Cold storage ARC Raiders: a complete field guide

Cold storage in ARC Raiders: a complete field guide to the Spire’s frozen rooms

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Cold storage ARC Raiders: what you need to know before you drop in

Among the named rooms inside ARC Raiders’ damaged Spire, the cold storage area has earned a reputation as a high-reward, high-friction space. The lights are unreliable, the temperature is hostile to unprotected survivors, and the room sits in the middle of routes that raiders and ARC machines both patrol. This guide is written for players who have already cleared the basic tutorial loops and want a deeper understanding of how cold storage works: where it fits in the Spire, what you can find there, how the contested room responds to the patch notes that have arrived since launch, and how the room ties into ARC Raiders’ broader extraction-shooter economy.

Cold storage is a room, not a mode, and that distinction matters for how you prepare. You will only ever enter the space as part of a raid on the Spire, and your time inside is constrained by the same extraction timer that governs the rest of the run. The choices you make outside the room — loadout, route, and team composition — decide whether a cold storage run becomes a clean, profitable drop or a lesson written in scrap metal. The goal here is to give you a working map of the room’s mechanics, its loot, the risks, and the small set of habits that experienced raiders apply every time they crack the door open.

Where cold storage fits in the Spire

Cold storage is one of several named utility rooms inside the Spire, the central point of interest that anchors ARC Raiders’ extraction gameplay. Understanding its placement in the building helps explain why the room feels harder than the surrounding corridors.

The Spire is a multi-level structure where vertical positioning, line of sight, and HVAC systems shape the way combat develops. Cold storage sits on a mid-to-lower level of the building, with mechanical service corridors above and a freight pathway that connects it to other named rooms. The room itself is small, lined with industrial shelving, and packed with the kind of bulky supply crates that the extraction economy rewards most. Because the temperature in the room is set well below the surrounding floors, the developers can use it to layer a second gameplay effect on top of the usual threats: your survivor’s cold-stated equipment and your stamina behave differently inside.

In practice, this means three things. First, you cannot safely treat cold storage as a side detour during a longer loot path. The environment punishes a casual approach. Second, the room is positioned to give ARC sentries a defensible sightline from at least one flank, so a head-on push through the main door is a frequent ticket to a respawn. Third, the layout rewards teams that understand how to move in cold weather — the geometry is tight enough that a coordinated group with the right vision tools can lock the room down, while a solo player needs to accept that they are likely racing another team for the contents.

How to find the cold storage room on a typical raid

You do not need a special match to reach cold storage. The room is part of the Spire’s standard rotation, but its exact entry point depends on which floor you approach from and which extraction routes are active during your particular drop. Treat the following as a working map, not a script: every match is procedural enough that the precise corridor geometry shifts, but the landmarks are stable.

Begin in the Spire’s main staging level and listen for the ambient temperature drop. The room is audibly colder than the corridors around it because of how the developers layer sound in ARC Raiders.
Look for the heavy insulated door with a single yellow hazard placard, distinct from the maintenance hatches that line the service corridors.
Check the vent grates on the wall above the door. They are usually frosted over when the room is accessible, a small but reliable visual cue that the developers use to flag the space.
Follow the coolant pipework. The room is always the terminus of a pipe run, and tracing the pipe backwards is often the safest route in because the pipes lead you through a low-traffic service alley.
Mark the door as you pass. Even if the room is already open, you will want a clear route back to the exit when other raiders respond to the gunfire.

If you cannot locate the room after the first two or three minutes of a raid, you are probably on the wrong floor. Drop down through the freight elevator or one of the load-bearing shafts until the ambient temperature and the vent frost appear. Cold storage is rare to find by accident, but very easy to find by intent once you know the cues.

The cold storage key and how the room unlocks

Access to cold storage is gated by a single key item that ARC Raiders calls the cold storage key. Without the key, the insulated door is locked at the start of the raid and only opens after a player either picks the lock — which is loud and slow — or uses the key directly. With the key, the room opens the moment you interact with the door, and the supply crates inside are immediately lootable.

