ARC Raiders Keycards: Doors Worth Opening

Keys are spent, not kept

A keycard opens one door and then it is gone. That makes every locked room a transaction: you are paying a key for whatever is behind it. Most players hoard keys and never use them, which means they are carrying dead weight through every raid.

Which doors justify it

Rooms with guaranteed loot categories rather than random containers. Rooms that are off the main path, because the main path is where other raiders have already been. The best doors are the ones that are inconvenient to reach. Convenience is what makes a room empty.

Reading the room before committing

Open the door, look, and decide. Some locked rooms are small and some are large enough to need a sweep, and the difference changes whether the key was worth it. If the room is clearly already looted, do not spend the key. That sounds obvious, and players do it constantly because they committed before looking.

Keycards and Raider Hatches

Both are consumable access tools and both are worth carrying, but they serve different purposes. Hatches are extraction or access shortcuts; keycards are loot access. Carrying both is fine. Carrying both and using neither is the actual mistake.

Selling keys

Keys sell. If a key opens a room you will never visit, selling it is better than carrying it for twenty raids. The exception is keys for locations on your regular route, because those pay for themselves repeatedly.

When a key becomes a liability

If you are extracting rarely, keys are wasted. The value of any key is only realised if you survive to use it and survive afterwards, which means the decision to use one belongs in raids you expect to finish.

One route per map is enough

You do not need every key on every map. Pick one locked door per map that is on your regular route, learn what spawns behind it, and treat that door as the reason you brought the key. Coverage of everything is the same as coverage of nothing.

Related guides

• ARC Raiders Keys and Raider Hatches
• ARC Raiders Extraction Explained
• ARC Raiders Loot Priority