ARC Raiders Cred Expires Oct 8: 3 Deadlines Before Frozen Trail
Cred is retiring on October 8 when Frozen Trail launches, and Expedition 5 departs September 29. Here's the field-tested order to spend, depart and prep — and what stays safe.
Your Cred is on a timer: it stops working on October 8, 2026, when the Frozen Trail update lands, and nothing left in your balance converts into anything. Embark confirmed it in Live Update 1.45.0 — Cred remains usable until October 8, it's being retired in favour of a more expansive reward system launching with Frozen Trail, and any Cred still on your account expires with that update, so spend it with Shani or on remaining Raider Deck rewards. There's no announced conversion and no compensation.
The good news: this is a reward-track currency dying, not your wallet. Cred is the free currency earned through play, distinct from the premium Raider Tokens — and Tokens are unaffected. Your scavenged Coins, the balance that actually funds kits, ammo and trader buys for these last few weeks, keep working exactly as before — so if you want to run heavier loadouts while three deadlines stack up, you can farm them or top up with ARC Raiders Coinsfrom $0.49 and spend your raid time on the stuff that's genuinely expiring.
Quick-start checklist (do these in order)
- Open Shani's stock and your Raider Decks tonight. Those are the two places Embark names for spending Cred.
- Clear any Raider Deck entries that cost Cred, prioritising Raider Tokens and anything you actually want cosmetically.
- Check your Expedition status. The fifth Expedition window closes September 29 at 08:00 UTC.
- Sign up manually if you're departing. Everyone who signed up departs September 29, and completing your Caravan does not count as signing up.
- Bank your Trials placement before September 30, then stop chasing points.
- Zero your Cred balance with a final Shani pass in the first week of October, before patch day.
Why this one actually matters
As of patch 1.45.0 (September 8, 2026), three separate clocks are running at once, and two of them close permanently for a long while. 1.45.0 brought the new Raider Project, Expedition 5, the Hornet Hunter Set and the Cred changes — and Embark flagged it as the last Live Update before October 8, with a smaller patch still planned in between. Expedition 5 is also the last Expedition before a pause that stretches into early 2027.
That's the real story. Cred expiring is a chore. Missing the departure window is the one you'll still be annoyed about in February.
| Deadline | Date | What's at stake | Your move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expedition 5 departure | Sept 29, 08:00 UTC | +12 stash space (caps at 60), Zenith progression, consecutive buffs | Finish Caravan, then sign up manually |
| Trials Season 5 close | Sept 30, 07:00 UTC | Scorta variants — cosmetic prestige only | Push division position, don't over-invest |
| Cred retirement | Oct 8 | Entire remaining Cred balance | Spend at Shani + Raider Decks |
Spending Cred without wasting it
Order of operations, based on what's confirmed rather than what's flashy:
- Raider Tokens from the decks first. You have until the cutoff to spend Cred at Shani or unlock Raider Deck rewards — notably the Raider Tokens. Tokens survive the transition; Cred doesn't.
- Then the cosmetics you'd genuinely use. Embark says all existing Raider Deck rewards will also be available in the new system, and you keep anything already claimed. So deck cosmetics are the lower priority spend — they're the entries confirmed to still exist afterwards.
- Then dump the remainder at Shani. Consumables, kit filler, whatever your raid style burns. A partial purchase beats a zeroed balance on patch day.
Field note: I've watched more than one squadmate sit on a "saving it for something good" balance right through a deadline. There is no something good coming. Spend it ugly, spend it on ammo, just don't hand it back to the void on October 8.
One caveat worth flagging honestly: some outlets have reported the Cred wallet is capped, with a balance of around 800 to clear across three Raider Decks, but Embark's own notes don't publish a cap figure. Treat your in-game number as the only one that matters. And the replacement system's pricing, progression rates and free-versus-premium split haven't been detailed yet — so anyone telling you exactly what Cred "would have been worth" post-patch is guessing.
The Expedition 5 run plan
Departing is a trade, not a freebie. Signing up and departing resets much of your current Raider in exchange for permanent progression, cosmetics, stage rewards and consecutive buffs — skipping preserves the character you already built. It's also the fifth global window, not necessarily your fifth personal Expedition, so a first-time departer doesn't jump straight to the full Zenith set or the 60-slot maximum.
If you're going:
- Finish the Caravan — feed it the materials and value your current Project stages ask for.
- Open the Expedition screen inside the window and hit sign-up. There's no Last Call after September 29, so a finished Caravan with no registration simply won't depart.
- Complete the challenge for your personal stage, then confirm the UI shows you as registered.
- Decide on your quests. As of 1.45.0 you choose whether to reset quests when you depart, so a quest chain can stay live across the departure.
- Leftover Caravan progress isn't wasted — partial progress converts into vouchers when the period ends, which is a decent fallback if you run out of runway.
What to bring for the last three weeks: heavy ammo in bulk (a heavy-ammo Trials week can burn 120 rounds in a single raid), two throwaway mid-tier kits for deadline runs, shields, and enough Coin float that a bad extraction doesn't stall your Caravan. If your stash is the bottleneck rather than your wallet, our stash expansion cost breakdown and the kit economy guide will tell you where the money actually leaks.
On Trials, keep expectations sane. Promotion is relative to your 100-player division, so a big scoring week can still miss the cut in a stacked division, and the classic mistake is greed — dying at extraction has ended more three-star runs than any ARC unit. Trials rewards carry no stat bonuses.
What's coming October 8
Frozen Trail launches October 8, 2026 with a new map, new ARC threats, a high-level ARC Operation, the Outpost progression system, Skill Tree changes and the revamped reward structure. Embark's own framing: a new map, a new ARC Operation, a new ARC, the Outpost and more. Expect meta churn — new map, new loot tables, new ammo priorities. Build your pre-patch stash around materials and ammo that stay useful anywhere, not map-specific niche gear.
Clearing Cred, closing a Caravan and holding a Trials division in the same three weeks is a genuine time sink — most raiders are looking at a solid week of evening runs just to fund the kits. If you'd rather spend those evenings on the runs that matter instead of grinding a float, our ARC Raiders Coins servicefrom $0.49 covers the funding side so you can hit September 29 fully kitted. Deadlines are fixed; your prep time doesn't have to be.
