Arc Raiders isn’t the kind of world where clean-cut metas thrive. It’s too wild, too unpredictable for that. Out here, survival is the only scoreboard that matters, and every player writes their own playbook. Maybe you show up as a walking tank, all thundering gunfire and brute confidence. But what happens when my sneaky saboteur slips through the shadows? They outrun your heavy boots and vanish with all the loot before you even notice it’s gone Who “won” then?
Arc Raiders Best Weapons, Reddit
That’s the thing about Arc Raiders: victory isn’t just measured by who pulls the trigger fastest. It’s a place where cunning can beat firepower, stealth can trump strength, and sometimes the smartest move is choosing not to fight at all. It’s a place of changing strategies and surprising results. It is much more than just a fight to see who can kill who.
Best Guns in Arc Raiders
Some weapons in Arc Raiders carry a quiet superiority—an edge that only reveals itself when the dust settles and the last echoes of gunfire fade. In a pure duel, stripped of chaos and circumstance, you’d see clearly which build reigns supreme. But Arc Raiders is no endless coliseum where we chase each other in circles, waiting for the final shot to crown a victor. This world is bigger, more unruly, more alive than that. Your arsenal isn’t just a tool for ending lives; it’s a companion for navigating them, shaped as much by who you are as by the fight you choose.
The armory here is vast, a sprawling tapestry of steel and purpose—eight families of weapons, each humming with its own rhythm: Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles, Submachine Guns, Shotguns, Pistols, Light Machineguns, Sniper Rifles, and the enigmatic “Special.”
They draw from five lifebloods of ammunition—Light, Medium, Heavy, Energy, and Launcher—each dictating tempo, power, and reach.
Firing modes become personalities.
Semi-auto: the patient heartbeat of precision.
Full-auto: the frantic roar of momentum.
Three-round burst: the disciplined cadence of control.
And then there are the actions—the slow, deliberate rituals. A bolt drawn back, a hinge broken open, a round guided home. These are the moments where power demands patience, where every shot feels carved into the world rather than fired through it.
This is why choices matter.
The Ferro, with its heavy break-action soul, is a thunderbolt—slow to spark, devastating when it does. It’s not a sprinter’s weapon. If you crave speed, the Stitcher’s full-auto chatter will suit your restless hands, though it could never whisper doom across long distances as the Ferro can.
Each category shelters its own hierarchy of rarity—gray, green, blue, purple, yellow—like echoes of forgotten treasure maps. And with growth comes transformation: magazines stretch, durability hardens, fire-rates quicken. Every gun, up to the edge of legendary, can be shaped and sharpened three times, reaching its apex at level four.
Arc Raiders Best Weapons, Legendary Weapons
So let’s gather these weapons not as cold statistics but as characters in a story—a cast of tools meant for different roles, blending, overlapping, and sparking unexpected possibilities.
Let’s sort them, not by rigidity, but by the shapes of the adventures they enable.
The best guns for close-quarters combat
Shotguns in Arc Raiders are beasts that breathe thunder at arm’s length—wild, unruly creatures built for the desperate heartbeat of close quarters. They hit like storms and fade like echoes, all fury, no reach. When the world shrinks to the width of a hallway and danger lurks just beyond a blind corner, these are the companions you want gripping your hands:
Il Toro – an uncommon pump-action bruiser, a bull that grows meaner and more magnificent as you level it, its roar shaking the walls.
Vulcano – an epic semi-auto eruption, fierce and fleeting. The one time I held it, I barely got a shot off before fate snatched it away—like trying to clutch lightning.
Then come the submachine guns—little machines of raving energy, spraying defiance in frantic rhythms. Range be damned; accuracy optional.
Stitcher – a common SMG that becomes something truly special once modded and leveled, stitching panic into your enemies with full-auto fervor.
Bobcat – an epic SMG, sleek and hungry, purring with automatic fire.
And for those who like their chaos steady and familiar, the assault rifles step forward. Fully automatic ones, for my shaky close-quarters instincts, are the real friends—loyal when fear knocks your aim askew.
