ARC Raiders: Cred disappears on October 8, 2026 — a wallet capped at 800 and three Raider Decks to empty before the cutoff

Embark Studios is putting an end to one of ARC Raiders's two currencies. The patch notes for Live Update 1.45.0, published on Steam on Tuesday, September 8, 2026 at 9:03 UTC (11:03 in Paris), state it plainly: "We are retiring Cred as a currency." No conversion, no compensation announced, and a date: Thursday, October 8, 2026, the release day of the Frozen Trail update.

The sentence that concerns you is the following: "Any Cred remaining on your account will expire with the Frozen Trail update, so please be sure to spend your Cred with Shani or on any remaining Raider Deck rewards." The remaining balance is lost, and the studio names only two places to spend it.

A note on terminology before the figures. ARC Raiders is indeed translated into French — the Steam listing offers French for the interface and subtitles, with English remaining the only dubbed language. But Embark does not translate its patch notes: the page arcraiders.com/fr/news/live-update-1-45-0 responds, and its body is entirely in English (checked on September 11, 2026). There is therefore no official French wording for Cred, Raider Deck, or Frozen Trail.

What Embark writes, and what it doesn't

All the information fits within the Cred Expiration section, in three sentences:

• "It will remain usable until October 8" — Cred stays spendable until October 8.
• "All existing Raider Deck rewards will also be available in the new system. You will keep any rewards you have already claimed at the time of the update."
• "Any Cred remaining on your account will expire with the Frozen Trail update."

Three silences are worth noting. Embark publishes no time: there is no way to know whether the cutoff falls at the patch's launch or at the end of the day on October 8. At no point does the studio write that any compensation will be issued for the lost balance. And it states neither the price nor the currency to which the Raider Deck rewards will subsequently revert: it only promises that they will return.

This last point overturns the usual logic of trade-offs. A Deck outfit you don't take isn't lost, since it will be "available in the new system." Cred, on the other hand, is. Note in passing the exact wording of the guarantee: "rewards you have already claimed." It applies to what has been claimed; on an open page whose tiles are still waiting, the notes say nothing.

At Shani's: 22 items, from 10 to 100 Cred

Embark settles, in passing, an ambiguity that had lingered. Shani does indeed take payment in Cred: the community wiki backed by the studio states so — "Shani is the only Trader who accepts Cred as payment." Beware of the trap: arctracker.io's trader listing displays "Coins" across the 22 lines of her stock, even though its own item entries show "20x creds" or "100x creds."

Her stock contains no outfits or trinkets, only consumables, weapon mods, and augments. Thirteen of these items are also sold in Coins by another trader: the only comparison that puts a number on what a Cred is worth.

The Sterilized Bandage crushes the competition: 150 Coins of purchasing power per Cred, versus 60 for mods and upgrades. These ratios are our own calculation, based on prices recorded on arctracker.io. Embark has never published any exchange rate between its currencies.

Nine other items have no Coin equivalent elsewhere, making Cred the only means of payment for them: Binoculars (20 Cred), Firecracker (20), Shaker (40), Firework Box (60), Acoustic Guitar (70), Raider Hatch Key (100), Extended Medium Mag II (100), Compensator II (100) and Angled Grip II (100).

Stock replenishes every 24 hours. Adding up the daily limits, the stall soaks up 2,740 Cred in a single day — more than three times the wallet cap. No one will be held back by the shop.

The three Raider Decks: 4,500 Cred for an 800 cap

The second outlet allowed by Embark is the Raider Decks: reward tracks where each tile is bought with Cred, and each page unlocks based on a total amount spent in that Deck. Three exist, all free to access.

One caveat on this table: the wiki lists 1,330 Cred for the Goalie Deck in its summary, while the breakdown of its five pages adds up to 1,240 — and the unlock thresholds it gives itself (90, 270, 460, then 1,090) match 1,240, not 1,330. We're going with 1,240. None of these figures come from Embark.

That's 4,500 Cred to finish everything, when the wallet has capped out at 800 since update 1.7.0 on December 16, 2025. The patch notes at the time owned the intent outright: "We decided to implement a cap so that players won't be able to fully unlock new Raider Decks by accumulating Cred."

What remains is to choose, and there's an objective criterion. Seventeen tiles across the three Decks don't contain a cosmetic but Raider Tokens, the game's paid currency — the one which, according to arcraiders.com's legal notices, "can be used to get raider decks, bundles, or other cosmetic items". In total, 1,300 Raider Tokens are sitting in the Decks, for 880 Cred worth of tiles.

The two best deals sit on the first page of the Goalie and the Surgeon, with no threshold to clear whatsoever: 150 Raider Tokens for 60 Cred. The Starter's sixth page, meanwhile, demands 2,040 Cred spent in that Deck alone — out of reach within four weeks. A word of caution, though: preferring Raider Tokens over cosmetics is our reasoning, not a recommendation from Embark.

What you can still earn before the deadline

From Friday, September 11 to Wednesday, October 7, 2026, 27 full days remain. Embark doesn't publish the Cred earning scale; the community wiki describes it as follows: 1 Cred for 2,000 experience points earned Topside, plus Feats, the daily challenges. These award 10 Cred for one challenge completed, 30 for three and 40 for five, i.e. 80 Cred per 24-hour period.

At most, Feats alone are therefore worth 2,160 Cred over the period. This is our calculation based on the wiki's scale, not a figure from Embark. Enough to finish the Goalie and the Surgeon, not to seriously tackle the Starter.

Two Embark deadlines slip in before that of October 8: the current Trials season ends on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, followed by a two-week break, and the fifth Expedition's window closes on Tuesday, September 29, 2026 — which we detailed on August 22.

This second date deserves a pause. When Embark listed, in February 2026, what an Expedition does not reset, the list cited "any Raider Deck progress", cosmetics, unlocked map regions, leaderboard standing, Trials, the Codex and Raider Tokens. Cred was not on it, and still isn't. If you're leaving on September 29, empty your wallet beforehand.

In practice: in what order to spend

1. Raider Tokens tiles with no threshold first. Page 1 of the Goalie (two tiles at 20 Cred) and page 1 of the Surgeon (one tile at 20 Cred): 60 Cred for 150 Raider Tokens, with no prerequisite.
2. The cosmetics you'll actually wear, and only those: the others will come back in the new system.
3. Claim everything you've unlocked. Embark's guarantee covers rewards already claimed, not an opened page with tiles still waiting.
4. The rest at Shani's, starting with the Sterilized Bandages (three per day at 40 Cred, the best value on the stall) then the Shield Impulse Chargers (five per day at 40 Cred).
5. Don't hold onto anything "just in case". At the 800 cap, you already stop earning more; on October 8th, it's the entire balance that goes.

What to remember

Cred dies on Thursday, October 8, 2026, with no conversion or compensation announced, and Embark is only opening two outlets: Shani's stall and Raider Decks rewards. The cap limits the damage — 800 Cred, or a bit more than two Deck pages. But the remaining 27 days are worth up to 2,160 Cred in Feats, and it would be absurd to let that stockpile slip away.

One last call: the Boonie outfit arrives on Tuesday, September 15, 2026. Embark hasn't published its purchase currency, and its store outfits have historically been priced in Raider Tokens, not Cred. Don't lock up your balance waiting for it.