find Candleberries outdoors.

Cold Snap Mechanism

When you first enter the cold outdoors, you have approximately 2 minutes of safe time before you begin to suffer cold damage. However, in actual gameplay, this time may fluctuate between 1 minute 35 seconds and 2 minutes, depending on whether your body was completely warm before entering the cold.

When you go back indoors to warm up, the safe time when going outside will shorten, to approximately 1 minute 35 seconds to 1 minute 40 seconds. If you stay indoors for about 25 seconds to warm up, you can be outdoors for approximately 1 minute and 35 seconds. Even if you stay indoors for longer, your safe time outdoors won't change much.

Movement

Even in cold conditions, stamina consumption and recovery are unaffected. You can also use an adrenaline injector to fully restore stamina, helping you quickly traverse long distances.

Snow itself doesn't affect movement speed. Only a sudden stop after running on frozen lakes or rivers will cause slight slippage, but this has little impact on normal movement.

Additionally, you can collect Snowballs in snowdrifts on the map, stacking up to 5. Each Snowball is worth 10 coins, and throwing it causes no damage, just for fun. Some Uncovered Caches on Cold Snap map are frozen and need to be broken open. You'll also find baskets throughout the map, allowing you to quickly collect natural resources like fruit.

How To Determine Outdoor Time?

There's no stopwatch in the game to show how long you've been outdoors, but there are many indicators to show your current stage.

The most obvious effect is the snow accumulation on your character. When you first stand outdoors, snow will accumulate on your head and shoulders. After about 25 seconds, snow will begin to accumulate on your legs. After about a minute, your entire body will be covered in snow, and no more snow will be added thereafter.

Additionally, your character will make a sound when entering or leaving cold areas, both to alert yourself and to reveal your location to two enemies. After about one minute outdoors, your character will emit a specific sound indicating that half of the safe time has passed.

When cold damage begins to take effect, the character will emit another audio cue. However, this sound may be difficult to hear in firefights or noisy environments.

Shelter

Therefore, if you need to move long distances outdoors, you should plan your route within 1 minute and 35 seconds and find shelter along the way that can provide temporary warmth.

Any sturdy structure with walls and a roof can be considered effective shelter. The roof is crucial; structures without roofs are generally ineffective. Ideally, you should look for buildings with a roof and at least three walls.

However, some seemingly open outdoor structures can actually serve as shelters, and you can test this yourself. Once you enter a valid shelter, your character will stop shivering, an audio cue will sound, and the snow on your body will slowly disappear.

How To Heal?

Once the cold damage begins, the damage you take is continuous and constant, and it doesn't increase over time. As long as you're not attacked, it's not a significant threat. You can even continuously use healing items to recover.

Regular bandages are effective at mitigating cold damage and slowly restoring health, while Herbal Bandage and Sterilized Bandage are even more effective. Fabric is very ineffective and should only be used as a last resort.

Therefore, it's recommended that you carry an extra set of regular bandages in addition to your usual healing items when entering a cold-weather map.

Fire

If you are set on fire outdoors, you will immediately clear all your chill buildup and reset your 2-minute safety timer to zero. However, being set on fire will also cause you some damage.

A similar effect to Fire is Firespray, which you can create in-game. Its effect is almost identical to being set on fire. You only need to spray it on teammates for 1-2 seconds to completely clear their chill buildup. Note that short sprays are less effective.

When you are being chased by enemies and have no shelter, you can choose to set yourself on fire and then heal yourself, trading a small amount of fire damage for an extra 2 minutes of outdoor activity time.

How To Collect Candleberries?

Flickering Flames event requires a total of 260 Candleberries, but you will obtain 180 through the bonus path, so you only need to collect 80 yourself.

You can search baskets scattered throughout the area; they always contain Candleberries. Uncovered Caches usually also contain them, but they are slightly more difficult to identify due to the need for explosions and wind noise interference. You can also directly search bushes, which will almost always yield you 1 to 5 Candleberries each time.

Cold Snap is a more challenging map mod, riskier than regular maps. If you encounter other players, it's best not to shoot, but rather express a willingness to cooperate. This will make it easier for you to safely evacuate with your loot and Candleberries.

Cold Snap map presents challenging situations, so be prepared. You can buy the new ARC Raiders blueprints in IGGM to arm yourself with the best weapons and gear, thus surrounding your loot gathered in the freezing cold. Using the ARC8 code will also give you an 8% discount on all ARC Raiders items!

On December 16th, ARC Raiders Cold Snap update will bring heavy snow and extreme cold to all maps, presenting raiders with harsh environmental challenges.

