Live Update 1.39.0 landed in ARC Raiders on July 28, and the headline is matchmaking rather than content. Embark is running a test where self-defense no longer feeds the playstyle estimate at all — only fights you choose to start are counted. The rest of the patch is a mix of grenade damage fixes, trinket stacking, audio work and a long pass of map geometry cleanup.
Only the fights you start count now
An earlier change already separated defending from initiating: self-defense still went into the playstyle estimate, but with a much smaller weight. The most requested follow-up was to drop it to zero, and that is what the studio is testing. Knocking out a squad that shot at you first now has no effect on how the system reads you.
How an encounter is parsed, per the announcement:
- Defender status is squad-wide. If the other team damages, downs or eliminates any of your squadmates first, your entire squad is counted as defending. Whoever fires first owns the fight.
- Severity scales the weight. A long firefight with heavy damage and multiple raiders downed carries a lot of weight. A stray hit or a short exchange where the other squad runs off still registers as starting a fight, but barely moves the needle.
- Third-partying is initiating. Dropping into someone else’s ongoing fight is treated the same as opening one yourself.
Two previous adjustments stay in place: the separate Solo, Duo and Trio tracking from 1.36.0 and the matchmaking optimization from 1.38.0. Embark is asking players to fill out the latest matchmaking survey, since telemetry doesn’t show how a raid actually feels.
Fixes and content
- Seeker Grenade and Wolfpack Grenade no longer deal inconsistent damage.
- Trinkets added with the Converging Paths project in 1.33.0 now stack like other trinkets, with drop rates smoothed out across maps.
- The Train model could show up in two spots in the Raider Den while only one was owned — fixed.
- Audio: better footsteps in water, more Dodge Roll sound variations, ambience tweaks in some cinematics.
- Cosmetics: Blindspot Set toggles corrected, Triumph now uses Helmet Only, Scorta uses Gauntlet Off, Scorta color names relabeled, a missing string for a blue backpack fixed.
- Multiple map fixes for clipping, floating props and landscape holes.
- The Dweller Outfit is in the store, and the THE FINALS crossover contracts close on July 30 at 3PM CEST.
What this means for players using software
Start with the boring part: a client build change means shifted offsets. Treat any external tool as broken until the vendor ships a build compiled against 1.39.0. Signature scans may resolve to garbage, ESP boxes can drift off entities, and an aim module reading stale structures is the fastest way to crash the game process mid-raid — which is exactly the kind of event that gets logged. Check the update statuses before you queue instead of relying on an old loader.
The more interesting part is the matchmaking test. The system builds its read on you from the fights you initiate, so anyone playing aggressively with assistance software gets funnelled toward lobbies full of equally aggressive squads — better shooters, sharper eyes on your tracking, and far more report clicks. Removing defensive PvP from the equation gives you a lever: play reactively, hold angles, let the other squad commit first, and your estimate stays calm no matter how many of them you put down. If account longevity matters to you, that single line in the notes is worth more than the whole bug list. Builds for the game are collected on our ARC Raiders page.
Hardware hygiene still applies. Client patches usually travel together with quiet updates to protection modules, so the first days after an update are when a current HWID spoofer and a clean launch environment matter most. Running a kernel loader or a DMA setup? Give the vendor a day, and don’t validate a fresh build on the account you care about.
Finally, the grenade damage fix changes close-range math slightly. If your routine involves finishing a downed target with a Seeker or Wolfpack, re-check the actual numbers before you assume the old timing holds.
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