The ARC Raiders Pendola Pass map is the biggest change Frozen Trail made, and it plays nothing like the Rust Belt maps. You fly in, you fly out on a Ballistic Gondola, the weather can kill you on its own, and the best loot sits inside a dead Emperor you need a crafted key to open. The short version: loot Old Town or the Railyard on your first runs, learn where the gondola transceivers are before you need one, and treat every Flash Freeze warning as a two-minute timer to get a roof over your head. The rest of this guide rates every zone, then covers the gondola and the new ARC.
Patch context: this covers Pendola Pass as of the Frozen Trail 2.0 update (October 8, 2026) plus Store Update 2.2.0 (October 20), last checked October 2026. The official Frozen Trail 2.0 patch notes are the source for anything Embark has confirmed; zone details come from the community map data, because Embark doesn’t publish per-area loot values.
Pendola Pass at a glance
Pendola Pass is a mid-difficulty map with a lot more to learn than its rating suggests. The ARC Raiders Wiki’s Pendola Pass page lists it at difficulty 3 with 30-minute rounds, and it unlocks after you have played 25 rounds. If you’re short of that, join a squadmate who already has it. The map sits beyond the Tube network in a snowy summit basin around the old Cielo Sereno Observatory, which is why you arrive and leave by gondola.
- Unlock: 25 rounds played (wiki figure; Embark hasn’t published one).
- Round length: 30 minutes.
- Extraction: Ballistic Gondola, called from a Gondola Transceiver.
- Hazard: Flash Freeze, a built-in cold event that’s harsher than Cold Snap.
- Conditions added in 2.0: ARC Frigate and Redirection.
- Loot test: Dynamic Loot Zones. Each area keeps its loot type, but its value changes from raid to raid. Embark says the system is exclusive to Pendola Pass for now.
Dynamic Loot Zones change how you plan runs. On older maps you can memorise “the good building” and farm it forever. On Pendola Pass, a Residential zone stays Residential, but whether it’s a jackpot this raid is a roll, so learn several zones.
Every Pendola Pass zone rated by loot and threat
The take: Old Town and the Railyard are the two zones worth building your first ten runs around, and the Fallen Emperor deserves a run of its own. The map splits into four regions (Northern Tracks, Almatera Village, Freight Terminal and Southern Pass). Loot tags and container counts below are community map data from October 2026; the loot and threat ratings are our read after running the map since launch, and Dynamic Loot Zones mean any single raid can swing either way.
| Zone | Region | Loot tags | Loot value | Threat | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fallen Emperor | Almatera Village | ARC | Highest (rare ARC tech) | Very high (Hydra inside) | Squad with the Conduit |
| Old Town | Almatera Village | Residential, Old World | High (about 77 containers) | High (ambush-prone streets) | Squad |
| Railyard | Freight Terminal | Industrial, Mechanical | High (about 49 containers) | Medium | Solo or squad |
| Cielo Sereno Observatory | Northern Tracks | Exodus, Technological | High (augments, Observatory Room) | Medium-high | Squad |
| Commissary Supermarket | Freight Terminal | Commercial, Medical | Medium-high (about 36 containers) | High (central, busy) | Squad |
| Almatera Station | Almatera Village | Commercial | Medium (Train Station Room) | Medium | Solo with the key |
| Loading Platforms | Freight Terminal | Exodus, Industrial | Medium-high (crafting mats) | Medium | Solo |
| Piazza della Rupe | Northern Tracks | Mixed | Medium | High (Bully spawn) | Squad hunting ARC |
| Deep Space Telescope | Northern Tracks | Exodus | Medium | Medium | Solo |
| Railroad Junction | Freight Terminal | Electrical, Mechanical | Medium | Low-medium | Solo |
| Old Hamlet, Truck Stop, Electrical Substation | Southern Pass | Mixed | Low-medium | Low | Solo, first runs |
Old Town
Old Town has the most containers on the map, which makes it the best place to fill a backpack and the worst place to get greedy. The streets are tight and the houses have multiple doors, so you can get pinched from two sides. Squads should split rooms and keep one player on the street. Solo, clear the edge houses and leave before the centre fills up.
Railyard
The Railyard is the most reliable zone on the map. Its Industrial and Mechanical tags mean steady crafting materials, wall lockers are packed close together, and the Glacial Transceiver nearby gives you a short walk to extraction. If we only had one run to give a new Pendola player, it would be the Railyard into the Loading Platforms.
