What caused Arc Raiders' UFO sightings?

Sky spectacle after a major content drop

A dramatic visual oddity lit up Arc Raiders after Embark Studios rolled out the Shrouded Sky update. The patch introduced a hurricane weather system, two new ARC enemy types and a range of content changes. Almost immediately, players began reporting enormous, previously unseen flying shapes moving across the game’s sky — comparisons to Helldivers 2 spread quickly in online communities.

Developers shipped the Shrouded Sky update with several concrete changes that provide context for the sightings:

• A new environmental condition: a hurricane that alters map behaviour and atmospherics.
• Two new ARC threats and a set of balancing changes documented in patch 1.17.0.
• New projects and raid content, including the Weather Monitor System and the Surgeon Raider Deck.

Those elements help explain why the game’s sky might look different, but the precise origin of the huge objects is still uncertain. Players have proposed several possibilities: intentional event assets meant to enhance the update’s spectacle, leftover or debug models accidentally exposed to the live build, or emergent interactions between new weather effects and existing world geometry. Embark has been active in posting full patch notes and communicating nerfs and fixes elsewhere in the update cycle, but no definitive explanation for the UFO visuals had been published at the time of community discussion.

Why it matters

The reaction underscores how a single update can rapidly become a community conversation, for better or worse. Visual surprises drive replay and attention, but they also spotlight risks: unexpected assets can confuse players, complicate balance, or draw scrutiny over quality control. Embark’s next steps will likely include clarifying whether the objects were intended and, if not, patching them or explaining their design to the player base.