In ARC Raiders, healing seems straightforward. Use bandages after taking damage, switch to Vita Shot when your health is critically low, and bring Vita Spray when resources are plentiful - this is the standard approach for many players.

However, in actual combat, the effectiveness of healing items often depends on more than just rarity and single-use healing amount. Usage time, continuous healing mechanics, weight capacity, and synergy with other items all affect actual survival efficiency.

Some food items that are easily overlooked actually perform remarkably well in emergency healing situations. Mushroom, Expired Pasta, and Fruit Mix each have their advantages, with Mushroom even outperforming many conventional healing items in some tests in terms of healing speed.

Food Healing

ARC Raiders Mushroom is actually quite efficient. It restores 15 HP in just 1 second. Expired Pasta is similar, also restoring 15 HP after 1 second.

While these two items don't provide high single-use healing, their advantage lies in their speed. 

When you've just retreated to cover and only need to quickly replenish a small amount of health, a 1-second usage time is more flexible than waiting for the bandage to continuously regenerate. 

Especially in ARC Raiders, when you're not completely out of combat, healing speed is often more important than the amount of health restored per use.

Fruit Mix is ​​more of a comprehensive healing item. It restores 25 HP and 50 Stamina in 2 seconds. Besides healing, it also helps players recover stamina needed for repositioning, chasing, or retreating, making it more useful in continuous combat.

Mushroom and Expired Pasta have similar healing effects, but their availability differs. Expired Pasta relies more on random spawns, while Mushroom has relatively stable spawn locations in certain areas, making it easier to use as a regular healing item in daily raids.

How Fast does Mushroom Restore Health?

If only considering recovery speed, Mushroom performs exceptionally well.

While Herbal Bandage is a common basic healing item, it requires waiting for continuous regeneration after use. When health is low, this period can easily leave a dangerous window. Mushrooms can quickly restore a small amount of health, and with continuous use, they can rapidly raise health.

Sterilized Bandage is similar. Its total recovery is good, but sustained healing takes time. In comparison, ARC Raiders Mushroom is more practical for emergency healing.

Vita Shot restores 50 HP per use, with a 4-second duration. However, if the goal is only rapid health recovery, continuous use of Mushrooms is still advantageous. In testing, it even completed the recovery faster than Sterilized Bandage combined with Vita Shot.

However, Mushrooms are not without their drawbacks. Seven Mushrooms take up approximately 1.4 Weight, while one Vita Spray only takes up about 1 Weight. Carrying too many will significantly increase backpack space, especially when you also need to reserve space for gathering supplies and evacuation.

Therefore, Mushrooms are more suitable as a quick means of healing than as a complete replacement for other healing items. Fruit Mix is ​​useful when you need to simultaneously restore Stamina. After significant health loss, use Sterilized Bandage in conjunction with Vita Shot. For prolonged battles, Vita Spray remains the best choice.

From now on, when you see Mushrooms on the map, don't just treat them as upgrade materials.

Advantages of Fruit Mix

Unlike Mushrooms, which primarily focus on rapid health regeneration, Fruit Mix is ​​better suited for simultaneously replenishing both health and stamina.

An ARC Raiders Vita Shot restores 50 HP and has a 4-second cast time. Two Fruit Mixes restore a combined 50 HP in 4 seconds, but also provide an additional 100 Stamina.

After a firefight, players often need to reposition, flank, retreat, or pursue. The extra Stamina restored is very useful in these situations.

Fruit Mix is ​​an Uncommon item; crafting it requires Lemon, Apricot, and Prickly Pear. If you have sufficient materials, you can bring plenty when exploring the map.

The advantage of Vita Shot remains its high single-hit healing and ease of use. However, in long raids, Fruit Mix can restore both HP and Stamina simultaneously, making it more flexible.

Advanced Healing Item Usage Tips

Sterilized Bandage and Vita Shot can be used together. Use Sterilized Bandage first to initiate continuous healing, then immediately follow up with Vita Shot. Both healing effects will run simultaneously, which is faster than waiting for one to finish before using the other.

This method is suitable for situations in ARC Raiders where you lose a lot of health and may quickly re-engage. Although Mushroom's pure healing speed was still outstanding in testing, Sterilized Bandage combined with Vita Shot can address larger health deficits at once.

