Breaking New Ground Event Guide - How to Unlock Stella Montis in ARC Raiders

ARC Raiders’ Breaking New Ground live event arrived alongside the massive 1.2.0 update, bringing with it one of the community’s most exciting collaborative goals to date: unlocking the brand-new Stella Montis map. This limited-time event encourages every player to contribute resources, earn Merits, and help the entire ARC Raiders community push the project toward completion.

Whether you’re a veteran Raider or someone just loading in for the first time since Patch 1.2.0, this guide covers everything you need to know about the event—how it works, what you should contribute, and the fastest ways to rack up Merits before the event ends.

What Is the Breaking New Ground Event?

Breaking New Ground is a global community event accessible directly from the main menu. With Patch 1.2.0, players were introduced to two new Arcs, new reward tracks, and—most importantly—a community-driven construction project that, once completed, unlocks the upcoming Stella Montis region.

Instead of simply waiting for the new map to arrive in a future patch, ARC Raiders puts its players in the driver’s seat. Every donation, no matter how small, moves the progress bar closer to unlocking Stella Montis for everyone. It’s a collective push toward new territories, tougher encounters, and fresh rewards.

The event is only available for a limited period, so it’s worth checking in whenever you log on. As long as the Breaking New Ground icon appears at the top-left corner of the main menu, you can enter the event page and contribute.

How to Participate

Getting involved is extremely simple:

Open the game menu.

Locate the Breaking New Ground event icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

Click it to enter the event interface.

Inside the event menu, you’ll see the community progress, the material donation panel, and how many Merits you’ve earned so far. From here, you can repeatedly donate materials in order to help fund the construction project tied to Stella Montis.

The interface is straightforward and easy to follow, and you can contribute as many times as you want—provided you have the materials.

What Materials Can You Donate

Each contribution consists of a batch of five materials, and the game accepts a range of common crafting resources:

Metal Parts

Fabric

Plastic Parts

Rubber Parts

Chemicals

These are all items players normally gather while scavenging, looting containers, dismantling ARCR Items, or clearing zones of ARC activity. Since they are everyday materials needed for crafting and upgrading, you likely already have a healthy supply lying in your stash.

There’s no preferred material or weighted contribution—five of anything counts as a valid donation, regardless of rarity or in-game value. That means players can donate whatever they’re comfortable parting with. If you’re overloaded with Metal Parts, go with those. If you’d rather use chemicals you aren’t planning to craft with, that works too.

How Contributions Help Unlock Stella Montis

For every batch of materials you donate, the global community project advances. This means your individual contribution—no matter how small—helps every ARC Raider worldwide move closer to unlocking the new map.

The progress is shared across the entire player base, not tracked separately per account. Once the collective goal is reached, Stella Montis will unlock for everyone during the next event phase.

This structure is a clever way for ARC Raiders to bring its community together, rewarding everyone for participation and encouraging cooperation even outside traditional gameplay.

How to Earn Merits

For now, donating materials is the only way to earn Merits in the Breaking New Ground event. Merits act as your personal contribution reward currency, and the system tracks how many you’ve accumulated over the course of the event.

A few key points:

You earn Merits only by donating materials.

The maximum amount you can currently earn is 900 Merits.

You cannot earn Merits through missions, kills, exploration, or any other activity at this time.

This means that your best—and only—strategy is to keep gathering materials during regular gameplay and donate them whenever you return to base.

What Merits Are Used For

Merits aren’t immediately spendable during the initial phase of Breaking New Ground. Think of them as early investment tokens. Once the community finishes unlocking Stella Montis, the next event phase will introduce rewards that you can claim using the Merits you’ve stockpiled.

Although the full reward list hasn’t been revealed yet, the event page confirms that Merits will be essential for:

Exclusive event cosmetics

Potential consumables or boosters

Items tied to the Stella Montis rollout

Additional limited-time offerings

The developers will release more information about the reward phase once the community completes the construction progress. Until then, your priority is simply earning and saving as many Merits as possible.

Tips for Gathering Materials Quickly

If you plan to maximize your 900 Merits, you’ll want to keep a steady supply of materials flowing. Here are a few efficient ways to farm materials:

1. Loot Densely Packed Zones

Urban areas, industrial ruins, and crashed ARC sites offer more loot containers, giving you consistent amounts of metal, plastic, chemicals, and fabric.

2. Dismantle Unused Gear

Break down the ARC Raiders Items you don’t need. This converts clutter in your inventory into useful donation resources.

3. Complete Daily Activities

Daily tasks often reward materials directly or encourage activities that help you gather them naturally.

4. Focus on Rubber and Plastic

These tend to accumulate quickly through scavenging and are perfect for bulk donations if you want to preserve rarer crafting materials.

Final Thoughts

The Breaking New Ground event is more than just a resource sink—it’s a community-driven countdown to brand-new content. Whether you donate a handful of items or push toward max Merits, every contribution helps the entire player base get closer to unlocking Stella Montis. With the promise of new challenges, fresh environments, and exclusive rewards, this is an event worth participating in daily.

Keep gathering, keep donating, and prepare for the next major phase once the community reaches its goal. Stella Montis awaits!