Cielo Sereno Observatory
The Observatory is where augments come from on this map. It has breachable containers and the Observatory Room key room, and the high ground gives you sightlines over half the valley. That also means half the valley can see you on the way in.
Fallen Emperor
The Fallen Emperor is the map’s endgame. You need the Emperor Gateway Conduit to open it, crafted from an ARC Insulated Coupler, an ARC Conductive Coupler and an ARC Plated Coupler (it’s also the final reward on the Frozen Trail Premium Reward Pass). Community guides say the couplers drop from Emperor Payloads during the Redirection condition. Inside, a Hydra waits, so don’t open it with half a squad.
How Ballistic Gondola extraction works
Extraction kills more new Pendola players than anything else, because it’s slow and loud. There are no hatches or elevators. You activate a Gondola Transceiver, the gondola comes down nearby (not always right next to the transceiver), you pry open one of its pods and stay inside until it lifts off. The r/ArcRaiders thread on how unintuitive Pendola extraction is is full of players who died waiting by the transceiver while the gondola landed 40 metres away.
- Know your transceivers first. Players have mapped four: the Northern, Reckless, Glacial and Supermarket transceivers (north of Railroad Junction, near Old Town and the Emperor, between the Railyard and the Loading Platforms, and beside the Commissary).
- Expect company. Since Store Update 2.2.0, ARC react when someone uses a transceiver. The gondola also comes down trailing smoke that other squads can see.
- Watch the marker. Store Update 2.1.0 raised the gondola’s compass and map visibility from 120 to 175 metres, so you can see where it’s landing from further away.
- Get inside and stay there. 2.1.0 also fixed a bug that let players die inside the gondola while extracting. If you remember dying in a pod during launch week, that’s why.
Third-party guides report that each pod holds three players and that the gondola waits about two minutes. Neither figure is in the patch notes, so plan for less time than that. Solo players should call the gondola from cover and approach the landing spot last. The timing tricks in our solo extraction guide carry over almost unchanged.
Flash Freeze and the shelters
Flash Freeze is the reason you never loot Pendola Pass on autopilot. You get a warning, then a short window, then a whiteout that deals constant damage to anyone outdoors. Armor doesn’t help. The wiki calls it a harder version of Cold Snap that’s built into the map, and the only things that stop it are a roof or the Redirection condition.
- Overhead cover is what counts. Community guides say a roof or a solid overhang resets the exposure; standing next to a wall doesn’t.
- Shelters open on the warning. Storm Huts and similar shelters stay locked until a freeze approaches, then their doors open and a map icon appears. Guides count nine of them, near Old Town, the Railyard, the Commissary, the Observatory, Frozen River, Researcher Lodgings, Dispatch Tower, the Freight Terminal and the Controlled Receiving Facility.
- Shelters have loot. Players report Outpost materials inside (Insulation Rolls, Epoxy Buckets, Radial Press). That’s why they fill up with other squads.
- Doors can freeze shut. Carry a way to break ice or have a second exit in mind.
The shelter fights are the funniest part of the map, if you’re not in one. Six strangers in a hut the size of a garden shed, everyone pretending to look at the loot.
If you’d rather skip the learning tax, our ARC Raiders raid help team runs Pendola Pass every day, from squad carries into Old Town to Emperor runs and extraction support while you learn the gondola routine.
The new ARC: Bully, Skulker and Hydra
All three new ARC punish the habits Rust Belt maps taught you. The wiki pages are still stubs, so the weak points below are community-verified rather than official, and health values aren’t documented yet.
| ARC | Where | What it does | Weak point | How we fight it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bully | Piazza della Rupe and roaming | Charges in, shotgun blast, cluster bombs from its head | Leg joints; head when it opens to fire | Pull it into tight spaces, break the head |
| Skulker | Edges of zones, low hover | Waits, fires a heavy-ammo tail turret, glides away | Thrusters (one heavy round each) | Heavy ammo or one Launcher grenade |
| Hydra | On the Frigate and inside the Emperor | Three-segment turret firing in three directions | Unarmored back | Draw it front-on, flank from behind |
Bully
The Bully chases further than it should. According to the wiki’s Bully page, its head opens to expose a weak spot while it’s shooting, and enough damage blows the head off. A headless Bully can’t attack and stumbles around until you finish it. Use corners and uneven ground, because it keeps charging into both. It’s worth 500 XP and drops ARC Alloy, an Advanced ARC Powercell and the Bully Fragmenter.
