Arc Raiders Free Loadout: What Is In It and How to Use It

A free loadout in Arc Raiders is a full preset kit at no cost, with no cooldown and no limit. What is inside, and what the Free Loadout Augment costs you.

Category: Strategy · Updated 2026-08-02

Short answer

What you get in a free loadout

Every free loadout is a matched set, so you never drop in holding a gun with no ammo for it:

• A weapon
• A Light Shield
• Ammo for that weapon
• Meds
• Utility items and gadgets

That is the whole kit. It is not strong gear and it is not trying to be. It exists so that an empty stash never stops you from playing. In an extraction shooter, losing everything is the moment most people put the game down, and this is the game handing you a rifle and telling you to get back out there.

How to get one, and how to use it

You take a free loadout before you deploy, instead of packing a kit out of your own stash. It costs nothing. Equipping it puts the Free Loadout Augment on your character, and then you drop into the raid like normal.

Here is the part people miss. You can do it again straight away. No timer, no daily cap, no cost. Lose the whole thing in the first minute and you can pick up another one and go right back in. You are never locked out and you are never stuck waiting.

The Free Loadout Augment, by the numbers

The Free Loadout Augment is the real story here. It is gray (common) rarity, the bottom of the ladder, and these are its numbers.

Two of those lines cost you more than the rest.

35.0 maximum weight is the smallest in the game. Every other augment sits somewhere between 40 and 80. So a free loadout does not only start you poor, it caps how rich you can leave. You will hit the weight limit sooner than you expect, and you will be standing over a pile deciding what to put back down.

Losing the Safe Pocket is the bigger one. The Safe Pocket is the slot whose contents come home with you even when you die. The Free Loadout Augment does not have one. Everything you are carrying is on the table, every single raid. So do not take a free loadout out and then pick up a key, a quest item, or anything you would be sore about losing. Nothing rides home in a pocket on this augment.

Extracting alive pays extra

Surviving and extracting with a free loadout gives you additional rewards on top of whatever you carried out. That is the whole loop: the game gives you the kit for nothing, then pays you a bonus for not throwing it away.

It should also change how you read that 35.0 weight cap. You are being rewarded for getting out, not for filling a bag you cannot carry. So the smart free loadout run is short. Land, grab the most valuable light things you can find, and leave. See the extraction guide for how to pick an exit before you need one.

Trading the augment up: Lance at the Clinic

You are not stuck on gray forever. Speak to Lance at the Clinic and you can trade a Free Loadout Augment for one of three green rarity augments.

The three green augments in the game, and what each one raises your weight cap to:

This is the single best thing you can do with a free loadout, and plenty of players never find out it is there. Any of the three gets you off the smallest weight cap in the game and gives you a Safe Pocket back. Looting Mk.1 is the biggest jump, at 50 against your 35. If you are running free loadouts because you are broke, this is the way out of the loop rather than a way to stay in it.

When to run one, and when not to

Run a free loadout when:

• Your stash is empty or close to it, and building a kit would clean you out.
• You are learning a map and expect to die a few times finding your way around.
• You want to practise fighting without your good gear on the line.
• You just want to scout one building and come straight back out.

Do not run one when:

• You are carrying a key, a quest item, or anything you want back. No Safe Pocket means no safety net.
• You are planning a long, heavy loot run. The 35.0 cap will stop you early.
• You already have a better augment on. Taking a free loadout puts the gray one on instead.

Where to go next

• Free loadout planner, the preset laid out slot by slot so you can see exactly what you are working with.
• Free Loadout Augment, the augment itself, with its numbers next to every other augment in the game.
• Light Shield, the shield that comes inside the kit.
• Beginner guide, if this is your first week Topside.
• First 10 raids survival guide, for what to do once you are in.
• Dam Battlegrounds, the most forgiving map to spend free loadouts on.