ARC Raiders Update 1.29 Breakdown: New Trader, Rascal Launcher, Balancing Changes & More
Changes all in the right direction.
After Embark confirmed that the next major content update for ARC Raiders wouldn't land until October, a lot of players braced themselves for a quiet stretch. What nobody quite expected was for the May content update — Update 1.29 — to hit as hard as it did. A new trader, a new weapon, meaningful augment buffs, a rework of a core attachment tier, enemy behavior fixes, and a major anti-cheat upgrade all in one drop. This article covers everything you need to know about ARC Raiders Update 1.29, broken down piece by piece.
The New Trader: Hermal and the Weekly Trade System
Without question, the biggest addition in Update 1.29 is Hermal, a brand-new trader that fundamentally changes how endgame progression works in ARC Raiders.
Hermal operates on a weekly rotating stock. Each week, he offers a curated set of items — blueprints, stash expansions, expedition vault slots, cosmetics, and in-game currency — but here's the key distinction: he doesn't take coins. Hermal only accepts specific high-value ARC parts as trade currency. The items eligible for trade include:
- Matriarch and Queen Cores
- Bombader, Rocketeer, Bastion, and Leaper Cells
- Assessor Matrices
- Turbine Compressors
- Vaporizer Regulators
For example, if you want the Tempest Blueprint on offer this week, the price tag is listed at 1 million in value — but that figure represents the combined worth of the eligible trade items listed above. Your coin balance and your inventory value in other categories is completely irrelevant. Hermal doesn't care about your wealth. He cares about what you've been hunting.
This is a massive incentive shift. Fighting large ARC enemies now has direct, tangible impact on your progression in ways it simply didn't before. Embark has also confirmed that prices are not finalized — they're gathering feedback and monitoring data to ensure the balance stays fair. For the first week, a single stash expansion and five expedition vault spaces are available as a way to collect that initial feedback before expanding the offering further. If an item rotates out before you can grab it, it may return in a future stock cycle.
Expedition Vault Slots Explained
The expedition vault slots are a new concept worth understanding clearly. Purchasing one allows you to carry a specific item over into the next expedition, bypassing the usual reset. You can purchase up to five slots.
One important nuance: if you want to carry over a blueprint, you need a duplicate of it — one that you've already learned and have available to craft, plus a physical copy of the item to transfer. It's not a checkbox system where you flag what you want to keep. The actual item needs to be contributed. Worth knowing well before the expedition reset window arrives.
Also worth noting: the expedition window itself got quietly extended. What had roughly 34 days remaining has been pushed out to approximately 48 days, moving the close date to around July 6th–7th. That's an extra two weeks of runway to prep for the next cycle.
Cosmetics Through Gameplay — Finally
One of the more exciting implications of Hermal's offering is that cosmetics previously locked behind Radar Tokens (real-money currency) can now be earned purely through play. The trader's weekly stock may include outfit cosmetics, and while it appears to be the outfit only — not full bundles with face paint or backpacks — the fact that you can work toward cosmetics just by grinding the game is a legitimately big deal. In-game currency rewards are also on offer, though the exact amounts are still being evaluated for whether the grind-to-reward ratio feels worth it.
The Rascal: A New Launcher Joins the Arsenal
Update 1.29 introduces the Rascal, described as a lightweight, compact launcher and explicitly positioned as the "little brother" to the Hallcracker.
This addition addresses a long-standing gap in the weapon sandbox. The Hallcracker has been the only launcher in the game since launch — and it sat behind roughly 40 quests worth of progression before players could unlock it. For anyone who skipped quests, returned to a new expedition, or simply hadn't grinded that far, launchers were effectively off the table as a viable weapon class.
The Rascal changes that. It's a common spawn found in security breaches, and its blueprint is available to acquire through normal looting rather than quest completion. The trade-off is performance: the Rascal is single-shot, less accurate than the Hallcracker, and requires frequent reloading. However, it's easier to craft — requiring two advanced mechanical components, three heavy gun parts, and five canisters — and its reload time decreases with each upgrade level.
It's not going to replace rifles or SMGs as the community's go-to option, but for the subset of players who enjoy explosive utility or want a more accessible on-ramp into the launcher class, the Rascal is a meaningful addition. Blueprint accessibility alone makes it worth the attention.
Extended Barrel Rework: I, II, and III
The existing Extended Barrel attachment has been restructured into a three-tier system.
What was previously just "Extended Barrel" — an epic-tier attachment that was tough to find and had no lower-tier equivalent — is now designated Extended Barrel III. Two new tiers sit below it:
- Extended Barrel I is craftable by default, making it immediately accessible to all players.
- Extended Barrel II has a blueprint, likely the second of the two blueprints introduced with this update.
- Extended Barrel III has also had its stat profile updated: it now offers 30% bullet velocity (up from 25%), a new 15% increase to distance before damage fall-off, while retaining the existing vertical recoil control penalty.
