How to Unlock the Outpost in ARC Raiders: Every Sheltered Retreat Step, Research Station and Amplification

The Frozen Trail update gave ARC Raiders its first real home outside Speranza, but the game doesn’t hand it to you for free. If you want to unlock the Outpost in ARC Raiders, you first have to finish a three-stage project called Sheltered Retreat, and one of those stages sends you to a brand-new map to fight a brand-new ARC. This guide walks you through every step, from getting a camera for the very first objective to dealing damage to Bullies on Pendola Pass, and explains what the Outpost actually unlocks once it’s yours, including the Research Station and Weapon Amplification. The guide reflects ARC Raiders as of Update 2.1.0 (October 13, 2026) and Hotfix 2.1.1 (October 16, 2026).

What Is the Outpost in ARC Raiders?

The Outpost arrived with the 2.0 Frozen Trail update on October 8, 2026. Embark Studios describes it as an extension of your Raider Den offered by Celeste, a base between the Rust Belt and the mountains that you can expand with modules and decorate with furniture. More importantly for your loadout, it houses the new Research Station (Embark also calls it the Research Bench or Research Workstation), which is your route to Weapon Amplification.

Keep your expectations in check on one point: right now the Outpost is a menu-based space. You can build rooms, place furniture and use its stations, but you can’t walk around inside it yet. Embark calls the Outpost the start of a feature it wants to develop much further.

How to Start the Sheltered Retreat Project

The Outpost unlock is handled through a Project called Sheltered Retreat, which went live on October 8, 2026. You’ll find it in the Outpost tab at the top of the menu in Speranza. Based on community testing, the project becomes available once your Raider reaches level 18. The three stages have to be finished in order, and since Update 2.1.0 the Outpost tab shows an orange indicator whenever a stage is ready to be claimed.

Here’s the full Sheltered Retreat project at a glance:

1. Research Topside Living Conditions: take a photo of any farmland house around the Ruined Homestead on The Blue Gate.
2. Gather Building Materials: hand in 3 Planks, 5 Sheet Metal, 10 ARC Alloy and 3 Advanced Electrical Components.
3. Safeguard the Building Site: deal 800 damage to flying ARC enemies and 300 damage to Bullies.

Stage 1: Research Topside Living Conditions (Camera and Farmland House)

The first stage is the one that trips most players up, because looking at the house isn’t enough. You need to actually photograph it with one of the new camera gadgets. Embark’s patch notes list three ways to get a camera:

• Buy one from Shani: she sells both the Basic Camera and the Advanced Camera in limited daily stock.
• Craft one at the Workbench: the Basic Camera is craftable without a blueprint. The ARC Raiders Wiki lists the recipe as 8 Plastic Parts and 1 Wires.
• Find one Topside: cameras can also turn up as loot during raids.

Once you have a camera, put it in your quick-use slots, deploy to The Blue Gate and head to the Ruined Homestead. Any farmland house around that point of interest counts, so you don’t have to hunt for one specific building. Make sure the Sheltered Retreat project is accepted before you deploy, then pull out the camera, frame the house and take the picture. Your photos are saved to your Codex. The photo doesn’t finish the stage on its own: extract safely, return to Speranza and complete the stage in the Outpost tab. Completing Stage 1 rewards you with the Advanced Camera Blueprint.

The new camera gadget is required for the first Outpost stage, and it even has a selfie mode.

Stage 2: Gather Building Materials

The second stage is a simple hand-in. You need the following materials in your stash:

• 3x Planks
• 5x Sheet Metal
• 10x ARC Alloy
• 3x Advanced Electrical Components

Planks and Sheet Metal are common around industrial areas, and Celeste also trades them for Assorted Seeds. ARC Alloy is scavenged from destroyed ARC, with small flying ARC such as Wasps and Hornets being an easy source, and Advanced Electrical Components show up in electrical loot zones. If you already have a healthy stash, you can probably finish this stage on the spot. The reward is the Red Light Stick Blueprint.

Stage 3: Safeguard the Building Site (Flying ARC and Bullies)

The final stage asks you to distract the ARC so construction can happen in peace. There are two damage objectives:

• Deal 800 damage to flying ARC enemies. Wasps, Hornets and other drones all count, and you’ll hit this number naturally over a few raids on any map.
• Deal 300 damage to Bullies. This is the real gate. The Bully is one of the new ARC enemies from Frozen Trail and lives on the new Pendola Pass map.

The Bully is a fast, dog-like ARC with a shotgun blast and a cluster bomb launcher on its head. Aim for the leg joints, and punish it when its head opens up to fire, because that exposes another weak spot. You only need 300 damage, not a kill, so you can chip it, break line of sight and reset. Bring heavier ammo if you can, and keep in mind that Embark reworked explosive damage in 2.0: launchers like the Hullcracker now hit armor plates harder but weak points less hard.

Pendola Pass isn’t available right away for brand-new Raiders. According to the ARC Raiders Wiki, the map unlocks after you’ve completed 25 rounds, which most players will already have done by level 18. Completing Stage 3 rewards the Hotel Chair Design, 15 Planks and 5 Durable Cloth, and unlocks the Outpost for good.

The Bully is the toughest part of the Outpost unlock: you need to deal 300 damage to it on Pendola Pass.

What the Outpost Unlocks: Research Station, Furniture and Amplification

Once Sheltered Retreat is done, the Outpost opens up a whole new progression layer:

• Research Station: unlocking the Outpost gives you access to the new research station, used for blueprint crafting, design crafting and Amplified Research. Its levels require the matching number of Outpost rooms, so expanding the Outpost and upgrading the station go hand in hand.
• Furniture Designs: Frozen Trail added 100 Furniture Designs. 73 of them can be found Topside, 4 are exclusive to the Frozen Trail Pass, 1 comes with the Collector DLC, and the rest are unlocked by upgrading the Outpost. Like blueprints, you learn a design once and can then craft that furniture for your Outpost.
• Modules: the Outpost can be expanded with additional rooms, each with its own material cost.
• Weapon Amplification: Embark’s late-game weapon upgrade system, which can completely change how a gun behaves. It launched for 15 weapons. To amplify weapons, you need both the Research Station and the Gunsmith at level 4. According to the ARC Raiders Wiki, amplification can’t be reverted, so choose your upgrades carefully.

Common Outpost Problems and Fixes

Embark listed several known Outpost issues at launch, and some have already been fixed. Here’s what to watch for:

• Photo doesn’t count: make sure you used the camera gadget itself and photographed a house around the Ruined Homestead on The Blue Gate, not somewhere else on the map.
• No notification after finishing a stage: Update 2.1.0 added an orange indicator to the Outpost tab when a project step is completed. If you still don’t see it, check the tab manually.
• Broken lighting in the Outpost: Embark says lighting in the main building can look corrupted with Shadow quality set to Low. Raise the setting if your Outpost looks wrong.
• Furniture clipping: some furniture can clip through the structure or block slots. Embark said fixes were in the works.

Final Thoughts

Unlocking the Outpost in ARC Raiders boils down to three steps: photograph a farmland house at the Ruined Homestead, hand in a small pile of materials, and deal some damage to flying ARC and Bullies on Pendola Pass. The camera and the Bully are the only real hurdles, and once you’re through, the Research Station and Weapon Amplification give you a long-term goal for the rest of Frozen Trail. If you’re into extraction shooters in general, check out our story on Krafton canceling PUBG: Black Budget, one of the genre’s would-be challengers.

Keep the adventure going! Check out more Gaming Guides on Gamersuniverse.

Picture Source: Embark Studios (Steam)