The key behaves like other named-room keys in ARC Raiders: it is a single-use, match-bound item, it does not persist into your permanent inventory, and it cannot be traded to other players during a match. The key can, however, be shared before the raid starts by giving it to a teammate through the staging-area interface, which is the most common way that a coordinated group ensures that at least one person has access. If you drop in solo and another squad has the key, the room is effectively their territory unless you choose to fight for it.

Because the key is so often the reason two teams collide at the door, the developers have tuned several small interactions around it. Opening the door produces a louder audio cue than a normal interaction, which other survivors can use to triangulate your position. Crates inside the room also display a distinct visual tint when they are accessible, and that tint shifts to a different color the moment another player has looted them. These signals are how cold storage maintains its role as a soft PvP hotspot: the room itself tells every nearby squad that something is happening.

Cold storage loot table: what is actually inside

Cold storage sits high in the Spire’s loot hierarchy. The crates inside the room are weighted toward mid-to-high tier extraction rewards, with a small chance at a top-tier item. The following table reflects the loot profile that the room has had across the patches described in the published ARC Raiders patch notes. Treat it as a planning aid rather than a guarantee: every match rolls from a pool, and the developers can change weights between updates.

Loot category	Typical items	Rarity band	Notes
Recycled components	Steel offcuts, copper wiring, salvaged circuit boards	Common to uncommon	Bulk of the crates. Useful for crafting and quest progression.
Field medical supplies	Cryo-stim injectors, hemostatic gauze, trauma kits	Uncommon to rare	The cold setting is a thematic wrapper for medical loot. The cryo-stim specifically is tied to several ARC Raiders quests.
Cold-weather gear	Insulated gloves, balaclava, thermal liner for chest armor	Rare	These pieces are not cosmetic — they affect stamina drain and equipment cooldown in cold rooms.
Weapon attachments	Suppressors, extended magazines, optic mounts	Rare to very rare	At least one crate per match is weighted toward attachments.
Specialist materials	Coolant cells, hardened polymer, ARC component fragments	Very rare	Drives several high-tier crafting recipes and the extraction economy’s most valuable trades.
Keyed access items	Spire sub-level passcards, data cartridges	Very rare	Not a guaranteed drop, but the room is one of the better sources per hour of play.

If you want to convert a cold storage run into long-term value rather than immediate scrap, focus on the specialist materials and the cold-weather gear. The recycled components are easy to find elsewhere in the Spire, and the medical supplies are useful but common. The room’s real economic edge is the items that the rest of the Spire produces less reliably.

Cold storage quest hooks and the broader story

Cold storage is not just a loot room. ARC Raiders uses named rooms to deliver environmental storytelling, and cold storage carries one of the more developed micro-narratives inside the Spire. Audio logs, scattered notes, and a small handful of interactable terminals describe a research team that was studying the ARC machines’ tolerance to low temperatures, and the equipment failures that followed when the building lost power.

This matters in gameplay terms because several of ARC Raiders’ side quests send you into cold storage to recover a specific item, scan a specific console, or activate a specific machine. If you are running those quests, treat cold storage as a two-stage objective: the room is your first stop, but the second stage usually continues in a different part of the Spire, often in a room with a related theme. Designing your route to fold cold storage into the rest of the quest chain saves a substantial amount of time per match.

The quest hooks also mean that the room sees more traffic than its loot profile alone would justify. Players on the quest, players chasing the cold-weather gear, and players farming specialist materials all converge on the same small space, and that convergence is what makes the room feel like a pressure point. If you are not in any of those three groups, the room is still worth a glance — but it is rarely a quiet room.

How cold storage interacts with ARC machines and other enemies

The room is not safe even after you have killed the human players who contested it. ARC Raiders uses the cold-storage environment to host a small, predictable set of machine encounters that differ from the patrol patterns you find in the surrounding corridors.

