Cold Snap in ARC Raiders (Patch 1.7.0) isn't just a winter coat on the same old raids. The first time I loaded into Dam Battlegrounds, I legit had to pause and listen because I couldn't see much past the next drift. If you're chasing Trials points or trying to keep your kit stocked, you'll feel the pressure fast, and it's why people are talking about ARC Raiders Coins alongside the update like it's part of the meta now.



Weather That Changes Your Tempo
The snow doesn't care how confident you are. Visibility drops, sound matters more, and the pace gets weird—slow one second, frantic the next. You can't just sprint across open ground and expect to "out-aim" the problem. The chill mechanic bites if you hang outside too long, so you end up planning your routes around heat like it's ammo. Warm interiors become checkpoints. Those red Candleberries aren't a nice bonus anymore; they're a decision. Do you detour for them and risk running into a squad, or push on and hope your health holds.



Tracks, Ice, and The New Tells
Footprints are the loudest thing in the game right now. You'll spot them cutting around Blue Gate and suddenly you're not guessing where a team went—you're reading it. It feels great when you're the one stalking, but it also means your sloppy rotations get punished. If you stop to loot too long, you're leaving a breadcrumb trail. Then there's frozen water. It looks harmless until you're sliding mid-fight, trying to correct your aim while your character keeps drifting. You learn quick: don't take "clever" riverbed flanks unless you've got space to recover.



Rotation, Loadouts, and Small Quality-of-Life Wins
The rotation keeps you on your toes. One run you're dealing with gusts and weird angles at Spaceport, the next you're threading sightlines through the Buried City with half your usual range. Thermal options and anything that helps you pick targets out of grey-on-grey gets more valuable than raw DPS. Also, credit where it's due: the ADS toggle on console is a real comfort change. And the Skill Tree reset? A quiet lifesaver. Lots of folks built something early that didn't age well, and now you can clean it up without that "well, I guess I'm stuck" feeling.



Cosmetics, Creds, and Skipping The Drag
The new looks are fun, too. Alpino actually blends when the storm rolls in, and Red Ryder has that goofy holiday punch without being too loud. But if you're tired of scraping Creds when all you want is to run the cold maps and keep up with the multiplier, I get it. Some players just shortcut the grind so they can focus on raids, and that's where people end up going to buy ARC Raiders Coins when they'd rather spend their time learning routes and outplaying trackers instead of staring at the store timer.