Vita Spray requires careful usage. Holding it down provides fast healing, but it also significantly depletes Durability. In testing, continuous use reduced Vita Spray durability to approximately 18, while switching to rapid tapping resulted in approximately 55 Durability remaining after healing.

Tapping is slightly slower, but significantly increases the number of times Vita Spray can be used. Unless being chased and urgently needing to gain those few seconds, tapping is more suitable for healing during long raids.

Shield Regeneration

The same approach applies to Shields. When using Medium or Heavy Shields with ARC Raiders, you can first use the green Uncommon Shield Recharger to initiate continuous regeneration, then immediately follow up with the blue Surge Shield Recharger. The simultaneous operation of both effects allows for faster shield replenishment.

This method is particularly effective against Purple Heavy Shields. Heavy shields have a higher capacity, requiring more resources to recover after being depleted; directly stacking both rechargers allows for a faster return to a state suitable for continued combat.

In ARC Raiders, rarer healing items aren't necessarily better. Their effectiveness depends on factors like recovery speed, Stamina, Weight, and combat pace. Often overlooked items like Mushroom and Fruit Mix can be quite useful in the right situations.

In ARC Raiders, survival is never about luck - it depends on your preparation and choices before each encounter. As you graduate from the initial Light Shield and begin pursuing a more reliable margin for error on the battlefield, Medium Shield becomes your most solid defensive line.

While not as lightweight as Light Shield, it gives you real confidence when pushing, holding positions, and counter-attacking. This article will teach you how to acquire and use Medium Shield in ARC Raiders.

About Medium Shield

Medium Shield is a rare defensive item in ARC Raiders, providing 70 shield points and 42.5% damage reduction. It weighs approximately 7 kg and slightly reduces movement speed by 5%.

However, you also need to know that shields don't function like a second health bar - they only reduce damage taken. Therefore, even when the shield is fully charged, you will still lose health with each attack. This means that health management is just as important as keeping the shield charged.

Generally, prioritize charging the shield when your health is above 50%, and use healing items like bandages when your health is below 50%. Remember, a full shield won't save you when your health is extremely low.

How to Obtain?

Prerequisites

Many ARC Raiders players make this mistake: finding ARC Raiders Medium Shield in Topside and immediately trying to equip it, only to find that their enhancement mods don't support it. You need to know that early in the game, enhancement mods are only compatible with Light Shield.

To unlock Medium Shield, you need to obtain a Combat MK. 1 or Tactical MK. 1 enhancement component. The specific process is as follows:

First, obtain a basic free-configuration enhancement resource. You can find it during extraction missions or craft it at the equipment workbench.

Then, take this resource to Lance at Speranza Clinic to obtain the upgraded enhancement. Once you equip Combat MK1 or Tactical MK1 enhancement at the equipment workbench, Medium Shield will be unlocked.

Farming Maps

Medium Shields appear in Mechanical and Military loot pools, so prioritize areas with Tech Chests, Industrial Machines, and Raider Camps. Avoid civilian areas, as Military-grade equipment rarely spawns there.

The most reliable way to obtain them is by searching for undiscovered chests on specific maps. Players report high chest spawn rates in Buried City, Dam Battlegrounds, Spaceport, and The Blue Gate - especially in less competitive areas at the map edges.

Playing during off-peak hours can also increase your success rate. Once you acquire a valuable component from ARC Raiders, evacuate quickly; hesitation often results in losing your hard-earned equipment.

Crafting

If you find farming maps too inefficient, you can craft them at Equipment Workbench. The recipe requires 4 Batteries and 1 ARC Circuitry. Lance will sell these items for 6,000 coins after you reach account level 12, with a daily limit of 3 purchases.

How to Use?

Recharging Your Shield

In ARC Raiders raids, if your shield energy runs out, you'll need to use consumables to restore it. The basic ARC Energy Battery restores two bars of shield energy and can be obtained from defeated ARC machines, ARC pods, and couriers.

Shield Recharger restores four bars of shield energy and can be crafted at a crafting table. For faster energy restoration, you can choose Surge Shield Recharger, which restores five bars of Medium Shield energy at once. It can be obtained from Medical Lab or Lance for 3,600 coins.