Rattler—a common AR that feels stubborn and unruly at low levels, like it hasn’t quite decided to trust you yet.
Tempest—an epic AR, living up to its name with a controlled storm of bullets.
Bettina—another epic, smooth, and confident, the quiet professional of the group.
The best guns for medium-range combat
These are the in-between battles—the stretch of corridor where your enemy is too close for patience, yet too far for blind fire. Shotguns lose their voice here, and SMGs sputter into irrelevance. If you’ve tamed your recoil and learned to breathe between bursts, even the Rattler, Tempest, and Bettina can shine at this distance.
But the weapons truly sculpted for the mid-range dance move differently:
Kettle – a common semi-auto AR; some players love its measured heartbeat, but it and I… we walk different paths.
Arpeggio is a three-round burst rifle. It feels like a mix of the Metal Gear FAMAS and Halo’s battle rifle. It is rhythmic, sharp, and oddly musical.
Arc Raiders’ Best Weapons: The best guns for long-range combat
At long distances, the world quiets. Panic fades. It’s just you, the wind, and the faraway shape you’re trying to unmake. While assault rifles can try to punch above their weight, true long-range artistry belongs to the sharpshooters.
Ferro – a common battle rifle that turns survival scraps into poetry. Slow, brutal, beautiful—a break-action hymn.
Renegade—a rare lever-action, quicker and slightly gentler than the Ferro, like a younger sibling with something to prove.
Osprey – a rare sniper rifle, bolt-action and regal. The only weapon with an actual scope, for when you want to become the distant ghost in someone else’s story.
Jupiter – a legendary sniper whose ADS simply zooms the world, as if the cosmos itself leans in to help you aim.
Only the Osprey grants the classic lens of a sniper’s eye. Even Jupiter avoids glass. It relies on a simple change in perspective. It seems that legend does not need optics to hit its target.
Arc Raiders Best Weapons, What about those pistols?
Pistols in Arc Raiders are curious creatures—half lifeline, half vanity. In most shooters, these are the tools you grab when panic hits. When your main weapon runs out, there’s no time for anything but instinct. Yet they’re also stylish, cinematic, the guns that invite you to be that player: the one who draws a sidearm with a flourish and ends a fight with a single decisive snap of the trigger.
If you want to dance in that space—somewhere between survival and swagger—start with the Burletta, a faithful stepping stone, and graduate to the Venator, where precision meets personality.
The four pistols in your holster of possibilities:
Hairpin – Common, slide-action, permanently silenced; a whisper of a weapon, as quiet as a secret.
Burletta – Uncommon, semi-auto; the quintessential sidearm, steady and sensible.
Anvil – Uncommon, single-action; Arc Raiders’ very own hand cannon, a punch disguised as a gun.
Venator – Rare, semi-auto; sharp, refined, reliable—the pistol for those who want efficiency with flair.
And now, the toys
If everything above forms the backbone of survival, these are the cathedrals of overkill—the weapons you lug around to face the game’s giants or to send a simple message to other players: “Don’t.”
Torrente – Rare LMG, fully automatic; a storm of bullets that doesn’t just fire—it buzzes, a symphony of mayhem.
Equalizer – Legendary beam rifle, fully automatic; a lance of relentless energy, the kind of gun that feels like it should hum ominously.
Hullcracker – Epic armaments launcher, pump-action; not subtle, not delicate—just devastating.
So there it is: five broad shooter archetypes woven into Arc Raiders’ armory, each one branching and blending depending on your style. Rarity helps, of course—the shinier the tier, the more effortlessly a gun excels at its role. Yet even weapons that share the same silhouette, like the Ferro and the Renegade, reveal personality in the details. Maybe the Ferro’s heavier punch calls to you. Maybe the Renegade’s faster hands do.
At level four, each gun becomes the best version of itself—a polished expression of its purpose. As for the deeper craft of attachments, muzzle tweaks, and stock options… well, that’s a story for another time. Each of those can coax a firearm into new shapes, new destinies, new specialties.
