ARC Raiders Quests: How the Quest Line Works
How the ARC Raiders quest line is structured, who hands out quests, and how to tell a quest from an item or event when a search term is confusing.
Applies to: The ARC Raiders quest structure and Trader quest-givers, compiled from the community wiki on October 15, 2026 and labelled third-party
Quick answer
ARC Raiders quests come from Traders in Speranza rather than from a single campaign menu. The community wiki describes the main quest line as a chain of around 115 quests that Raiders meet in different orders depending on their progression path, grouped by the Trader who gives them — Shani, Tian Wen, Celeste, Lance, Apollo and the Nomadic Envoys. Quest names people search for, confirmed on that wiki, include To The Skies and Battening Down (Apollo), Sizing Things Up (Celeste) and Tracks Of The Beast (Shani). Some search terms are not quests at all: "Broken Guidance System" does not appear as a quest and behaves like an item or objective, and "Phantom Targets" is not listed as a quest.
At a glance
ARC Raiders quests come from the Traders in Speranza rather than from a single story menu. The community wiki describes the main quest line as a chain of roughly 115 quests that Raiders meet in different orders depending on their path, with quests grouped by the Trader who hands them out. If you are stuck, the useful question is usually "which Trader is this from", not "which chapter am I in".
How quests work
Traders give you tasks that send you to the surface for items, objectives or kills, and reward you with coins, gear, blueprints or progress toward unlocks. There is no fixed chapter order: the wiki notes that Raiders may encounter the same quests in different sequences based on their chosen progression, so two players at the same level can have quite different task lists. Quests also gate some unlocks, including base and Outpost projects.
The Trader quest-givers
| Trader | Themes |
|---|---|
| Shani | Early survival and reconnaissance quests around the map and communications. |
| Tian Wen | Salvage, commerce and industrial objectives. |
| Celeste | Speranza and Pendola Pass storylines, including the Outpost lead-in. |
| Lance | Medical and supply tasks. |
| Apollo | Base-building and settlement quests. |
| Nomadic Envoys | A separate short line of barter-flavoured quests. |
Quests people search for
These names appear both in search data and on the community quest list, so you can confirm the Trader and the fix quickly:
| Quest | Trader |
|---|---|
| To The Skies | Apollo |
| Battening Down | Apollo |
| Sizing Things Up | Celeste |
| Tracks Of The Beast | Shani |
These sit inside longer chains (Apollo's settlement line, Celeste's Pendola Pass line), which is why some players find one of them early and others much later.
Terms that are not quests
Two search terms behave as if they were quests but are not on the quest list:
- "Broken Guidance System" — not a quest. The phrasing people use ("where to find broken guidance system") points to an item or objective rather than a named mission.
- "Phantom Targets" — not listed as a quest. It behaves like an event or objective tied to a condition.
When a name is not a quest, check the nearest Trader's list and the in-game entry for the item you are actually after.
What is not published
- A single official quest list. Embark Studios does not publish one; the wiki's list is community-maintained.
- Exact step-by-step walkthroughs for every quest. Not published by the developer; community guides exist but age with patches.
- A guaranteed order. The quest line is explicitly non-chronological by design.
Sources and review scope
- ARC Raiders Wiki — Quests (community-run) — the source for the ~115-quest figure, the Trader groupings and the confirmed quest names. Labelled third-party, not official.
- Embark Studios — ARC Raiders official site — confirms the Trader-based quest structure and the Pendola Pass / Outpost content referenced by some quests.
Checked on October 15, 2026. Quest names and Trader groupings come from the community wiki and are labelled third-party; the two "not a quest" items are reported as findings, not as official classifications. No walkthrough steps are invented where the developer has not published them.
Checked on October 15, 2026 against the Steam store listing and the Steam Web API app-details, current-players, review-summary and news endpoints for ARC Raiders, and Embark Studios' own posts on arcraiders.com. Live figures such as the concurrent-player count and the review total are timestamped snapshots that keep moving and are labelled as such. Game-internal details that Embark Studios has not published come from the community-run ARC Raiders Wiki and are labelled third-party, not official. Player-tested values are marked as such. Anything neither source states is written as unconfirmed rather than guessed.
Not independently play-tested. This is not a claim that every platform or game version was tested. Source review: Oct 15, 2026.
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