Shield Repair Strategies

One of the most effective long-term strategies for maintaining a Medium Shield supply is to utilize a simple material management cycle. Crafting a shield requires 4 Batteries and 1 ARC Circuitr. Repairing a damaged shield requires 1 Battery and 1 Arc Circuitr, restoring approximately 50 durability points.

However, due to the scarcity of ARC Circuitrs, repairing severely damaged shields is often inefficient. Instead, you can recycle damaged shields for 1 ARC Circuit, then use that circuit and 4 Batteries to craft a new shield. 

This creates what players call an infinite shield loop, which is generally more material-efficient than repeated repairs.

Strategic Usage in Combat

Medium Shield excels in intense ARC Raider PvP combat. The extra durability gives you more leeway when breaking through doorways or gaining advantageous positions, allowing you to survive longer in prolonged battles than opponents using Medium Shield.

While the item does incur a slight movement speed penalty, it's minimal, and you can still effectively reposition yourself.

To mitigate the 5% movement speed reduction, invest skill points in Used to the Weight skill in Conditioning branch of Skill Tree, which reduces the movement speed penalty from heavy shields.

In combat, you can apply pressure to your opponent. If you take damage, use grenades or smoke grenades to create space and quickly reset your shield or health based on your condition, then confidently peek out again to fire.

If you want to build a PvP loadout around Medium Shield, consider pairing it with Stitcher. It's extremely cost-effective in intense combat and can help you deal with most enemies.

This concludes our article on how to obtain and use Medium Shield in ARC Raiders. This item grants players sufficient durability to maintain an advantage in combat and avoid immediate defeat.

Finally, a reminder: Medium Shield is suitable for players who intend to hold their ground and win the battle, rather than fleeing the battlefield. If your strategy relies on dodging all enemy attacks, then Light Shield is the best choice.

ARC Raiders 5th Expedition will run from September 8th to September 29th, giving players three weeks to register and complete the final expedition of the current system. This expedition will also introduce several changes to enhance the gameplay experience, including optional mission resets and a longer expedition window.

However, these changes seem more like bridges to future developments than final solutions. According to the official announcement, 5th Expedition will be the last expedition before early 2027, a decision perhaps more significant than 5th Expedition itself.

Because the feedback from the player community regarding 5th Expedition has been highly controversial, the developers are using this time to rethink aspects including system rewards, ease of use, progression, and the cost of restarting.

Two development directions are particularly important: providing a more robust Catch-Up Mechanic for new players and providing veteran players with a more reasonable reason to reset.

5th Expedition

The biggest highlight of ARC Raiders 5th Expedition isn't actually the rewards, but rather the future development of the game after it ends.

The development team has confirmed that 5th Expedition, as the final expedition event, will return in 2027 with major improvements. More importantly, the official announcement explicitly identified three areas needing improvement:

• Departure Time
• Reward Mechanism
• New Player Engagement

In fact, 5th Expedition has already addressed many issues complained about by players from previous expeditions.

In the current expedition, you can choose not to reset your progress; the expedition window has been extended from two weeks to three weeks.

The previous Last Call option has been removed; and the skill point cap for expedition rewards has been set at 15 points, providing a maximum consecutive buff that can directly raise a character's level by three.

While these adjustments are important, they also reveal a deeper problem. The purpose of an expedition is to make players feel that resetting is worthwhile. If the process itself is the biggest cost, and the rewards are becoming increasingly perfunctory, then with each cycle, the system's rationale becomes increasingly unconvincing.

This concern is growing stronger in the player community, who are placing high hopes on the official next steps for expedition changes. 

Catch-Up Mechanic

While the current Catch-Up Mechanic in ARC Raiders is useful, its applicability is smaller than players expected.

This mechanism was first introduced in the second Expedition. Essentially, if you participated in a previous expedition but didn't collect all your skill points, you can choose to make up for them in the next expedition with a lower Stash Value.

Clearly, the current Catch-Up Mechanic requires you to have participated in the corresponding expedition, rather than guaranteeing that all new players can catch up with veteran players.

Over time, this will widen the gap between veteran and new players, going beyond a simple shortage of ARC Raiders Items.

Therefore, based on player feedback and official information, the 2027 expedition system may undergo significant changes to the catch-up mechanism. For example, instead of restoring skill points, it might restore the progress of older expeditions.

This doesn't mean that all rewards will be given to new players. A more reasonable system would allow new players to complete previous expedition milestones, additional challenges, or invest more time unlocking older progress; while veteran players could still benefit from their previously completed expedition progress.

