After 100 hours in ARC Raiders, it's time to do something with the grenades

After 100 hours with Arc RaiderI can safely say that I am a fan. There's a certain kind of suspense that keeps players like me coming back to the game. It's not just the adrenaline rush of pure extraction or the thrill of ambushing another unit; that's how uncertain every moment is. The tension is undeniable, and here's why ARC Raiders stands out among the growing genre of extraction shooters. However, something in his combat loop has become too widespread and destabilizing: the salience of grenades.

ARC Raiders released on October 30th, and in the months since launch, players have seen a steady stream of fixes, fixes and balance tweaks across 11 updates. Embark Studios has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to adapt the game in response to community feedback – take the recent increase in map event frequency after ARC Raiders player resistance – but despite these efforts, the way grenades define combat remains a sore point. And it delves more into the underlying design than simply balancing the numbers.

ARC Raiders players think that Embark just made a big change in matchmaking

Some ARC Raiders players believe that developers Embark Studios may have quietly made a huge change to the game's matchmaking system.

Get Nerfed Trigger 'Nades in January

In the community spaces leading to ARC Raiders Update 1.11.0, grenades weren't just a nuisance – they were a defining element of the meta. Steam community threads and subreddit discussions were filled with complaints about how Trigger 'Nades could turn any choke point into a death zone, or how using them in extraction points skewed the outcome of encounters. The January 13th update openly acknowledged grenades' disproportionate impact on the meta, stating that Trigger 'Nade currently dominates PvP encounters and has been picked far more often than any other option.

In response, the developers made specific changes to the Trigger 'Nade mechanic to limit its effectiveness.

The detonation delay between activation and explosion has been more than doubled, from 0.7 seconds to 1.5 seconds, giving the opponent more time to react.
Additionally, the damage drop has been reworked so that explosions focus their impact closer to the center and deal less damage on the outer edges of the blast zones.
These modifications were intended to make the air trigger tactic less reliable while maintaining the overall usefulness of the grenades.

This patch represents the clearest evidence that this is not just a perception issue. Embark recognized that players prefer Trigger 'Nades because this tool can solve every problem a Raider might encounter. Of course, grenades offer controlled, direct firepower, but with a little improvisation they can also: flush players out of cover, catch players while they're hiding, scout without consequence, and quickly reset most encounters. They are great against players and can do it all against ARC as well. Sure, this is true of Trigger 'Nades and remote detonation opens up some unique strategies, but the same goes for all the best grenades in ARC Raiders.

The problem is bigger than Trigger 'Nades

The problems that arise from this dominance are systemic. Grenades began to rewrite the basic dynamics ARC Raiders PvP combat encourages otherwise. Combat should be controlled by positioning, careful attention to sound cues, and gradual (sometimes gut) decision making. Excelling with guns requires aim discipline, ammo awareness, and a basic understanding of how the tool will behave when fired, all while risking exposure. The same cannot be said for grenades.

The unintended consequence is an explode-first, ask-questions-later rhythm that erodes the tactical core ARC Raiders. Instead of clever asides, silent infiltrations, or improvised deception, the suspense often boils down to spotting the player and layering explosives until something explodes. This is obviously a less dynamic gameplay loop and doesn't do justice to the heart-wrenching action that initially attracted me.

The shift made in the 1.11.0 update was necessary, but does not fully address the root of the problem. The increased fuse duration and damage concentration will only soften the worst abuse of Trigger 'Nades. It doesn't deal with grenades in general in a way that supports the intended flow of the game. Items still perform too many functions at once. They remain a source of lethal damage, positional pressure and free information. The crux of the problem isn't just that grenades are powerful; it's that they are too universally effective for too little investment.

ARC Raiders is best when adversaries are forced into asymmetric engagements, when engagements depend on intuition and environmental reading or brokering trades, rather than anticipating incoming explosions and repeating exploits that enable ARC Raiders duplicate meta items. In games built around fast melee chaos like Call of Duty or Battlefieldthere is an established context for power like grenades. They're just one of many reliably powerful tools available to players, alongside an arsenal of weapons, potential vehicles, melee weapons, and other support items. ARC Raiders advertises something else. It promises tactical extraction, emerging conflicts, and meaningful trade-offs between aggression and caution. When one type of item starts short-circuiting these trade-offs, it weakens the broader system.

How grenades can evolve with ARC Raiders

Since the 1.11.0 update, some shifts have been noticeable. Raiders may not be stacking Trigger 'Nades like they once were, but that hasn't really deterred players from using grenades more than their guns. Even as recently as ARC RaidersBird City's new event, explosives remain a one-size-fits-all solution, partly because the rest of the sandbox has less to offer in comparison. Options like mines and support items like barricades and zip lines are there, but there's little to deter an aggressor with a backpack full of Light Impact or Blaze Grenades.

Grenades should have a more defined risk, one that better compensates for their high potential. This could include limiting the number of grenades a player can load, increasing the resources required to produce them, or potentially something more drastic with skill tree specialization. While some ARC Raiders players won't want to Marathon-I fear that grenades will continue to undermine the game's own strategic architecture if not addressed.

The real difference won't come from a slight detonation delay or isolated fallback tweaks, but from changing how the explosives fit into the world. Until then, every encounter will be a constant reminder that some tools dominate this game not because they're well designed, but because they circumvent the very dynamics that ARC Raiders worth playing. I hope Embark Studios will reevaluate and rebalance the throwables as the game continues to develop. If not for me, then for every Raider who fell into oblivion while opening some filing cabinets.