ARC Raiders: Frozen Trail, and paying for it from here

Frozen Trail goes live on Thursday 8 October 2026 at 09:00 UTC, which is 11am in Harare. Embark says it is the biggest thing they have shipped since launch, and for once that is not marketing: it adds a map, three new machines, a rebuilt skill tree and the first real story content about where the ARC came from.

There is a second date worth writing down. ARC Raiders is free to play on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation until 12 October. After that it goes back to costing money.

What is actually in it

Pendola Pass is the new map, and the Frigate and new Outposts come with it. The three machines are the Bully, which just runs at you, the Skulker, which waits, and the Hydra, which comes apart into three pieces and keeps fighting.

The skill tree has been redone, there are Amplified Weapons and new gadgets, and progression has changed in ways that will take a week to settle into.

Embark moved to two big updates a year back in May, so this is half of 2026's content rather than a monthly patch. It is worth clearing an evening for.

The free window is a trial, not a gift

Free until the 12th means you can play the new map and fight the new machines without paying. It does not mean the game is yours. If you want to still be raiding on the 13th, you need to own it.

That is where most people here stop, because Steam and PlayStation both want a card your bank does not issue.

Getting past the payment wall

Put balance on the platform instead. You buy a wallet card from us with EcoCash or a local card, redeem it, and the store sees money rather than a foreign bank.

The card has to match the country your account was registered in. We stock Steam cards for the US and the UK, PlayStation Store cards for South Africa, the UK and the US, and UK Xbox cards.

If you are not certain which country your account uses, check before you pay. The Steam region guide and the PlayStation one each take a minute, and getting it wrong is the one mistake we cannot undo for you.

How much

Enough to own the game, and that is genuinely it. The amplified weapons and the new gear come out of raids, not out of your wallet. Buy the card for the game, play for a week in Pendola Pass, then decide whether you care about cosmetics.