ARC Raiders Patch 1.36: Full Matchmaking Overhaul Guide

ARC Raiders Patch 1.36 dropped, and for once the headline feature isn't a skin. It's matchmaking. Embark finally admitted your murder-happy trio squad and your flower-sniffing solo runs shouldn't share a reputation. Congratulations, your karma is now schizophrenic in a good way.

The Matchmaking Update, Explained Slowly for the Back Row

The core of this ARC Raiders matchmaking update is simple: your aggression score is no longer one number dragging every mode down with it. Solo, Duo, and Trio now track your behavior separately. Play like a saint in Trio and a war criminal in Solo, and the game will stop punishing one for the sins of the other.

Previously, this ARC Raiders solo duo trio matchmaking logic bled together. Grief in trios, and your solo runs got contaminated with PvP sweats. Go full pacifist solo, and your duo queue softened up whether your teammates liked it or not. That overlap is gone. Each squad size gets its own clean slate.

Translation: hide from PvP in solo all day, then reunite with your bloodthirsty friends for full-aggression trios, and the game finally keeps up. No more laundering your reputation by farming crafting materials for an hour first.

THE FINALS Crossover, Because Cross-Promotion Never Sleeps

Riding along with the matchmaking news is an ARC Raiders THE FINALS crossover, running July 9 through July 30. Finish contracts in THE FINALS to unlock the Azimuth outfit and Archeologist backpack in ARC Raiders, then the promotion flips so THE FINALS players can earn it back the other way. Efficient. Nobody has to make new assets twice.

Turbines Finally Worth the Trip

Loot from ARC Raiders Turbine loot pools got a significant value bump, according to the notes. Whether "significantly increased" means "actually good" or "still not worth dying for" is, as always, a field test. Report back after your first extraction. One caveat: Turbine parts no longer drop from Couriers, so if you skipped grabbing them before today, that door is shut.

Fair Play, Cheaters, and Other Recurring Dramas

Embark used the patch to recap its ongoing fight against unfair advantages. The ARC Raiders Denuvo anti-cheat rollout is now fully enforced across all players, backed by hardware and software detection plus machine-learning input analysis. They also published a graph of players with suspiciously high loot-per-minute values, which is a polite way of saying duping fallout.

On the loadout front, ARC Raiders No Free Loadout restrictions for Night Raid and Close Scrutiny were popular enough that Embark is looking to expand the rule to more map conditions. If you liked not getting deleted by someone who lost nothing walking in, brace for more maps working that way.

Trials, Expeditions, and Other Grind Reminders

ARC Raiders Trials Season 5 content continues alongside a fresh Expedition window, and the ARC Raiders Expedition 4 requirement window opened the same day as this patch. If you're still under the skill point cap, damage output during the window earns you points. If you're already capped, the window earns you nothing but the satisfaction of participation.

Smaller Fixes Worth a Sentence Each

• Weapons on the ground now display their installed mods, so you can judge a rifle before touching it.
• Higher-value items surface properly on the Raider Den shelf instead of hiding behind stacks of junk.
• Multiple terrain clipping and stuck-spot fixes, concentrated around The Dam's spawn bunkers.
• The Quests tab no longer loops back to the "Done" screen after claiming a reward.
• The Emote Wheel updates live while open, instead of lying about what's available.

That's the substance of the ARC Raiders patch notes 1.36.0 release. Read the official notes yourself if you enjoy staring at bullet points for fun; everyone else can extract, log the karma split, and move on with their evening.