ARC Raiders Frozen Trail 2.0: what changes on PC and whether yours runs it free

ARC Raiders got Frozen Trail today, October 8. Embark Studios calls the 2.0 update its biggest since launch. It arrives with free play on Steam, from October 8 at 11:00 CEST until October 12 at 10:00 CEST, so plenty of people will be trying the game for the first time this week. If that’s you, the first question is whether your PC can handle it. If you already play, the notes include visual fixes you will notice.

What Frozen Trail brings

The main additions in 2.0, from the official notes:

• Pendola Pass, a new map Embark calls its most complex to date, with a strong focus on vertical terrain and the new Flash Freeze weather condition.
• New map conditions: Frigate and Redirection.
• New enemies: Bully, Skulker and Hydra.
• New weapons: Bantam and Stiletto, plus Amplified Weapons.
• Reworked progression: a revamped Skill Tree, the Outpost with a Research Bench, and 22 new quests.
• Reward Pass, the evolution of Raider Decks, which move into a new Legacy Pass. Cred is gone, replaced by Reward Points.
• More room: the Stash gets two more levels, up to 328 slots without Expedition bonuses.

What 2.0 changes on your PC

Several of the fixes are ones you will see and hear:

• Textures: improved texture quality on several maps, resolving blocky and inconsistent visuals.
• Ray tracing: ray-traced lighting is restored on boarded window shutters in Buried City, and a lighting issue where light bled into an interior on that map is fixed.
• Lighting: Blue Gate gets adjusted exposure, color grading and atmosphere.
• Audio: a bug where some weapon sounds could fail to play is fixed.
• Controls: the default gamepad mapping has been updated.

ARC Raiders PC requirements

These are the Windows requirements on the Steam store page:

Every popular graphics card we checked clears the minimum. Measured against the recommended, the RTX 3060, RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600 grade B, which means they meet it. The RTX 2060, GTX 1660 Super, RX 6600 XT and Arc B580 grade C: they clear the minimum but are tight against the recommended. A GTX 1060 6GB, an RX 580 or a GTX 1650 clears the minimum, but will struggle.

On Steam Deck, Valve rates it Verified. Details are on the ARC Raiders Steam Deck page.

Can your PC run ARC Raiders?

Here is how your PC grades against ARC Raiders and Rust, which has similar recommended requirements, also with 16 GB of RAM:

Game	Rec. GPU score	Rec. RAM	Min. RAM	Your PC
ARC Raiders	16,200	16 GB	12 GB	?
Rust	17,050	16 GB	12 GB	?

If you fall short, the full game page shows which upgrade raises your grade the most.

Sources: Frozen Trail 2.0 patch notes, ARC Raiders on Steam, Frozen Trail announcement on Steam, Free play from October 8 to 12.