Winter's hit the Rust Belt like a truck, and the Cold Snap window (Dec 16, 2025 to Jan 13, 2026) makes ARC Raiders feel like a different game. If you're jumping back in for the Flickering Flames grind, do yourself a favour and plan around the weather, not your ego—and if you're trying to stay stocked on essentials like ARC Raiders Coins, it helps to know what's worth risking a run for. You'll notice it fast: open ground is punishment now. If your rig starts shivering and you see snow building up, you've got seconds before you're in trouble, so don't "just cross" a field unless you've got cover lined up..

Playing The Storm, Not The Map

The biggest adjustment is mental. People keep treating blizzards like background noise and then wonder why they're crawling to extraction with nothing. Stay indoors when you can. Take fights under roofs, in hallways, behind walls—anywhere the storm can't chew your health down. You don't need to win every engagement out in the whiteout either. Sometimes the smart play is ducking into a building, letting another squad get impatient, then cleaning up when they push in sloppy. You'll also learn to read the "warning signs" without thinking: shiver animation, snow on the suit, visibility dropping, and suddenly your route needs a new plan..

Speranza Donations: What Actually Slows You Down

The Speranza project is five stages, and it's basically a shopping list disguised as an event. Candleberries are the headline—260 total—but the track XP covers a big chunk (around 180), so your real job is farming roughly 80 to 100 out in the wild. They're on those red bushes in nature pockets, and they pop against the snow once you stop rushing. The annoying part is the "specific junk" steps. Stage 2 is where a lot of runs die: three Candle Holders plus an Industrial Battery. Candle Holders show up in residential loot, so places like Ruby Residence in Dam or Grandioso Apartments in Buried City are your best bet—open drawers, check dressers, don't skip the boring rooms. For the battery, the Spaceport trench is the time-saver since it's usually a reliable spawn, so don't waste raids praying it appears somewhere random..

Routes That Don't Waste Your Evening

If you're trying to finish this without turning it into a second job, run a loop you can repeat on autopilot. Dam Battlegrounds works well: swing Hydroponic Dome for berries, then cut over toward Scrapyard for extra loot and donation pieces. If you're stuck on Stage 5 mushrooms, go to the Bastion river area and comb the fallen trees—slow, yes, but it's consistent. The payoff is worth it if you care about utility: Merits and Tokens stack up, the Red Lightstick blueprint is a nice flex, and the Merits track pushing to Tier 25 for the Space Wrench feels like grabbing a cheat code. And if you're short on time and just want to lock rewards without six-hour "naked" raids, some players simply top up and shortcut the grind with cheap ARC Raiders Coins so they can focus on the runs that actually feel fun..