ARC Raiders Trials Season 5: dates, rewards and the cost of chasing placement

Trials Season 5 ended at 07:00 UTC on 30 September 2026. This article is a record of that season, not a guide to the current Trials board. Check the official ARC Raiders news and the in-game board for current dates, objectives and rewards.

19 October 2026 correction: Our 12 October update misstated Season 6's end date as 16 November. Embark's Frozen Trials announcement lists 12 January 2027. Season 6 began on 8 October; its Maestro outfit and weekly blueprint and gear rewards belong to the new season, not to the Season 5 Scorta placement rewards explained below.

The season rewarded final placement rather than mere completion of a week. That design made steady progress more valuable than a last-minute sprint.

Its listed end-of-season rewards were cosmetic. Nothing in that reward set made a Raider stronger Topside, which set a sensible ceiling on what to risk for it.

What Embark has confirmed#

The season opened on 7 July at 12:00 UTC, shipped alongside Live Update 1.36.0, and closed on 30 September at 07:00 UTC. The reward set was built around the Scorta outfit, with variations based on final placement. Embark said the Red and Blue colour variants were reserved for players who reached Hotshot or Cantina Legend.

Embark's announcement also said players had until 22 September to tackle the new Trials, while the same page listed 30 September as the season end. It did not explain the gap in that article. The season-end timestamp is clear; the in-game Trials board was the safer authority for a weekly objective deadline.

Beyond the outfit, the end-of-season cosmetics are the Green Bruiser backpack, the Pressure Gauge backpack charm, the Hydraulic Pump backpack attachment, and the "Come at me" emote.

On the objectives themselves, Embark describes a mix of returning challenges and new ones, and gives two examples of the new direction: damaging specific ARC with certain weapons, and absorbing Pop explosions to the face. The full list is not published in the announcement, so treat the weekly board in-game as the authority on what is actually live for you.

The objectives point away from safe play#

Both examples Embark gave are instructive, because neither is something a careful Raider does by accident.

Damaging a named machine with a named weapon means the objective is telling you what to carry before you know what you will meet. If the weapon it names is not the weapon you would otherwise bring, the challenge has already cost you something before the round starts — you are now equipped for a task rather than for a run.

Taking a Pop explosion is more direct. It asks you to spend health on purpose. Health you spend on an objective is health you do not have for the fight you did not plan, and the run you lose that way costs a full kit for a fraction of a cosmetic.

That is not a complaint about the design. Challenges that ask for unusual behaviour are more interesting than challenges that tick over while you play normally. It just means the cost is real and it lands on the run, not on a separate progress bar.

What the challenge design taught#

The useful habit was to read the week's objectives before queueing and separate those that fit a normal run from those that required a detour. Apply that decision process to current Trials only after checking the active board.

The first group is relatively cheap. If an objective names a machine you routinely fight on the way to your usual loot, it costs nothing to bring a weapon that satisfies it, provided that weapon is one you can actually fight with.

The second pile is where people lose kits. A detour objective is best paid for with a run you have already written off — a cheap loadout, a map condition you were not going to profit from anyway, a session where you are queuing to play rather than to bank. Deliberately taking damage or picking a fight with a machine you would normally walk past belongs on that run, not on the one where you are carrying something you want to keep.

One thing that changed in the same update helps here. Live Update 1.36.0 significantly increased the value of loot dropped by ARC Turbines, with Embark noting the previous reward did not match the effort of taking one down. If a week's objectives push you toward an ARC Turbine, its loot was worth more than it had been before this update.

What placement actually asks of you#

Because the payout was by placement, consistency mattered more than intensity. Players who cleared achievable objectives most weeks had more chances to climb than players who ignored weeks and tried to force everything near the end.

The season's deadline has passed, so this is no longer a reason to change a loadout. For an active season, weigh any cosmetic reward against the kit you would have to risk, and check current thresholds in-game rather than relying on this historical article.