Embark Studios has finally put numbers and dates on Arc Raiders’ optional prestige system — the Expedition Project — and it’s a neat compromise between brutal seasonal wipes and permanent progress. The departure window runs from December 17–22; if you opt in, your current Raider goes off to the Topside and you start a fresh character with a handful of permanent and temporary perks.
A respectful wipe
This isn’t a mandatory reset like Tarkov-style wipes. Embark repeatedly frames the Expedition as a choice: stay and keep everything, or sign up during the six-day window and effectively retire your Raider in exchange for rewards. That delay from the originally teased December 15 start to the 17th was small, but worth noting if you were planning last-minute looting.
You must be level 20 to register. When the window closes, any player who signed up departs together and the game calculates the value of everything in your stash and coins to determine how many bonus skill points you’ll receive for your new Raider. The conversion: one extra skill point per one million coins’ worth of stash value, up to a maximum of five skill points.
What you keep, what you don’t
The trade-off is blunt. You lose your level, skill tree, blueprints, stash contents, workshop progress, and crafting abilities — basically the mechanical trappings of a developed character. You do keep onboarding progress (so you don’t have to re-learn the basics), unlocked maps and codex entries, cosmetics, and some meta progression like Raider Tokens and leaderboards progress. IGN’s Expedition guide breaks down the six stages you’ll work through if you want to prepare everything ahead of time; the final Load stage even asks you to bring credits’ worth of combat, survival, provisions and materials. That pile becomes the basis for some of the Expedition’s bonuses.
The carrot: permanent swag + practical boosts
Completing an Expedition guarantees a few permanent unlocks and some starter advantages for your fresh Raider:
- Patchwork Raider outfit and Scrappy Janitor Cap (cosmetics)
- An Expeditions Indicator icon
- +12 stash slots (permanent)
- Up to five bonus skill points on the new Raider, based on stash value
On top of that, you get temporary account buffs at the start of the next season: a 10% repair buff, a 5% XP increase, and 6% more materials when using Scrappy. Embark also says the account buffs will grow stronger for your next three expeditions — but a key caveat is they’ll expire if you don’t depart with the next expedition. In short: the system rewards repeated participation but keeps runaway long-term power gains in check.
Why some players grumble (and why others like it)
Reaction has been mixed. Some players on Reddit called the rewards modest — five skill points and a dozen stash slots don’t feel like a massive head start. That’s partly by design: Embark wants to avoid creating a permanent competitive gulf between veterans who prestige and players who don’t. PC Gamer’s coverage argues the approach is generous compared with ruthless resets in other loot shooters, while still offering a meaningful route for grinders who love the ritual of starting over.
If you want a fast analogy: Arc Raiders’ Expedition is like burning down your house so you can rebuild a slightly shinier cottage with a few new trinkets. It’s appealing if you enjoy the ascent more than the plateau.
Timing and practical tips
The window to sign up is limited; your stash is tallied when sign-ups close, so don’t stop looting if you want maximum skill-point value. If you’re undecided, remember that staying put preserves progress toward your Caravan and other mid-term goals; you’ll get another chance when Embark opens the next window (their cadence has been roughly every couple of months so far).
For players wondering about platform etiquette and whether to roll new builds on consoles, the Expedition affects players across platforms. If you’re planning to continue on a PlayStation, consider that some collectors and streamers push visibility for the game — a phenomenon seen since launch — and that community momentum can change how attractive a fresh season feels. For people who like to play on console hardware, the PlayStation 5 Pro Console remains an option to run games like this with added headroom.
Arc Raiders hasn’t been shy about its ambitions since launch; its early buzz and streamer attention helped put the game on many radars. If you want context on how the game landed initially and the conversations around its rise, our coverage of Arc Raiders’ launch and streamer-driven discourse like when Shroud rallied fans give a useful snapshot of the environment the Expedition is arriving into.
If you’re eyeing the Expedition as a route to replayability, plan: hit level 20, pile up credits and materials in that final Load stage, and decide in the December 17–22 window whether you’re ready to trade an established Raider for the chance to stack a few long-term perks. For many, the fun will be in the restart itself — and Embark’s choice to make the wipe optional means you can opt into the drama without losing all the work you’ve already put in.