Sentry turrets: usually one, sometimes two, mounted on the upper shelving where the developers can hide them behind crates. They activate on a short delay that experienced raiders use to time a grenade throw.
ARC patrol drones: the cold air masks their audio cue, so a player walking in from a warm corridor is at a disadvantage. Approach slowly and listen for the electrical whine rather than the usual propeller sound.
Frost-adapted leapers: a small, fast enemy that is otherwise uncommon in the Spire. They appear specifically in cold rooms and are tuned to punish players who treat cold storage as a routine checkpoint.
Environmental hazards: leaking coolant, slippery floor panels, and the occasional structural collapse when the room is shot up. These are not enemies, but they have ended more cold-storage runs than any squad wipe.

The pattern is consistent with the rest of ARC Raiders’ design language: a room that looks like a simple loot stop is actually a layered encounter. The developers reward players who slow down, read the space, and treat the room as a small puzzle rather than a sprint.

Cold storage and the extraction-shooter loop

ARC Raiders is built around a loop in which a player drops into a contested space, gathers loot, and extracts before the match ends or before a stronger squad eliminates them. Cold storage sits inside that loop as a high-payoff, high-risk waypoint. The way the room is tuned illustrates several of the design decisions that shape the rest of the game.

First, the room is small. The developers are deliberately using size to push players into close-quarters combat, where loadout diversity matters more than raw aim. Second, the room is cold, which gives the developers a way to attach a secondary game system — stamina and equipment cooldown — to a single space without rewriting the rules for the rest of the Spire. Third, the room’s loot is curated, not random: the developers have placed specific items in a specific space to give players a reason to seek out cold storage rather than just roaming the corridors. And fourth, the room is a known point on the map, which is what creates the consistent PvP pressure that defines the extraction-shooter genre. Other players know where the room is, know what is inside, and know that the door is loud. The room is a designed encounter, not a procedural accident.

For players who are new to extraction shooters, the practical lesson is straightforward: a cold storage run is a commitment. You are trading a guaranteed amount of mid-tier loot elsewhere in the Spire for a chance at higher-tier loot in a more dangerous space. That trade is worth making some of the time, and not worth making the rest of the time. The remainder of this guide is built around helping you make that decision well.

Best loadout for a cold storage raid

You can technically enter cold storage with any loadout that lets you survive the Spire, but experienced players converge on a small set of builds that handle the room well. The following recommendations are framed as guidelines, not prescriptions — your preferences, the rest of your team’s loadout, and the current patch will all change the right answer.

Slot	Recommended option	Why it fits cold storage	Trade-off to be aware of
Primary weapon	Close-to-mid range rifle or SMG	The room is too small for long-range engagements, but the corridors outside are wide enough that you need reach	You give up long-range dominance in exchange for a weapon that handles the room itself
Secondary weapon	Sidearm with a suppressor	Useful for opening the door and clearing the immediate area without alerting distant squads	Suppressors are a limited resource in the current patch
Armor	Mid-weight chest piece with a thermal liner	Thermal liners specifically reduce stamina drain in cold rooms, including cold storage	You pay a small mobility penalty
Consumable	Cryo-stim injector	Functions both as a healing item and as a brief stamina boost inside the room	Stacks are limited, so you must decide whether to use one in cold storage or save it for later
Utility	Two flashbangs and one proximity mine	Flashbangs control the door during a contested entry, and the mine covers a flank while you loot	Carrying utility means less room for medical supplies

The single biggest mistake that less experienced raiders make in cold storage is bringing a long-range sniper loadout. The room is small, the sightlines are short, and you will be fighting at SMG range more often than at rifle range. Bring a weapon that you can use accurately at the distance the room actually creates.

How to enter a contested cold storage room

Cold storage is a PvP hotspot. If you are approaching a room that you already know is occupied, your entry plan matters as much as your loadout. The following sequence is the safest generic approach for a squad of two or three. Adapt it to your team size and the situation you observe.

