ARC Raiders' Breaking New Ground live event arrived alongside the massive 1.2.0 update, bringing with it one of the community's most exciting collaborative goals to ARCR Coins date: unlocking the brand-new Stella Montis map. This limited-time event encourages every player to contribute resources, earn Merits, and help the entire ARC Raiders community push the project toward completion.
Whether you're a veteran Raider or someone just loading in for the first time since Patch 1.2.0, this guide covers everything you need to know about the event-how it works, what you should contribute, and the fastest ways to rack up Merits before the event ends.
What Is the Breaking New Ground Event?
Breaking New Ground is a global community event accessible directly from the main menu. With Patch 1.2.0, players were introduced to two new Arcs, new reward tracks, and-most importantly-a community-driven construction project that, once completed, unlocks the upcoming Stella Montis region.
Instead of simply waiting for the new map to arrive in a future patch, ARC Raiders puts its players in the driver's seat. Every donation, no matter how small, moves the progress bar closer to unlocking Stella Montis for everyone. It's a collective push toward new territories, tougher encounters, and fresh rewards.
The event is only available for a limited period, so it's worth checking in whenever you log on. As long as the Breaking New Ground icon appears at the top-left corner of the main menu, you can enter the event page and contribute.
How to Participate
Getting involved is extremely simple:
Open the game menu.
Locate the Breaking New Ground event icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
Click it to enter the event interface.
Inside the event menu, you'll see the community progress, the material donation panel, and how many Merits you've earned so far. From here, you can repeatedly donate materials in order to help fund the construction project tied to Stella Montis.
The interface is straightforward and easy to follow, and you can contribute as many times as you want-provided you have the materials.
What Materials Can You Donate
Each contribution consists of a batch of five materials, and the game accepts a range of common crafting resources:
Metal Parts
Fabric
Plastic Parts
Rubber Parts
Chemicals
These are all items players normally gather while scavenging, looting containers, dismantling ARCR Items, or clearing zones of ARC activity. Since they are everyday materials needed for crafting and upgrading, you likely already have a healthy supply lying in your stash.
There's no preferred material or weighted contribution-five of anything counts as a valid donation, regardless of rarity or in-game value. That means players can donate whatever they're comfortable parting with. If you're overloaded with Metal Parts, go with those. If you'd rather use chemicals you aren't planning to craft with, that works too.
How Contributions Help Unlock Stella Montis
For every batch of materials you donate, the global community project advances. This means your individual contribution-no matter how small-helps every ARC Raider worldwide move closer to unlocking the new map.
The progress is shared across the entire player base, not tracked separately per account. Once the collective goal is reached, Stella Montis will unlock for everyone during the next event phase.
This structure is a clever way for ARC Raiders to bring its community together, rewarding everyone for participation and encouraging cooperation even outside traditional gameplay.
How to Earn Merits
For now, donating materials is the only way to earn Merits in the Breaking New Ground event. Merits act as your personal contribution reward currency, and the system tracks how many you've accumulated over the course of the event.
A few key points:
You earn Merits only by donating materials.
The maximum amount you can currently earn is 900 Merits.
You cannot earn Merits through missions, kills, exploration, or any other activity at this time.
This means that your best-and only-strategy is to cheap ARC Raiders Coins keep gathering materials during regular gameplay and donate them whenever you return to base.