ARC Raiders: the complete ARC bestiary guide for 2026 — the 13 machines you need to know to survive

Since the release of ARC Raiders, most community guides have focused on weapons, POIs, and farming Scorta. Yet one factor remains the leading cause of death in raid: the ARC machines themselves. They are the ones that turn a quiet extraction from Buried City into a desperate chase to Blue Gate, and that regularly trap overconfident veterans near the hills of Stella Montis. In Season 5 of the Trials, with patch 1.37 rolled out in July 2026, Embark Studios rebalanced several aggression and detection behaviors: Snitch detection range was increased, Bombers now drop incendiary grenades, and the Bastions' energy dome absorbs more standard calibers. In short, a Raider who doesn't know their bestiary loses their loot before even crossing paths with another player — and probably their hard-earned rank in the Speranza Cantina. Here is our complete guide to the 13 machines you need to memorize to survive on the surface, in the tunnels, and during the summer 2026 world events.

Understanding the role of ARC machines in an extraction shooter

Unlike a classic Tarkov-like where the main enemy remains the human AI or the other player, ARC Raiders imposes a third hostile threat to both sides: the ARC. These are former ground and aerial machines that have been reprogrammed and are now autonomous, patrolling every POI on the surface. Killing them yields several essential things: crafting components, energy cells, recyclable armor plates, and — for elite models — exotic Scorta usable at the Speranza market. In the Season 5 Trials, Embark also tied rank progression (Rookie, Tryhard, Wildcard, Daredevil, Hotshot, Cantina Legend) to thresholds of damage dealt to ARC — 5,000, 10,000, 30,000, 50,000, and 100,000. In other words, learning to target weak points is no longer just a matter of survival: it's also the key to cosmetic progression.

The Scouts: Tick, Pop, Snitch, and Firefly

The first category includes light units, often invisible at first glance, whose main role is to give away your position to heavier squads.

• Tick — A small spider-like unit that crawls along the ground, camouflages itself in debris, and triggers within two meters. It explodes on contact. Spot the orange blinking under its chassis and take it down from a distance with a pistol.
• Pop — A flying micro-drone that "pops" on screen as soon as it detects you. It barely fires at all, but its electronic screech attracts the whole area. Prioritize it silently (suppressed weapon or bow).
• Snitch — A smarter cousin of the Pop: it flees as soon as it sees you and sends out a radio signal that summons aerial reinforcements within 15 seconds. On Stella Montis, leaving a Snitch alive usually means a wave of Wasps.
• Firefly — An aerial micro-drone equipped with a marker laser. It deals almost no direct damage, but each shot raises the POI's alert level. Spot the light point in the night sky — a single bullet is enough.

Golden rule: in a quiet POI, if you hear a repeated high-pitched beep, it's a scout — stop and scan the sky before moving forward.

Aerial combat drones: Wasp, Hornet and Bombardier

This family imposes continuous vertical pressure and makes classic cover very unstable.

• Wasp — The game's standard drone. Fast, agile, it fires energy bursts at medium range. Its frame is fragile but it dodges direct shots. Solution: pre-fire aiming, burst automatic weapon, or marksman rifle with a 4x scope.
• Hornet — A reinforced version of the Wasp introduced in patches 1.36/1.37. Slower but equipped with a plasma cannon that pierces light armor. It breaks off if you focus it too long; alternate between cover and short bursts.
• Bombardier — Heavy flying drone that drops incendiary grenades on Raiders. Its warning is visual: a red circle on the ground. Get out of the circle immediately and shoot it down while it dives. Its belly is its confirmed weak point.

When facing three drones at once (a common situation at Dam Battlegrounds), the fire priority is Bombardier → Hornet → Wasp. Ignoring a Bombardier to finish off a Wasp is the most common way to lose a raid.

Light ground machines: Sentinel, Shredder and Leaper

Ground level, especially around Buried City and Space Center, belongs to bipedal units.

• Sentinel — The bipedal "grunt". It patrols in groups of two or three, fires an energy rifle and takes cover convincingly. The light module on its back is a one-shot kill for a marksman.
• Shredder — An aggressive melee unit equipped with rotating blades. It sprints as soon as it spots you. Never engage it within ten meters: fall back, kite it with a shotgun or a sticky mine.
• Leaper — A small, agile machine capable of jumping over walls and rooftops. It flanks static positions and blows up campers. Its most vulnerable firing window is right after it lands: two seconds of immobility.