Stop at a sightline that lets you see the door but not enter the room. Most of the corridors feeding into cold storage have a bend or a column you can use as a hide.
Listen for the audio cues of an active squad inside. Crate sounds, footsteps on the cold floor, and weapon handling all carry differently through the insulated door.
Throw a flashbang through the door. Aim it high so it detonates above the shelving rather than against the far wall.
Push immediately after the detonation. The first ten seconds are the most predictable moment in the encounter, and the developers have tuned the room so that a slow push is punished more often than a fast one.
Drop a proximity mine at the door behind you as soon as you are inside. This is your insurance against a third squad arriving while you loot.
Loot the highest-value crates first, then work outward. Do not stay in the room longer than you need to. The longer you linger, the more time other players have to plan their entry.

Solo players should adjust this approach. A solo entry into a contested room is rarely worth the risk, and the more sustainable pattern is to wait until the room is empty, then move in quietly. Extraction shooters reward patience as often as they reward aggression, and cold storage is one of the spaces where that pattern is clearest.

Extracting after a cold storage run

Once you have looted the room, the next decision is how to extract. Cold storage is close enough to two of the Spire’s extraction points that a careful run can save you a long walk, but it is also close enough to a third extraction point that a panicked player can make a bad call. The general rule is to extract from the closest point that is not actively contested.

If your squad is intact and the room is empty, take the freight elevator extraction. It is the shortest path out of cold storage and rarely sees heavy traffic.
If you are wounded or low on ammo, do not push for a farther extraction in hope of finding a quieter exit. The cost of an extra minute in the Spire is usually higher than the cost of a contested extraction.
If you can hear gunfire between you and the nearest extraction point, take the longer route. A second minute of running is cheaper than walking into a squad fight while you are already low on resources.
If a third squad has cut off all three nearby extraction points, consider whether the loot is worth a re-engagement. Sometimes the right call is to stash the loot at a safe corner and come back next match.

Extraction is the part of the loop that less experienced raiders tend to under-plan. The room itself is the spectacle, but the walk back is the part that decides whether the match was profitable.

Patch notes that have changed cold storage

ARC Raiders has received several updates since the room was first introduced, and a small number of those updates have measurably changed how cold storage plays. The following list summarizes the patch-note changes that the community has identified as directly affecting the room. If you have not played in a while, scan this list before you plan a cold storage run.

The cold-weather gear system was rebalanced to make thermal liners more impactful inside the room. Players who previously skipped the slot are now leaving the Spire with measurably less stamina in cold storage than players who wear one.
The cold storage key is now consumed on first use, even if the door does not open because of a server-side desync. This is a small quality-of-life fix, but it has changed how aggressively solo players are willing to gamble on a contested room.
The frost-adapted leaper was moved from a common spawn to a rare spawn inside cold storage. The room is friendlier than it was during the early-access window, but the leaper is still a real threat when it appears.
The suppressor weight was increased across the board, which has made the “quiet entry” loadout less popular in the current meta. Expect more squads to come through the main door loud rather than using a suppressed sidearm to slip in.
One of the high-tier crates in cold storage was changed to drop coolant cells more reliably. If you are farming those cells, the room is now the best place in the Spire to look.

These are not the only changes the developers have made, but they are the changes that have shifted how players think about the room. The patch notes for ARC Raiders are worth reading in full, because the developers tend to include small loot-weight adjustments that do not make the headlines but do change the optimal path through the Spire.

Cold storage and ARC Raiders’ wider design lessons

Cold storage is a useful case study for any reader who is interested in how extraction shooters are built. The room demonstrates several of the design moves that ARC Raiders uses throughout the Spire, and it does so in a small enough space that the lessons are easy to see.