Skulker
The Skulker is the ambusher. It sits low at the edge of your vision, fires from a tail turret, then glides off to keep its distance. Each thruster dies to one heavy round. Kill one and it stops moving, kill two and it’s grounded. Bring heavy ammo if you plan to hunt Skulkers for Targeters.
Hydra
The Hydra is the squad killer. It guards the Frigate and the inside of the Emperor, and Store Update 2.2.0 raised its base damage after fixing its targeting. The front is armored and the back isn’t. Players say the spot directly in front of its middle segment is the one place its guns can’t reach, but standing there exposes you to everything else. Our squads use that spot to bait it while two players go around the back.
Outposts and the new weapons
The Outpost is Frozen Trail’s long-term goal, and Pendola Pass is where a lot of its materials come from. You unlock it through a project; the first step is photographing a farmland house with a camera. Once it’s running, you expand it with modules, and a fully upgraded Research Workstation unlocks Amplified Weapons, a fifth quality tier for 15 existing guns. Storm Huts on Pendola are a steady source of the Insulation Rolls, Epoxy Buckets and Radial Presses the upgrades ask for.
Frozen Trail also added two new guns:
- Stiletto: a light-ammo semi-auto battle rifle. Community stat sites rate its ARC armor penetration as weak, so it’s a Raider gun. Players report a free Stiletto I on the Reward Pass.
- Bantam: a heavy-ammo hand cannon that took over the uncommon hand cannon slot when the Anvil moved up to Blue. Strong armor penetration, wide hip-fire spread.
Two balance changes from the same patch hit Pendola runs directly: the Snap Hook’s range dropped from 20 to 18 metres and its durability cost doubled, and explosive damage against ARC armor plates went up by more than 50%. For where both new guns land against the rest of the arsenal, check our ARC Raiders weapon tier list.
A run from last week shows how the map plays. Three of our boosters took Old Town into the Railyard on a normal-condition raid, and filled up by minute 14. Then a Flash Freeze warning sent them into the Railyard Storm Hut with another squad already inside. They won that fight, came out with a Radial Press, and nearly lost the whole haul at the Glacial Transceiver because the gondola’s smoke pulled a Bully across the tracks.
Where this guide falls short
Two weaknesses. First, Dynamic Loot Zones undercut any “best zone” ranking, ours included. The table tells you what each zone can hold, not what it holds this raid, and Embark hasn’t published loot values per area. Second, the map is two weeks old. The wiki pages for Bully, Skulker, Hydra, Redirection and the Frigate are still stubs, the gondola wait time and pod size come from third-party guides, and Embark is still patching the map (2.2.0 added more ARC to it). Expect some of these details to move.
Frequently asked questions
How do you unlock Pendola Pass in ARC Raiders?
Play 25 rounds, according to the ARC Raiders Wiki. If you haven’t reached that yet, a squadmate who has unlocked the map can bring you in.
How do you extract from Pendola Pass?
Activate a Gondola Transceiver, head to where the Ballistic Gondola lands, pry open a pod and stay inside until it lifts off. Call it from cover, because ARC react to transceivers and the smoke gives away your position.
How do you get into the Fallen Emperor?
You need the Emperor Gateway Conduit, crafted from an ARC Insulated Coupler, an ARC Conductive Coupler and an ARC Plated Coupler. It’s also the last reward on the Frozen Trail Premium Reward Pass.
What is Flash Freeze in ARC Raiders?
Flash Freeze is a cold event built into Pendola Pass. After a warning, it damages anyone outdoors until it ends, and armor doesn’t help. Get under a roof or into a shelter.
Where is the best loot on Pendola Pass?
Old Town has the most containers, the Railyard is the most reliable for crafting materials, the Commissary Supermarket is best for medical, the Observatory for augments, and the Fallen Emperor holds the rarest ARC tech.
How do you kill the Bully?
Aim for its leg joints, and for its head when it opens to fire. Blow the head off and the Bully can no longer attack.
Pendola Pass rewards players who learn it: two or three reliable zones, where the transceivers are, and where to hide when the freeze hits. Get those down and the Emperor runs come next. If you want an experienced squad beside you while you learn it, or you want the Outpost materials and blueprints farmed for you, our ARC Raiders boost page covers raid help, loot and blueprint farming, squad carries and extraction support.