Arc Raiders’ big Frozen Trail update, out October 8, includes a new endgame crafting grind called “weapon amplification,” and it sounds like a game-changer.

Tied to a new research bench found in your expanded raider outpost, weapon amplification lets you add unique functions and attachments to, for now, 15 different weapons. You can upgrade a Renegade rifle with a scope (!), make the Burletta pistol fully automatic, or build a Rattler rifle that shoots incendiary rounds, for example.

In the absence of an Arc Raiders PvE mode, Embark says one goal with this system is for players to lean into PvP or PvE with their upgrade choices.

In a new Frozen Trail reveal video, Embark explains that amplified weapons are made by splicing Arc tech with gunsmithing. “An amplified weapon is kind of like the fifth quality level, except that it doesn’t give you stats inherently, it instead upgrades a branching path for you where you can select different modules that change and amplify the behavior of the weapon in different ways,” a developer says.

At a recent virtual preview event, I asked executive producer Aleksander Grøndal if Embark expects weapon amplification to make PvP fights shorter by lowering the time-to-kill. He says amplified weapons aren’t meant to be demonstrably stronger, and Embark has been careful not to buff the already top-performing weapons. Instead, the aim is to make more weapons more interesting and give players additional PvP and PvE options for loadouts.

“I expect PvP to be more varied in terms of what’s a valuable item or weapon to use,” Grøndal explains. “What we see in PvP is that it’s dominated by a certain group of weapons, in terms of, that’s what lowers the TTK. A lot of the weapon amplification that we’re doing isn’t necessarily to make the top end of those weapons perform even better at what they’re already really good at. Rather, give you other weapons that can perform well, and give you other choices to have in PvP.

“And with the weapon amplification system, there’s also choices that you have to make where certain weapons can take one direction or the other,” he continues. “Typically, that would mean certain things in terms of how good a weapon would be in PvP versus how useful it will be against Arc, for instance. So we could see more variety in how to play, and that is kind of the goal with the amplification system, not necessarily just adding pure output power to the top-end weapons.”

A big question hanging over weapon amplification, which Embark has yet to fully answer, is how the resource grind works. My understanding is that certain items in the world are worth research points, and you spend those back at the research bench to unlock weapon options, among a suite of other new features.

My hope is that amplifying weapons isn’t so costly that it feels like it’s not worth the effort. If the economy is right, it could add a lot of life and a fun endgame pursuit to Arc Raiders. If nothing else, it should be fun to craft, save, and finally uncork the good stuff for special Arc fights or events.

Everything we know about Arc Raiders Frozen Trail.