Arc Raiders Buried City music puzzle solution and reward

Raiders, gather round — the Arc Raiders Buried City music puzzle solution is in, barely a day after the Cold Snap update dropped it into the world.

Widely pegged as the toughest puzzle in the game so far, you’ve probably stumbled on parts of it if you’ve poked around Buried City lately. There are 15 buttons scattered across the map, each mapped to a musical note. The door you’re eyeing stays locked until every button is hit in the exact order shown by the musical-note graffiti inside the same building as the door.

Below is the quick version of how to clear it, plus a heads-up on why the payoff isn’t exactly meta-changing.

Buried City music puzzle solution

Credit to the community sleuths on the Arc Raiders Puzzle Discord server, who cracked it first and posted a full route on their site. Every one of the 15 buttons is marked there, with No. 15 sitting right in front of the locked door. Start at Plaza Rosa, hit each button in order, and work your way across the zone. Finish the sequence and the door opens.

There’s a catch: button presses are server-side, not client-side. If anyone in your instance tags a button out of sequence, the run is scuffed and you’re starting over. It takes roughly 20 minutes to do the full path, and as one Reddit thread points out, you really do want a full, coordinated squad to keep randoms from accidentally resetting you.

Buried City music puzzle reward

So what’s behind the door after all that? Guitars. Until now, the only playable instrument was the recorder; this adds acoustic guitars as legendary items. With shakers also newly added, all that’s missing is a drum kit and a front person and you’ve got a proper band setup.

As a little Easter egg, it’s great. If you were hoping for something that shifts your build or helps against Arc foes or other players, temper expectations. You’ll still snag some actual loot while clearing “The Clean Dream” quest, but the music puzzle’s main prize is the vibe.