Arc Raiders update rips out one of the game's most maddening puzzles

Arc Raiders has a new Headwinds game update that, amongst many other things, removes an extravagantly drawn-out puzzle from the game’s Buried City map. Introduced in December, the puzzle in question saw people tracking down and pushing 15 buttons in a certain order to unlock a secret chamber containing an actual, strummable guitar. As of this updating, you’ll now be able to buy that guitar at Shani’s, like a millionaire tourist paying to be flown to the top of Mount Everest.

I regard this as a dilution of the game, on paper, but I am not one of the players who’ve driven themselves crackers trying to get hold of the instrument (or paying real money for the battle pass to unlock it). Arc Raiders is a multiplayer game, of course, so even if you survive being shot at while stampeding between buttons, it’s possible another, distant player might innocently press one and reset your progress.

I really like multiplayer puzzles, in general, especially when the game isn’t really designed for this kind of trickery. It’s hard enough lugging loot back to the elevator in Arc without getting a bellyful of bullets. One can only imagine the feats of cunning required to track down a bunch of buttons in parallel. One can only imagine the elation of bringing home the prize.

Still, reactions to the tweak on Reddit are mostly a mixture of contempt and relief. As one user points out, even if you unearth the guitar, there’s no guarantee you’ll have enough time to extract. Perhaps turning the guitar into a purchaseable item was all part of Embark’s plan, after milking community desperation for a few weeks? It is a very nice guitar. You can play up to seven tunes with it. The difficulty of obtaining the thing may explain why so many wasteland buskers are getting shot in the head.

Read more about this and other Raider business in the full changelog. The devs have “fixed the Seedvault extraction glitch on Stella Montis that allowed players to remain in the extraction point after it had closed”. They’re also in the process of implementing a three strikes progressive ban system for cheaters, with bans progressing “from 30 days, to 60 and finally a permaban for repeat offenders”.

Any successful examples of puzzles in multiplayer shooters to share? I guess the obvious ones to beat are still Destiny’s Raids, hashtag Vault Of Glass. There’s probably some good stuff in certain editions of Fortnite, but I forget.