First, named rooms are how the developers create memorable spaces. Procedural generation can fill a Spire with corridors, but it cannot give players a sense of place. By curating a small number of named rooms, each with a clear identity, the developers create the landmarks that experienced players use to navigate and to tell stories about their matches. Second, environmental storytelling is doing a lot of quiet work. The terminals, the notes, and the audio logs in cold storage are not required reading, but they make the room feel inhabited and give the loot a narrative weight that a procedurally generated chest cannot. Third, layered encounters are a more efficient use of a small space than a single long fight. By mixing a turret, a drone, an environmental hazard, and the possibility of a PvP contest, the developers turn a small room into a multi-stage puzzle that rewards a wide range of skills.

For players, the takeaway is that the room is doing more than holding loot. It is teaching you how the rest of the Spire is structured, and the habits you build in cold storage are habits that will serve you in every other named room in ARC Raiders. Treat each room as a designed encounter, learn the cues, and you will start to see the same design language in the rest of the building.

Common mistakes to avoid in cold storage

Even experienced raiders fall into a few recurring traps in cold storage. The list below is not exhaustive, but it covers the patterns that show up most often in post-match feedback.

Loitering. The room is small, the loot is concentrated, and the longer you stay, the more likely you are to be pushed by a second squad.
Ignoring the cold. Cold storage is not a cosmetic effect. Skipping the thermal liner because you are in a hurry will cost you stamina and may force you to leave a crate behind.
Opening the door loudly. Every interaction in cold storage is louder than it sounds from inside. Walk the room with that in mind and plan for the fact that the rest of the Spire can hear you.
Forgetting the key. Bringing a key that you cannot use is the same as not bringing one, and several matches per week end with a squad staring at a locked door because someone forgot the key in their stash.
Fighting inside the room. The geometry is not in your favor once you are inside. If a fight is unavoidable, push the enemy back through the door and use the corridor as your kill zone.

How cold storage compares to other named rooms

To put cold storage in context, it helps to compare it to the other named rooms that experienced raiders treat as priorities. The table below is a planning aid, not a ranked list. Your preferences and the current patch will shift the right answer for any given match.

Named room	Risk profile	Typical loot	Cold storage comparison
Cold storage	High PvP, mid machine threat, environmental hazard	Mid-to-high tier components, specialist materials, cold-weather gear	—
Server farm	Mid PvP, high machine threat	Data cartridges, electronic components, rare crafting materials	Server farm is quieter but harder to reach; cold storage offers faster payouts for higher PvP risk
Loading bay	High PvP, low machine threat	Bulk resources, weapon attachments, mid-tier medical	Loading bay is more predictable but pays less per crate; cold storage is the better payout-per-minute
Observation deck	Mid PvP, mid machine threat	Optics, long-range weapon attachments, rare consumables	Observation deck rewards a long-range loadout, which is the opposite of cold storage
Sub-level junction	Low PvP, high machine threat	Salvage, low-tier components, quest items	Sub-level junction is the safe route, not a contest; cold storage is for when you want the contested space

If you are building a route for a single match, the cleanest pattern is to combine one contested room — usually cold storage or the loading bay — with a quieter second stop. The contested room gives you the payout, and the second stop gives you the breathing room to extract. Running two contested rooms in a single match is possible, but it dramatically increases the chance that the match ends in a squad wipe rather than a clean extraction.

Cold storage for solo players vs. squads

Solo players and squads experience the room very differently, and the playstyle that works in one mode often fails in the other. The following points are the most consistent differences that the community has reported.

Factor	Solo play	Squad play
Door entry	Slip in during a quiet window, avoid the main door during heavy traffic	Flashbang and push, control the door with a designated hold
Looting order	Grab the highest-value crate and extract immediately	Split the room, with one player watching the door while the other loots
Extraction	Pre-plan the route before entering; commit to the closest uncontested point	Use the second player to scout the route before the first player leaves the room
Risk tolerance	Treat every contested room as a hard avoid unless you have a clear advantage	Engage contested rooms deliberately, using utility and numbers to control the entry

If you primarily play solo, do not try to imitate a squad playstyle in cold storage. The room is tuned around the assumption that squads have utility, voice chat, and the ability to watch multiple angles at once. Solo players who try to play the room as if they had a squad tend to lose more than they win, and the more sustainable pattern is to wait for the room to be empty, take the loot, and leave before the next squad arrives.