This is a well-structured change. Previously, the extended barrel felt like an attachment category that existed at only one hard-to-reach tier. Now there's an accessible on-ramp for players who want bullet velocity benefits earlier, with meaningful upgrades available as they progress.
Weapon Adjustments and Durability Fixes
Betatina Fire Rate Buff
The Betatina received a base fire rate increase from 235 to 250 RPM. It's a modest number on paper but noticeable in practice, especially for players who already favored it coming out of the Riven Tides update. It was already in a good spot — now it's better.
Durability Lifetime Increases
Embark acknowledged that durability changes introduced in the previous patch hit too hard on certain weapons. Update 1.29 targets the worst offenders with the following lifetime increases:
| Weapon | Lifetime Increase |
|---|---|
| Pharaoh | +18% |
| Anvil | +25% |
| Kanto | +18% |
| Osprey | +33% |
| Renegade | +54% |
| Torrente | +25% |
| Betatina | +25% |
| Jupiter | +33% |
These changes don't fully walk back the durability philosophy introduced in Riven Tides, but they bring the outliers in line with the rest of the roster. The Renegade in particular getting a 54% increase signals just how far off the mark it was.
Augment Buffs: Tactical Mark III and Flanking
Two underperforming augments were targeted for buffs this update, and both got meaningful upgrades.
Tactical Mark III Healing:
- Cloud of Renewal is now an AoE effect, meaning nearby squad members also benefit from the heal.
- Healing output increased from 20 to 45.
- Cooldown increased from 30 to 45 seconds to offset the power gain.
Combat Mark III Flanking:
- Shield capacity now accepts medium shields, replacing the previous light/level-one shield limitation. This single change makes the augment significantly more viable in real combat scenarios.
Embark's note with this change is worth emphasizing: rather than nerfing stronger augments to bring balance, they explicitly chose to buff the underperformers upward. That's a healthier approach to augment balance and one that the community has been asking for.
ARC Enemy Behavior Changes
Several quality-of-life improvements were made to ARC enemy behavior:
Rocketeer: Multiple missiles fired simultaneously now spread across a larger area rather than potentially stacking on a single point. For anyone who's been vaporized by three missiles landing in the same square meter, this is a welcome change.
Firefly: The fire application now matches its visuals more accurately. Brief grazing contact no longer carries the same punishment it did pre-patch — corner peaking the Firefly is considerably less punishing.
Queen and Matriarch: Both will now step over obstacles rather than passing through them, reducing instances of unfair knockback on players who believed they were in cover.
General ARC Perception:
- Vision through bushes and smoke is now more granular. Raiders deeper in cover are harder to detect; those near the edge are spotted faster.
- ARC sound perception in indoor environments has been reduced, while outdoor awareness is more accurate.
- ARC will be less reactive to raiders immediately after they spawn into a session.
Gameplay and Quality-of-Life Changes
Photoelectric Cloak: The Riven Tides nerf has been partially reverted. Power cost is back down to 5% per use, down from the 10% it was sitting at.
End of Round: Players can now see all squad members at end of round regardless of extraction status, access social actions (mute, report, block) directly from the scoreboard, and leave the squad immediately during the tunnel sequence.
Audio improvements include reduced sound muffling while taking damage (you'll hear your surroundings better at low HP), a distinct audio cue when Bastions or Bombaders switch targets, improved binaural audio for height and elevation perception, and comb filtering on footstep sounds for better directional clarity.
Free Loadout Augment sell price increased from 100 to 660. Not a game-changer, but if you've been defaulting to selling these, the payout is now meaningfully better.
Anti-Cheat: Denuvo Coming to ARC Raiders
Embark confirmed that Denuvo Anti-Cheat is rolling out to ARC Raiders starting May 19th, initially to a limited player pool before expanding. The studio has stated they are not using Denuvo's DRM service — only the anti-cheat layer — and are working to minimize performance impact.
Denuvo Anti-Cheat is generally considered more robust than Easy Anti-Cheat, which has become so standard in the industry that bypasses for it are well-documented and widely used. Whether this replaces EAC entirely or operates alongside it remains to be seen, but any step toward a more secure environment — particularly in high-PvP lobbies — is a positive one.
Final Verdict on Update 1.29
Update 1.29 arrived without much fanfare and delivered more than most players anticipated. The Hermal trader alone reshapes what endgame grinding looks like, the Rascal opens up the launcher class to a far wider audience, the durability fixes address real community frustrations, and the augment buffs push ARC Raiders' build diversity in the right direction. On top of that, enemy behavior is cleaner, the audio systems are sharper, and a stronger anti-cheat layer is on the way.
For a patch that wasn't billing itself as a major content drop, Update 1.29 earns high marks. Keep grinding those large ARC enemies — that Arc Core stockpile is about to become a lot more valuable.
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