ARC Raiders Reward Pass Explained: Free vs Premium and Is It Worth It

The ARC Raiders Reward Pass is a 60-level progression track that replaced Raider Decks with the Frozen Trail 2.0 update on 8 October 2026. The free track holds every new base outfit, the new weapons and gadgets and up to 200 Raider Tokens; the Premium track costs 1,150 Raider Tokens, is purely cosmetic and pays back up to 1,150 tokens if you finish it.

This guide is built on Embark Studios' own Reward Pass explainer (28 September 2026), the Frozen Trail patch notes, Store Update 2.1.0 (13 October) and the Steam store pages, checked on 15 October 2026. Where we lean on player reports from r/ArcRaiders, we say so.

What is the ARC Raiders Reward Pass?

Embark calls the Reward Pass a "natural evolution" of Raider Decks. You complete Feats, earn Reward Points and unlock levels. With 2.0, Cred is gone from the game: according to the patch notes, it was replaced by Reward Points, which are applied automatically to whichever pass you have set as active.

Two passes launched with Frozen Trail. The Frozen Trail Pass is the new one, with 60 levels split into a Free and a Premium track. The Legacy Pass is free and gathers every cosmetic and Raider Token from the old Raider Decks into a single track.

Embark explained the switch in the same post: players were stockpiling Cred so quickly that many finished each new Raider Deck the day it arrived, which made the rewards feel, in the studio's words, much less "rewarding". Insider Gaming's summary of the post reads it the same way. Reward Passes are also "tied to the update they release with", so the free track is how everyone gets the new update's weapons and gadgets.

Free vs Premium: what is on each track?

The important line for anyone worried about pay-to-win: Embark states that the Premium track does not contain items that benefit gameplay, while the free track does. The new weapons and gadgets of Frozen Trail are therefore earned by playing, not bought.

The Premium track is where the exclusive weapon stencils live. The patch notes list 14 Weapon Stencils at launch: 5 exclusive to the Frozen Trail Premium Pass, 1 exclusive to the Collector Set DLC and 8 found Topside. Stenciled weapons can still be lost like any other gun if you are downed, and the stencil goes with them.

How do you level up the Reward Pass?

Feats are the engine. Since 2.0 they come in three difficulties, and each one also feeds a weekly milestone counter. The figures below come straight from the Frozen Trail patch notes.

Two things follow from that table. First, the three weekly milestones are worth 750 Reward Points together, far more than any single Feat, so the efficient habit is to hit 12 milestone progress every week. Four Hard Feats get you there; so do twelve Easy ones. Second, once the three milestones are done you can keep completing Feats for their own points, but no milestone rewards are granted until the weekly timer resets.

Only one pass can be active at a time. If you want to finish old Raider Deck rewards, set the Legacy Pass as active; if you want Frozen Trail rewards, switch back. Reward Points go only to the active pass.

Embark has not published how many Reward Points each of the 60 levels costs, so we cannot give an honest hours-to-complete figure. For scale only: a player posted a completed pass on r/ArcRaiders on 12 October, four days after launch, crediting Feats done every match; that is the ceiling of what a heavy player managed, not a typical pace.

Is the Premium Reward Pass worth it?

On tokens alone, the Premium track is close to free for anyone who finishes it. It costs 1,150 Raider Tokens and its rewards include up to 1,150 Raider Tokens, which Embark itself describes as earning back the currency it takes to obtain it. Add the free track's 200 tokens and a player who completes both tracks ends the pass up to 200 tokens ahead of where they started. A post on r/ArcRaiders making exactly that point reached 1,148 upvotes and 249 comments by 15 October.

The catch is the word "completes". The refund comes from levels you unlock, so a player who buys Premium and stops halfway gets only part of the 1,150 back. And everything on the Premium track is cosmetic: if you do not care about outfit colourways, legendary stencils or hairstyles, the free track already gives you every item that matters in a raid.

Prices come from the Steam pages for the Collector Set and the Deluxe upgrade; the base game itself was $19.99 (£17.49 in the UK), half its $39.99 list price, on the Steam store on 15 October. Embark says the Collector Set is sold on Xbox, PlayStation, Epic and Steam; console prices can differ.

Bought Premium and then the Collector Set? Read this first

The Collector Set grants the Premium track, so buying it after you have already spent 1,150 tokens on Premium means paying for access you already have. Embark's Collector Set announcement does not mention a token refund or a discounted upgrade for that case, and we found no published policy.

Players hit this in the first days: a thread on r/ArcRaiders from 10 October (47 comments) shows several players who bought both and contacted Embark support. If it happened to you, support is the route; if it has not, decide between the two before buying either.

Reward Pass not progressing? The bugs Embark has fixed

Early progress reports were unreliable. On 9 October Embark acknowledged in Hotfix 2.0.2 on Steam that the Reward Pass was not progressing for some players. Store Update 2.1.0 on 13 October then fixed the pass not progressing correctly, stopped the end-of-round screen from counting milestones from previous rounds and fixed the pass tile overstating completed levels.

Two practical points remain. The Frozen Trail patch notes list as a known issue that premium rewards can still show a lock icon after you buy the Premium track, even though they are unlocked. And players on r/ArcRaiders reported that the end-of-round summary disagreed with the Reward Pass menu before 2.1.0; the menu itself is the screen to trust.

Does the Frozen Trail Reward Pass expire?

Embark has not published an end date for the Frozen Trail Pass. What it has said is that Reward Passes are tied to the update they launch with, which suggests a new pass with the next major update rather than a fixed season length. The Legacy Pass is the precedent for old content: past Raider Deck rewards were moved there rather than deleted. We will update this guide when Embark gives a date.

What to read next

If you are coming back for Frozen Trail, our PvE toggle explainer covers the 13–20 October matchmaking test, including which map conditions are excluded. For how the update moved player numbers, see our Frozen Trail Steam player peak report, and the ARC Raiders hub collects everything we have published on the game.