Players will need to relearn how to move, survive, and safely evacuate in this challenging environment. Only those who adapt will emerge victorious.

Date

ARC Raiders Cold Snap will launch globally and last for four weeks, ending on Tuesday, January 13th, 2026. Here are the updated times for key global time zones:

• North American West Coast: 1:30 AM PST
• 4:30 AM EST, North American East Coast
• 6:30 AM Brazil BRT
• 9:30 AM UK Time (Greenwich Mean Time)
• 10:30 AM Western European Time
• 6:30 PM Japan Time
• 8:30 PM Australia East Coast Time

Snowfall Mechanism

Outdoors

Snowfall, as a map event, will cover all areas of the map, including Rust Belt, Valley of Blue Gate, Abandoned Spaceport, and Red Lakes. Unlike standard raids, Cold Snap applies continuous environmental stress to raiders. Snowfall is not just a visual effect; it affects your combat, movement, and survival.

Prolonged exposure to the outdoors will cause raiders to suffer frostbite, resulting in continuous health loss. They must enter indoors or receive rapid healing to survive. Frostbite ignores armor, meaning even high-level gear is ineffective, but some instant-recovery items may be effective.

Because the map is covered in snow, gathering materials becomes much more difficult, so to combat frostbite, you should carry significantly more healing items than usual. Consider discarding some ammunition to make room for extra medical supplies.

Furthermore, the radar will malfunction after a few minutes, and the icy ground will make movement unsteady, both increasing the difficulty of combat and exploration. You can move short distances between buildings, but try to avoid lingering in open areas, as you'll leave footprints in the snow, making you vulnerable to being tracked by other players! Being suppressed by players outdoors will put you at a significant disadvantage.

Additionally, the different map layouts in Snowfall will have varying impacts on each map.

• Dam Battlegrounds: More open areas, limited shelters, requiring route planning and sufficient ARC Raiders items.
• Buried City: More indoor space, more frequent PvP battles.
• Spaceport and Blue Gate: A more balanced distribution of open areas and shelters, giving an advantage to players who can effectively manage movement between buildings.
• Stella Montis: Already a popular PvP map, Snowfall may further intensify PvP.

Shelter

Entering indoor areas will immediately stop frostbite. You can use items to restore health here. Buildings, underground spaces, and enclosed structures can all serve as safe zones during Snowfall event.

Of course, these safe zones will attract more other players than usual, and some squads may cluster together. You can cooperate for warmth or engage in combat to become the last survivor in the shelter.

If your map frequently sees PvP, the longer you stay in the shelter, the more dangerous it becomes. You should make full use of this time to rest and then venture out again.

Flickering Flames Event

Launching alongside Cold Snap is Flickering Flames event, a progress-based event. Players accumulate progress by gaining XP, with 1,000 XP equaling 10 Merits. However, new players must complete a total of five rounds of Arc Raiders to unlock the event, although this does not require successful extraction.

Flickering Flames has 25 tiers, rewarding players with gear, cosmetic items, and Raiders tokens. You're on a raid. You can progress using any source of XP, or you can avoid Snowfall map and accumulate progress on regular maps. You can gain XP by:

• Defeating large ARC enemies.
• Completing trials.
• Successfully extracting with valuable loot.

Candleberry Banquet Project

This update introduces a new project, Candleberry Banquet Project. Players need to collect Candleberries that spawn outdoors. The more Candleberries you successfully collect, the higher your Candleberry Banquet completion rate will be.

Candleberries can be used to craft candles, juice, tea, stews, perfume, and more, and these items may have mechanics that resist cold wave damage.

Furthermore, you'll earn Merits as you progress through Candleberry Banquet Project. This program is somewhat similar to a battle pass; as you progress, you'll earn rewards such as cosmetic items and Raider Tokens.

New Raider Deck

The release of the new Raider Deck has been slightly delayed, and it will be unlocked on December 26th and will be available to players for free.

The new Raider Deck features a Goalie-themed outfit inspired by old world clothing. It also includes a new raider tool skin, the hockey stick. This Raider Deck is permanent and won't disappear, so you can unlock it at any time. However, it's unconfirmed whether accumulated Raider Deck Points will carry over to the new deck.

Before the new Raider Deck update, this update also includes new portable, playable interactive items, an Acoustic Guitar, a gold-mask-style Mist Horn Set, futuristic Solar Panel Gadgets, and possibly even warming items to protect against the cold.

Snowfall transforms Arc Raiders into a true survival experience, where environmental awareness is just as important as combat skills. Use your tactics and items to adapt to winter warfare. The frozen wastelands of Speranza await your challenge, so Raiders, stay warm and survive!