AceShowbiz - ARC Raiders recently received the Shrouded Sky update, introducing five new quests to the extraction shooter’s gameplay. While the update adds fresh content to keep players engaged, it also highlights one of the game’s most irritating design choices: quests that can only be completed once per raid. This mechanic has caused widespread frustration among players, undermining both the fun and immersion of the game.

The core gameplay of ARC Raiders revolves around extraction missions where players raid hostile environments to collect loot and complete objectives. Quests in the game are designed to provide narrative direction and goals beyond simple scavenging. Typically, these quests require players to reach specific locations, interact with objects, or return items to the base known as Speranza. While these tasks usually offer a welcome sense of purpose, some quests introduced in the Shrouded Sky update have proven to be a source of annoyance rather than enjoyment.

Among the new quests, “Keeping An Eye Out” and “Stable Housing” are relatively straightforward and don’t detract from gameplay. However, the quest “Worth Your Salt” introduces a problematic mechanic that exemplifies the frustration players face. In this quest, players must find a prototype battery, charge it, and deposit it in a designated drop-off container. Although multiple batteries spawn from an inspectable box, there is only one container slot available for depositing a charged battery. This limitation means that if another player completes the deposit first during a raid, others attempting the quest will be locked out and forced to try again in a subsequent raid.

This “one-per-raid” restriction is not new to ARC Raiders. Since the game’s launch in late October 2025, players have encountered similar issues in quests like “Keeping the Memory.” In that quest, players must return a helmet to a memorial site. However, the helmet is treated as a server-side object that only one player can manipulate at a time. If another player has already completed the task by placing the helmet back, others must wait for a new raid to attempt the quest again.

The result of these mechanics is a cycle of repeated attempts, often requiring players to plan entire raids around completing these quests. To succeed, players find themselves bringing minimal gear to avoid losing valuable items, using Adrenaline Shots to gain a speed advantage, and hoping to join a fresh, low-latency lobby where no one else has yet completed the objective. This level of effort for a single quest objective disrupts the typical flow of the game and can quickly lead to player burnout.

Beyond the practical frustrations, these quest mechanics also break immersion. In the game’s narrative, Celeste, a key character, assigns these quests directly to the player’s Raider, implying a personal mission. However, the multiplayer environment means that other Raiders—ostensibly random scavengers like the player—can complete these objectives first. This contradicts the story’s premise because it makes no sense within the game world that multiple players would share the same unique mission and yet only one can complete it per raid. Players are left with a sense that their individual agency and the narrative’s integrity are compromised by these arbitrary restrictions.

While these issues are widely recognized within the ARC Raiders community, they present a challenging problem for the developers at Embark Studios. Given the ongoing struggle against exploits and glitches, fixing quest mechanics may not be the highest priority. Nonetheless, many players have voiced their exasperation online, with comments ranging from frustrated gripes to outright declarations that certain quests “suck.” The fact that such criticism surfaced on the day the Shrouded Sky update was released is a clear indication that this design choice negatively impacts player experience.

Despite these flaws, quests remain an important component of ARC Raiders, providing narrative structure and meaningful objectives amid the open-ended raids. However, the existence of quests that lock out all but one player per raid stands out as an unnecessary obstacle that detracts from the overall enjoyment. If Embark Studios can find a way to redesign these quests—for example, by allowing multiple players to complete objectives independently or by instancing quest items per player—it could significantly improve player satisfaction in future updates.

In summary, ARC Raiders’ Shrouded Sky update has spotlighted a frustrating aspect of the game’s quest design: one-use objectives that force players into repetitive, competitive runs just to complete simple tasks. This mechanic not only diminishes fun but also weakens the game’s immersion by conflicting with its narrative framework. While not a critical flaw in the game’s core systems, it is a thorn in the side of many players and could influence long-term engagement if left unaddressed.

As ARC Raiders continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how Embark Studios balances the need for challenging objectives with player enjoyment and immersion. For now, players looking to complete quests like “Worth Your Salt” should prepare for patience, perseverance, and plenty of retries.