In other words, the new ARC Raiders Expedition catch-up mechanism should not only ensure that new players don't fall too far behind veteran players, but also shouldn't negate the value of veteran players' early, complete progress.

Once the new catch-up mechanism solves the problem of new players joining the game, another issue arises:

Why Do Players Reset Their Progress?

ARC Raiders requires players to invest time in character upgrades, farming gear, resources, completing quests, acquiring blueprints, and Stash Value. Expedition, on the other hand, requires players to give up a significant portion of these achievements in exchange for long-term benefits.

This reset mechanism has caused considerable disagreement within the player community.

Some players are happy to accept this cycle and see resetting as part of the game's features. Others believe that the rewards after resetting are insufficient to justify repeating the process.

The official announcement of Expedition's suspension may indicate that they have truly recognized and begun to address this issue.

Back in May, the developers stated that the number of players signing up for Expedition was low. Part of the reason was the insufficient rewards, and another was players' reluctance to give up ARC Raiders Blueprints and Items they had painstakingly acquired.

Therefore, these players who didn't want to reset their progress weren't just concerned about getting more loot; they also desired a more meaningful and sustainable reset system.

For example, the 2027 Expedition event might offer a permanent progress milestone, more promising skill tree development, long-term Raider upgrades, additional stash or utility progress, exclusive collectibles related to Expedition achievements, and new progress paths that remain valuable even after a reset.

For some advanced players, preparing equipment and weapons in advance can reduce resource pressure when re-entering an Expedition cycle and allow them to complete progress and unlock rewards faster.

In addition to farming in daily gameplay, you can also choose to buy ARC Raiders Items from EZG.com, selecting equipment and weapons based on the requirements of the upcoming expedition.

The key is that even though each Expedition reset removes a significant portion of a player's short-term progress, players should feel their account or Raiders' strength continuously increasing over time.

This would directly change players' psychological perception of the system. Players wouldn't feel like they've lost everything after resetting their progress, but that they've only sacrificed short-term progress in exchange for permanent achievements.

Such a design would be more readily accepted by players. Furthermore, this aligns with the official development direction for ARC Raiders. After announcing a shift to a major update every two years, the developers have more time to focus on game content, progression systems, economic balance, fair play, and anti-cheat mechanisms.

The current pause in Expedition is also to allow for larger-scale adjustments to players in 2027, going far beyond simply increasing rewards.

Optional Reset

Players can currently only choose not to reset their quest progress. The developers stated this is because quest lines may appear repetitive after each Expedition. 

However, Skill Tree, Level, and Stash progress will still be reset.

What if future expeditions gave players more meaningful options in these areas that must be reset?

Players seeking the full experience could choose to reset to the maximum extent and obtain the richest Expedition rewards, while another type of player could retain their current progress and gain smaller but still significant benefits.

This would make Expedition event less of a forced rest and more of a balance between risk and reward.

While these three developments haven't been officially confirmed, the direction is becoming clearer. The developers acknowledge that the current system has too many restrictions, insufficient rewards, and is difficult for new players to grasp.

At the same time, their broader development strategy is increasingly focused on progress and long-term goals.

If the developers simply slightly reduce the difficulty of completing Expedition, the same problems will eventually reappear.

However, if they use this pause to rebuild the system around catching up, meaningful permanent rewards, and greater player choice, then Expedition system has the potential to become one of the most robust long-term systems in ARC Raiders.

In August 2026, a developer announcement dropped a bombshell on ARC Raiders player community:

The fifth Expedition window would open on September 8th and close on September 29th, and thereafter - until early 2027 - there would be no more Expedition events in the game. Simultaneously, the fifth Expedition adjusted the content and rewards of this gameplay.

Players, upon seeing this announcement, engaged in heated discussions regarding the rewards of the fifth Expedition and the suspension of Expedition event.

Controversy Over Rewards of Fifth Expedition

The adjusted reward structure of the fifth Expedition can be considered the trigger for player discontent.

Specifically, the rewards for this Expedition included Zenith Outfit, random Blueprints, up to 16 additional stash slots, and a maximum of 15 Bonus Skill Points.

Furthermore, Expedition Buffs - including experience bonuses, dismantling material bonuses, and repair value bonuses - could stack up to 3 levels.

