The Expedition Project in Arc Raiders has kicked off for December 17th through the 22nd, and it's one of those events that makes you stop and actually think before you queue up. People are chatting builds, hoarding materials, and doing the usual panic-maths on what's "worth it." If you're still gearing up, you'll notice the conversation keeps circling back to ARC Raiders Items because the whole thing rewards planning more than raw hours played.

Getting In and What You're Actually Doing

You don't even see the Expedition option until you hit level 20, which is a nice filter. Once it's open, the loop is simple on paper: donate five pages of materials to help upgrade the caravan. The good news is it doesn't punish you for having a life. Your donations are saved, so if you only manage two pages this time, you're not back to zero in the next cycle. That alone changes how most folks approach it. You can do steady runs, stash what you can, and chip away without that sweaty "finish or fail" pressure.

The Big Choice: Push the Caravan or Keep Your Stuff

When the caravan hits full upgrade, you're offered the real decision: send your character beyond the Rust Belt. Hit that button and it's a full wipe. Not a soft reset. Your stash gets emptied, your coins vanish, your workbenches drop back to level one, and progression like quests and blueprints gets erased too. It's brutal, and you'll feel it if you've spent weeks dialing in your loadout. Some players will never touch it, and that's fine. But if you like fresh starts and you're chasing long-term power, this is the door.

Permanent Gains and Why People Keep Doing It

The hook is permanent progression that normal grinding won't give you. You can raise your skill point cap by up to five points, pushing the maximum to 80 skill points. Each point is tied to about 1,000,000 coin (or equivalent stash value), so to grab all five you're looking at 5,000,000 total value built up over time. You also get lasting cosmetic rewards like an Expedition skin, an icon, and a hat for Scrappy, plus a practical perk that matters every single session: 12 extra stash slots permanently. That's the kind of reward you stop noticing until you don't have it.

Rebuild Buffs and the Real Rhythm of the Event

After the wipe, the game does throw you some short-term help: XP boosts, cheaper repairs, and better material pulls from Scrappy so you can get back on your feet. The catch is the streak system. Keep running Expeditions and those buffs stack; skip an event and the stack resets. So you'll see players timing their wipe for when they can play consistently, not when it's "most efficient" on paper. If you're tempted, build your plan first, make peace with losing everything, and then commit—because once you go, you'll want every edge you can get, even down to where you source ARC Raiders Items cheap for the next climb.