Patch Notes 1.29.0

Patch 1.29.0 adds the Nomadic Envoy trader and a new grenade launcher, reworks several augments and weapon mods, and starts a limited rollout of Denuvo Anti-Cheat.

What’s New

New Trader: Nomadic Envoy

Ermal, one of a group of Nomadic Envoys, has made camp in Speranza with a range of Topside trades. Raiders who have reached Level 25 can barter high-value ARC materials and any stockpiled rare weapons for:

• Expanded Stash space (resets if you depart on an expedition)
• Expedition Vault access, letting you safely store up to 5 of your most prized items for retrieval after an expedition

Ermal also offers weekly rotating trades: cosmetics, blueprints, Raider Tokens, and gameplay and progression items (including items for current Raider projects). His stock rotates, so a missed offer may return in a later week. For the first week a single Stash expansion and 5 Expedition Vault spaces are available while Embark gathers feedback on pricing.

New Grenade Launcher: The Rascal

The Rascal is a lightweight, compact grenade launcher built for tackling armored ARC. It is slower to reload and a bit unpredictable on the aim, but it works as a reliable anti-ARC side-arm without the weight of a Hullcracker.

Also new this patch: Extended Barrel mod improvements (see Weapon Mods), End of Round changes (see Social), the Sandveil Set, the Sideburns facial hair style, and the Sheath Set (available June 2).

Balance Changes

ARC

• Increased the granularity of ARC vision through bushes and smokes. Raiders near the edge of cover are easier to spot; those deeper in foliage or behind smoke are harder to detect.
• Improved how ARC perceives sound in open outdoor spaces, and reduced their sensitivity to sounds indoors and through geometry.

Firefly: improved how the Firefly applies fire. The effect now matches the visuals more closely, and briefly grazing the flame no longer feels as punishing.

Rocketeer: when the Rocketeer fires several missiles at once, they now spread over a larger area instead of stacking on one spot.

Gameplay

• Photoelectric Cloak power cost reduced from 10/s to 5/s.

Augments:

• Tactical Mk.3 (Healing): Cloud of Renewal is now an area-of-effect heal. Healing increased from 20 to 45; cooldown increased from 30s to 45s.
• Combat Mk.3 (Flanking): shield capacity changed to accept Medium Shields.

Weapons

• Bettina base fire rate increased from 235 to 250.

Weapon durability: the durability changes in the last patch were felt too heavily on some weapons. This patch targets the worst offenders that break too quickly, increasing their lifetime to bring them in line with other weapons.

Weapon Mods:

• Weapon mods can now affect aim-down-sights transition speed for scoped weapons.
• Extended Barrel: bullet velocity bonus increased from 25% to 30%, and damage falloff distance increased by 15%. It is renamed to Extended Barrel III, and two new lower-tier variants are added, Extended Barrel I and Extended Barrel II.

Bug Fixes

ARC

• Fixed flying ARC getting stuck.
• Queen and Matriarch now step over things more often than through them, reducing unfair knockback.
• ARC are less perceptive of Raiders just after they spawn into a session, and less likely to engage.
• Fixed some ARC spawning in unexpected locations.

ARC Turbine:

• Fixed Turbine legs becoming invisible at odd angles.
• Improved Turbine leg placement and landing positioning to reduce visual clipping.
• Raiders are now more likely to be burned when standing inside the ARC Turbine.

Animation

• Updated cloth physics on character outfits for more natural movement.
• Fixed some ARC weapon rotations snapping and appearing laggy.
• Fixed items clipping into Field Crates when picked up while holding a gadget.

Audio

• Reduced how much other sounds are lowered while taking damage.
• Added a distinct sound for when Bastion and Bombardier switch targets.
• Added comb filtering to footstep and movement sounds for clearer distance, elevation, and direction.
• Improved binaural audio for distinguishing the height and elevation of sounds.

Cosmetics

• Ongoing work to unify character texture settings for better performance and visual consistency.

Gameplay

• Raiders are now immune to stuns while entering a Raider Hatch.
• Fixed downed players being able to move out of bounds.
• Pressing fire during an action such as a dodge-roll or climb now buffers the shot correctly; previously it did not.

General

• Fixed players being teleported when standing on destroyed ARC parts.
• Fixed characters floating when disconnecting mid-air.
• Fixed the Expedition timer not showing the correct duration.

Items

• Agave Juice now Quick-Moves into an available Quick Use slot instead of the Backpack, and is no longer unloaded when the Backpack is emptied.
• Free Loadout Augment sell price: 100 → 660.

Maps

• General: fixed low-res textures, odd spray-paint decals, and a misaligned wall in tunnel and highway areas; fixed overly dark vent-material shading.
• Riven Tides: fixed a balcony clipping into a hotel doorway, floating objects, rope visuals and physics, a misaligned hotel-lobby balcony, and missing wall collision at Room 207.
• Stella Montis: polished environment textures and fixed collision issues.

Social

• Added an option to block players after reporting.
• Fixed voice chat failing when opening the console UI on PS5 or Xbox.
• End of Round: all squad members are now visible at the end of a round whether or not they extracted. Their nameplates expose social actions (report, mute, block), and players can leave the squad immediately during the tunnel sequence.

UI

• Added safe-fall-height information to the Crash Mat tooltip.
• Deployable previews now show occluded portions with a striped overlay.
• Fixed erratic ping markers when pinging an ARC Turbine as it entered the map.

Utility

• Removed an unintended delay after cancelling a Trigger ‘Nade throw.
• Fixed thrown grenades that could not be cancelled.
• Cancelling a Pulse Mine or Gas Mine deployment no longer consumes the item.
• Fixed the missing “Use Zipline” prompt at close range.
• Fixed vaulting triggering while moving upward, or while standing still, with the Powered Descender active.
• Fixed the Surge Coil not damaging teammates of the player who placed it.

Stability & Performance

• General performance and stability improvements.
• Fixed the loading screen getting stuck.

Anti-Cheat

Denuvo Anti-Cheat begins rolling out to ARC Raiders on May 19, initially to a limited pool of players and expanding after monitoring. Embark confirmed it is not using Denuvo’s DRM service and is targeting minimal performance impact. It runs alongside the existing Anybrain system.

Known Issues

• Opening the console menu on PS5 or Xbox while matchmaking cancels the matchmaking.
• The Sandveil outfit scarf can appear stretched, with long hairstyles clipping through it.
• Players can fall out of the map near a wall of the Pilgrim Peak building.
• Extraction music plays in the background during the new Trader introduction video.
• Squad Walk characters may fail to appear in some cases.
• Dolabra does not deal damage to Practice Range training dummies.
• The pause on an augment’s regen effect fails to apply after a revival.
• The throw animation can fail if a Trigger ‘Nade is detonated immediately after throwing it.
• Localization gaps across the UI, including missing text in the settings menu and loading-screen quotes.
• Customization purchases rarely fail; reopen the customization screen to fix it.
• The Firefly can disappear after going idle and drop an incendiary grenade.
• Shredders float to the ceiling in some Hidden Bunker rooms.
• Player animations can break when a Baron Husk search is interrupted.
• The Leaper can jump through the ARC Turbine.