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ARC Raiders showcases a savage, wasteland Earth in the year 2180. Shaped by Earth's ecological collapse and waves of ARC infiltration, Topside is home to the remnants of the pre-Collapse era. The history of ARC Raiders can be found scattered throughout the game's codex and on in-game maps; the timeline is broken into several main chapters. The following are presented in the codex in chronological order:

It occurred many generations ago, and much of what is known about it is shrouded by lies and legend. The basis is: extinction-level natural disasters ravaged Earth's ecosystem and laid waste to the Topside. Societies vanished, technology was destroyed, and life was nearly wiped out entirely. Tons of pre-Collapse infrastructure can be found across the game's maps; the Alcantara Dam, Acerra Spaceport, and Buried City of Marano are some larger examples.

The Exodus refers to the escape of a "handful of valorous survivors" to outer space shortly following The Collapse. The Spaceport Launch Towers serve as proof of the technological prowess of pre-Collapse human society. Little is known about the spacefarers or their high-tech shuttles, where they were going, if they made it, what their plan was. However, graffiti surrounding the spaceport suggests that those who escaped were the elite and wealthy, taking their chances in the stars and leaving the rest of humanity to fend for themselves. Phrases like “Only the rich leave”, “Make room for all,"and "LIARS!" Are spray-painted in Italian across the Spaceport map. This evidence has fuelled fan theories about the exact motivations of those Exodus humans, namely the Exodus Conspiracy, which asserts that the Exodus humans built the ARC and sent them back to Earth to harvest its natural resources and/or test survivors' merit (to experiment on or duplicate the DNA of the most valorous survivors).

Decades after The Collapse, Earth's ecosystem began to mend, and the Sunrise era began (occurring between 2100 and 2110). It was a hopeful era defined by the restoration of life aboveground, the reclaiming of old technology, and the semblance of organized society. The Hydroponic Domes near Alcantara Dam on the Dam Battlegrounds map were constructed during this time. These large greenhouses are proof of an organized society and of attempts to limit survivors' reliance on hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

As the world seemed to be recovering from the extinction-level events of The Collapse, lethal machines began falling from space. These machines were later known as ARC due to the arcing trails they left on radar. They destroyed humanity's progress just as soon as it showed signs of rejuvenation. The ARC arrival prompted settlers around the Alcantara Dam to band together and form the first Raiders. These Raiders built a complex, large-scale network of defences, including outposts that can be found across ARC Raiders' maps today.

The ARC of The First Wave were relatively rudimentary compared to their current Second Wave counterparts. However, they were ruthless and have birthed a slew of harrowing tales among First Wave survivors. Victory Ridge is an infamous Raider landmark near the Alcantara Dam. It was the site of the final battle of The First Wave, with Raiders fighting in an organized fashion upon elevated positions along the ridge. The area is identifiable by the massive ARC husk of one of the Barons, a gigantic First Wave ARC said to have been the most destructive machine type during The First Wave, causing more destruction than the rest of the ARC combined.

This refers to the current ARC invasion of Earth. This wave's ARC are significantly more sophisticated than the ARC from The First Wave, both in their physical construction and strategy. The improvements in some ARC were so drastic that the new generation is considered a different species. This is the case for the Barons and the Queens; the Queens are direct upgrades of the Barons, but are so advanced that the Raiders consider them a different species of ARC.

By the present day in ARC Raiders, most of humanity's technological progress has been destroyed, Topside infrastructure is all but demolished, and humankind has fled underground for their own protection. The known human population on Earth inhabits the underground city of Toledo. Speranza is the oldest neighbourhood (or contrada) of Toledo, and was once a standalone city before further influxes of people, geographical expansion, and security concerns led it to join the new municipality of Toledo. Most of Toledo's contradas are fully separated from each other, which has fuelled rivalries between them and sparked instances of violence Topside. Their central security and the shared Tube network, controlled by Slingshot operators and maintained by mixed engineering crews, are what keep the contradas considered neighbourhoods of the greater city of Toledo.