Meanwhile, the rewards for the fifth Expedition follow a mechanism: the more damage a player deals during Expedition, the higher the reward level they unlock.

The problem is that these rewards are no longer attractive to most veteran players in ARC Raiders who have already reached the level cap:

Since Bonus Skill Points cap is 15, and the game has already completed five Expeditions, veteran players have long since maxed out their Skill Points, making this reward meaningless to them;

The cap for additional stash slots is also only 16, so once that cap is reached, this reward is essentially nonexistent.

If veteran players want specific Blueprints, they can simply spend their time on the numerous farming methods shared in the player community, acquiring them much faster, rather than spending a lot of time and effort participating in Expeditions.

Ironically, the official statement is that the reward cap was set to prevent a large gap between veteran and new players. However, in practice, it hasn't truly helped new players level up faster; it has only reduced the rewards available to veteran players.

Expedition's Suspension

While announcing details of the fifth Expedition, the official ARC Raiders team also announced the suspension of the event - a move that ignited player discontent.

The official reason given for the suspension was that they had carefully reviewed feedback on Expedition and realized that issues such as the tight registration window and reward structure required more than just gradual fixes; a complete overhaul was needed.

To allow sufficient time for adjustments, they decided to suspend Expedition event, with a revised plan to be announced in September.

However, the complexity lies in the fact that Expedition system is the most important gameplay element in ARC Raiders' endgame.

Expedition is essentially a progress reset system - players can reset their character's progress to obtain various ARC Raiders Items, permanent buffs, and limited-time rewards.

For many veteran players who have already reached the level cap, Expedition is currently the only content worth looking forward to in the game.

So, what does suspending Expedition mean? After completing the fifth Expedition, players will face a complete lack of content - while the game offers other regular gameplay, none are as substantial as Expedition.

One player with 400 hours of playtime angrily commented, "You guys have one of the best games ever made, and you keep messing it up. It's unplayable right now".

Root Problem

However, the rewards from the fifth Expedition and the pause of Expedition are merely the surface of the problem. What truly angers players is ARC Raiders' prolonged content drought, rampant cheating, and a crisis of trust with the developer.

Content Drought and Rampant Cheating

In May 2026, the developer announced that they would change the game's monthly updates to a major update every six months, with the next major update, Frozen Trail, not expected to launch until October.

Therefore, from May to October, for a full five months, players can only wait with the existing maps and gameplay.

During this period, the only thing that could excite players was Expedition, a mode that allowed them to revisit existing content and find something new to enjoy.

Therefore, if even Expedition is stopped, players will lose their last source of fun.

To make matters worse, cheating in ARC Raiders has become increasingly serious recently. Despite the game using Easy Anti-Cheat system, players report that cheaters are still rampant. This has led to deep disappointment among players.

Trust Crisis

Besides the lack of content and rampant cheating, the developers' actions in recent months have gradually eroded player trust. This problem already existed with Riven Tides update.

While this update brought new maps, a new giant enemy called Turbine, and a completely new questline, player feedback was poor.

However, the developers' response to the negative player feedback was simply to suspend game updates.

Furthermore, the developers' frequent changes to update schedules and inconsistent statements over the past few months have gradually eroded player trust.

Therefore, these players are likely to interpret Expedition suspension announcement with the worst possible assumptions about the developers' intentions.

In short, these are the player reactions and controversies surrounding ARC Raiders' fifth Expedition.

However, the developers have announced that they will release an announcement regarding Expedition's adjustment plan in September. If you don't want to miss this news, you can follow EZG Facebook, and we will provide the latest updates.

Hopefully, this September, the developers will provide players with a satisfactory answer regarding Expedition issue.

Embark Studios recently released detailed information about ARC Raiders The Fifth Expedition. This Expedition will not only bring new Zenith Outfits and extra Stash Space, but it may also be the last Expedition of the year.

The official statement indicates that after completing The Fifth Expedition, players will temporarily leave the system. The next expedition will not occur until early 2027 and will involve larger-scale adjustments.

Below, EZG will introduce the opening time, quest progress, and reward changes for the fifth ARC Raiders Expedition, as well as the arrangements after the pause.

