Arc Raiders' Shrouded Sky added lots of cool new toys, but my favourite part is the new quality-of-life features that have flown under the radar

Arc Raiders Trials: Key art of a player hiding behind a car as a Queen towers over the road behind them, with a dangerous red light active. — (Image credit: Embark)

Of course, it's expected that the thing everyone's talking about in a new content drop in Arc Raiders is… the content. And the Shrouded Sky update delivered on that part, with the Controlled Access Zone on Dam Battlegrounds, five new quests, two new Arc machines (Firefly and Comet), the Weather Monitor project, and the admittedly divisive Hurricane map condition. It's also finally seen Embark adjust the PvP meta by nerfing popular free loadout weapons.

I'm not going to argue that's not cool and all, but the 1.17 patch notes also snuck in a handful of quality-of-life tweaks we've been asking for since launch. My favourite is the new inventory tooltip to display what each item breaks down into when you recycle or salvage it. No longer do you need to remember (or worse, sacrifice an item to find out) what each of the random recyclable materials actually does. Take Geiger Counters, for example, a purple-quality material that's a great source of Batteries and Exodus Materials, or Ion Sputters being salvageable for Voltage Converters.

Arc Raiders: A player inspecting a Queen Reactor in the inventory screen, showcasing the new recycling output details. — (Image credit: Embark)

At long last, you can now buy items with seeds and convert your free loadout rig into a proper augment, even if your stash is full. This saves you from having to jump in and out of different screens in order to make space in your vault just to immediately buy or equip certain items. I'm hoping this gets further improved in the future so purchased or crafted items are deposited directly in your backpack first instead of clogging up your stash.

Feats—Arc Raiders' version of daily challenges—are now re-rollable up to three times per day for free, so you're no longer burdened with terrible challenges until they reset. Many Feats have been tweaked, too, and some new ones added, though I'm not sure I agree with PvP Feats being removed entirely.

Arc Raiders: The raider deck menu, with the player selecting the option to reroll Feats on the right side on the screen. — (Image credit: Embark)

Ever tried pinging an item inside a crate for a buddy but still had to explain where exactly it is? Worry no more, as this patch makes it so item pings now appear above the container's interaction prompt, and not in a completely different, incorrect location instead. I mean, that's how pings should work, right?

And one for all of us PC players: You can use the mouse wheel to scroll between pages in the Raider Deck. Hard to argue against that, even if I'm surprised it wasn't a thing at launch.

Rory has made the fatal error of playing way too many live service games at once, and somehow still finding time for everything in between. Sure, he’s an expert at Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and more, but at what cost? He’s even sunk 1,000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online over the years. At least he put all those hours spent grinding challenges to good use over the years as a freelancer and guides editor. In his spare time, he’s also an avid video creator, often breaking down the environmental design of his favourite games. If you can’t track him down, he’s probably lost in a cave with a bunch of dwarves shouting “rock and stone” to no end.

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