A repeatable cold storage checklist

To make the room easier to plan around, here is a short checklist that experienced raiders run through before they enter. Run it in order, and adjust it to your team and the situation you observe.

Confirm that you have the cold storage key, or that your team has it.
Confirm that at least one player is wearing a thermal liner.
Confirm that your loadout is appropriate for close-to-mid range combat.
Check the surrounding corridors for other squads before you approach the door.
Decide in advance who enters first, who watches the door, and who covers the flank.
Throw utility on entry rather than firing your primary weapon first.
Drop a proximity mine at the door as soon as you are inside.
Loot from the highest-value crate outward, not in a fixed order.
Decide your extraction point before you finish looting, not after.
Leave the room as soon as the crates you planned to grab are empty.

The checklist is not a rule. It is a starting point. Once you have run it a few dozen times, you will start to skip steps that do not apply to your team and add steps that reflect the patch you are playing in. That is the right outcome. The room is a designed space, but the way you play it is yours.

Frequently asked questions

Is cold storage a separate mode in ARC Raiders?

No. Cold storage is a named room inside the Spire, and you only encounter it during a standard raid on that location. There is no dedicated cold storage playlist or match type.

Do I need the cold storage key to enter the room?

In most matches, yes. The cold storage key is the standard way to open the door, and the room is locked without it. The key can be brought into a raid or shared with teammates during staging, but it is a single-use item and does not persist between matches.

What is the most valuable item I can find in cold storage?

Specialist materials — particularly coolant cells and hardened polymer — are the most consistently valuable items in the room, because they are tied to the most expensive crafting recipes. The exact top-tier drop is patch-dependent, and the developers have shifted the loot table more than once since launch, so it is worth checking the latest patch notes before you commit to a farming run.

Is cold storage harder than the other named rooms?

It depends on the squad you are facing. Cold storage is one of the most reliably contested rooms in the Spire, which is what makes it feel harder for solo players. The machine threat is moderate and the environment is hostile, but the largest variable is other players. Compared with the server farm, cold storage has a lower machine threat but a higher PvP threat.

Can I play cold storage as a solo player?

Yes, but the safest pattern is to wait for the room to be empty, enter quietly, and leave before the next squad arrives. Solo players who try to contest the room head-on will lose more than they win, and the more sustainable approach is patience rather than aggression.

Does cold storage have any quest relevance?

Several of ARC Raiders’ side quests use the room as a step, often tied to recovering a specific item or interacting with a specific terminal. If you are running those quests, treat cold storage as the first stop in a longer chain rather than a self-contained objective.

How does the cold-weather gear actually work?

Cold-weather gear — particularly the thermal liner slot — reduces stamina drain in cold environments, including cold storage. The effect is measurable rather than cosmetic, and a player without the gear will leave the room with meaningfully less stamina than a player who has it. The developers rebalanced this system in a recent patch, so the impact is more pronounced than it was at launch.

What is the safest extraction point after a cold storage run?

There is no single safest point; it depends on the match. The freight elevator extraction is the shortest path out of cold storage and is usually the best choice when it is uncontested, but a longer route is the safer option when the freight elevator is hot. Decide your extraction before you finish looting rather than after.

Has the cold storage loot table changed in the latest patch?

Yes. Recent patches have shifted the loot weights in cold storage, including a change that increased the drop rate of coolant cells from one of the high-tier crates. The developers do not always announce these adjustments in the headline notes, so it is worth reading the full patch notes for any version you have not yet played.

What should I do if another squad is already inside cold storage when I arrive?

Decide in advance whether you want to engage. If your loadout and team composition are strong in close quarters, a flashbang and push is a viable opening. If you are solo, low on ammo, or wounded, the more sustainable choice is to mark the door, wait for the squad to extract, and then take the room on your terms.