Time

The Fifth Expedition window will open on September 8th and last until September 29th. Compared to previous Expeditions, this departure window has been extended from two weeks to three weeks. The official ARC Raiders team extended the registration period this time largely to give players more time to complete the registration.

However, one important point to note is that there is no Last Call feature this time. As before, completing Caravan does not equate to completing expedition registration. You need to actively click Sign Up in ARC Raiders during Departure Window; otherwise, even if you have completed Caravan, you cannot participate in this Expedition.

Caravan will also be reset. If you haven't completed, your progress will not disappear; the remaining progress will be converted into Animal Vouchers of equivalent value. These Animal Vouchers can be used to redeem Animal Offers for related transactions or sold directly for Coins.

Quest Progress

One of the biggest changes in The Fifth Expedition is that we can finally choose whether to reset quest progress. Previously, ARC Raiders required players to go through the quest line again for each Expedition, and as the number of Expeditions increased, many players began to find the process repetitive.

The official announcement acknowledges this issue. Starting with The Fifth Expedition, players can choose to reset their Quest Progress or retain their current progress and continue from where they left off. This will be much more convenient for experienced players who have completed multiple Expeditions.

Meanwhile, ARC Raiders official team specifically mentioned that since Hullcracker Blueprint can only be obtained through quest line, other acquisition methods will be added later. This way, even if you don't want to repeatedly redo the quest, you won't miss out on Blueprints; you can also directly buy ARC Raiders Items from EZG.com.

Reward

ARC Raiders' original plan seemed to be to gradually unlock the complete Zenith Outfit through multiple Expeditions, but since Expedition system will be paused soon, the official team is now allowing players who complete all five Expeditions to directly obtain the complete Zenith Outfit.

Besides Outfit, The Fifth Expedition will also provide +12 Stash Space, bringing the final Stash Space cap to 60. Mystery Blueprint Rewards will also be retained.

However, skill points will not increase further. You can earn a maximum of 15 Skill Points through the first three Expeditions, and no new Skill Points will be awarded after that. Scrappy Materials Boost, Repair Value Boost, and XP Boost also have level caps.

Therefore, for players who have already completed four Expeditions, the main value of The Fifth Expedition is the full Zenith Outfit, extra Stash Space, and ARC Raiders Blueprint Rewards.

Pause

ARC Raiders officials stated that they have re-evaluated player feedback on Expeditions. While adjustments have been made in the past, some issues cannot be resolved simply by modifying a few details, such as the overly tight departure window, the unattractive reward structure, and the high barrier to entry for new players.

These issues require more significant changes, so the official decision has been made to temporarily pause Expeditions. The Fifth Expedition will be the last Expedition before early 2027. The developers plan to use this time to revamp the core Expedition system and then relaunch it with major changes.

More specific changes to Expedition will be announced in September. Previous consecutive buffs will be retained during the pause; you won't lose your progress because of Expedition pause.

Based on the current situation, ARC Raiders official pause of Expedition isn't because the system is completely failed, but because they believe the current rewards and gameplay are insufficient to support long-term operation.

As players complete more Expeditions, Skill Points, Stash Space, and various Boosts will gradually reach their limits. Later on, players' actual motivation to continue participating in Expeditions will significantly decrease.

ARC Raiders has also explicitly mentioned issues such as reward structure and accessibility for new players, indicating they've noticed that Expeditions present certain barriers for both veteran and new players.

Therefore, The Fifth Expedition is more like a phase-ending cleanup. After completion, ARC Raiders will enter a waiting period until the development team finalizes new system adjustments.

With Expedition paused, the ongoing Trials will also be temporarily suspended. Trials Season 5 will run until September 22nd, then pause for two weeks before resuming on October 8th with the major Frozen Trail update.

For players currently playing ARC Raiders daily, the late game might indeed feel like there's nothing much to do. In the coming period, ARC Raiders' focus will clearly shift towards new content and systems. Currently, the most anticipated update is October 8th Frozen Trail Update.

Want to see latest ARC Raiders content? Follow EZG Facebook through the top navigation bar for new builds, guides, game updates, and community news. We also host giveaways from time to time!

ARC Raiders development team clearly hopes to use this time to address the long-standing issues with Expedition. If you've been hesitant about participating in Expedition, the fifth time might indeed be a significant opportunity. As for what Expedition will be like when it returns in 2027, we'll have to wait for the official announcement in September for more details.