For a duo or trio, the best way to handle a Sentinel + Shredder + Leaper pack remains triangulation: one player up high, two on the ground alternating who draws the Shredder's charge to avoid it.

The heavyweights: Rocketeer and Bastion

These two models represent the boundary between standard enemies and scripted mini-encounters.

• Rocketeer — A heavy biped armed with two shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. It fires in salvos of three short-guided missiles. The weak point is the nape connector (a small red rectangle at the back of the neck). A quick flank and a shot to the back settle the matter in three sniper rounds. Head-on, it takes two to three full magazines of a reinforced AR.
• Bastion — A colossal quadruped, a sort of mobile tank that blocks an entire corridor at Buried City. It's equipped with a frontal rotary machine gun and an energy dome that makes it immune to frontal fire. You absolutely must shoot it in the back or at the joints. With a group, an EMP grenade suspends its shield for six seconds — a window to empty a magazine into its exposed core.

A Bastion alone is worth about 8,000 damage on the Trials counter: it's one of the fastest ways to clear the intermediate threshold of the Wildcard rank.

The Matriarch and world encounters

At the top of the pyramid sits the Matriarch, an immense queen-mother machine that appears during occasional world events, mainly on Riven Tides and Stella Montis. She has several phases: an energy dome similar to the Bastion, shoulder-mounted rocket launchers inspired by the Rocketeer, and above all the ability to summon waves of Wasps every 45 seconds. A solo player stands absolutely no chance: Embark has calibrated the fight for two to three coordinated trios. The reward is massive — an exotic-rarity blueprint, several thousand Scorta, and a considerable jump in the Trials tiers — but leaving the POI remains risky, as other teams lurk once the sound cue announces her appearance. Always scout out a recognized extraction point before engaging.

Recommended weapons and weak points: the summary table

Solo, duo, and trio strategies against the ARC

Your team composition radically changes how you approach patrols, and above all the window of engagement you can tolerate before an ARC group becomes unmanageable.

• Solo: prioritize full stealth. A silent bow and a suppressed pistol take care of Tick, Pop, Snitch, and Firefly without waking up the zone. Avoid any frontal fight against a Bastion or a Rocketeer — the Scorta reward is never worth a lost raid. Our advice: prepare an alternative extraction route within 200 meters before engaging any heavy ARC, since a single unlucky Sentinel can force you to change your exit.
• Duo: one player acts as a "drone-buster" with a marksman rifle, focusing on Wasps, Hornets, and Bombardiers, while the second handles bipeds in close-range assault. A single shared EMP grenade unlocks a tough Rocketeer, and a stash of sticky mines reserved for Shredders regularly saves a risky extraction at Space Center.
• Trio: the ideal setup for the Matriarch and full Bastion clears. A long-range shooter on overwatch, a versatile AR player in the center, and a mobile shotgun/SMG player intercepting Leapers and Shredders on the flanks. One of the three must carry two EMP grenades and a reserve of advanced medkits to hold through the second summon wave.

Whatever the setup, keep in mind that a prolonged ARC fight mechanically attracts other Raiders: the thirty-second rule still applies — beyond that, disengage or reposition.

Mistakes to avoid in Trials Season 5

Patches 1.36 and then 1.37 introduced specific adjustments that invalidate some Season 4 "Blindspot" habits.

• Do not ignore a Snitch: its alert range has been increased, and it can now summon reinforcements from a nearby POI.
• Do not engage a Bastion without an EMP: its frontal dome now absorbs almost all standard calibers.
• Do not forget the scouts' loot: since 1.37, Ticks drop recyclable explosive components, valuable at Speranza's workbench.
• Do not linger after killing a Rocketeer: the sound of its fall acts as a GPS pin for all nearby players.
• Do not start a Matriarch fight late in a raid: the encounter lasts long enough for three other teams to show up drawn by the noise.

Conclusion: reading the bestiary doubles your extraction rate

Mastering the 13 ARC machines remains the real gap between a Tryhard-rank Raider and a Cantina Legend. Every behavior, every weak point, and every fire priority directly translates into Scorta earned, Trials tokens banked, and raids finished with a full bag. Note the patterns during your early runs, adjust your loadouts based on the targeted POI — Sentinel and Shredder at Buried City, Bombardier and Hornet at Dam Battlegrounds, Bastion at Space Center — and always keep an EMP in your pocket. On patches 1.36/1.37, a Raider prepared against the ARC controls half the map before the first player-versus-player duel even happens: that's the decisive edge of Season 5.