The Chaos Engineer of Stella Montis
Stella Montis is the new Arc Raiders map and it is already brutal on its own. Tight corridors, swarms of Arc enemies, greedy raiders everywhere and a ticking timer pushing you toward the extract. It is the kind of place where you are almost guaranteed to die a few times just trying to learn the layout.
But one player decided that was not quite hard enough.
A Reddit user called luvast0 jumped into a fresh Stella Montis lobby with a single goal. Not to farm loot. Not to grind quests. Instead they wanted to turn the entire facility into a psychological horror maze for everyone else.
They called themselves the Engineer of Chaos. After twenty minutes of pure trolling, the title fits.
How to Turn a Raid Into a Death Maze
Arc Raiders has a barricade system that is meant to be defensive. You drop deployable barricades to slow enemies or protect a position and you can also barricade doors to delay anyone trying to push through. Used normally, it is a smart tactical tool.
Used like this, it becomes a nightmare.
Barricades in Arc Raiders are surprisingly strong.
- Deployable barricades have 500 health, take a long time to break and make a lot of noise when you try to destroy them.
- Door barricades are even more evil. If someone locks a door, players on the other side simply cannot push through it.
Now imagine that same system cranked up to the maximum. According to their own post, in a single Stella Montis run, luvast0 managed to place:
- 65 door barricades
- 13 deployable barricades
- 3 jolt charges
- 1 deadline mine which is currently one of the most powerful tools in the game
The result was not just a blocked hallway or two. It was an almost inescapable maze where every turn led to another locked door, another obstacle or another trap. Players spawning in late had no idea what was going on. They were just waking up inside someone else’s experiment.
Over voice chat, things escalated fast. According to luvast0, they could hear open mic players hunting them down like some kind of raid boss, yelling as they tried to figure out who was sealing off the map. The best part came when those same players got flanked because of the maze and then teamed up to chase the mysterious saboteur.
Every time someone sprinted to what they thought was a clean exit only to find it locked, followed by a desperate shout of “Who is locking these doors” the Chaos Engineer knew the plan was working.
This was not about kills or loot. This was about using game systems as pure psychological warfare. And in Stella Montis, it absolutely works.
No One Leaves the Maze
Of course, runs in Arc Raiders are not endless. There is a round timer and once it expires an Arc Orbiter slams down from orbit and wipes anyone still on the map. On top of that, other raiders were slowly closing in on the source of the chaos.
Eventually, after twenty minutes of door duty, the hunter became the hunted. Luvast0 ended up stuck in a room with no exit options left. Trapped, with angry solos bearing down on them.
But they came prepared.
When three solo raiders finally pushed into the room, it turned into the perfect finale. Instead of trying to surrender or talk it out, or even attempt a clutch gunfight, the Chaos Engineer went for something far more dramatic.
They threw a smoke grenade, shut the door, barricaded it from the inside and then placed their final piece of the puzzle. A deadline mine.
The mine detonated and wiped everyone. No one survived the room. No one escaped the maze. The match ended with all four raiders dead, the facility choked with locked doors, and an entire lobby probably staring at their screens wondering what on earth had just happened.
It is the kind of story that perfectly captures why Stella Montis is already a fan favorite. The map takes everything people enjoy about Arc Raiders frantic firefights, player rivalry and tight PvEvP tension and squeezes it into a tight facility where every corner can kill you.
Give that toolkit to a creative player and suddenly you are not just fighting Arc armies or rival squads. You are fighting the mind of someone who looks at a defensive system and asks a single question. Can I turn this into a horror level for everyone else
On Stella Montis, the answer is very clear. Yes. Yes you can.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/no-one-leaves-one-arc-raiders-player-has-devoted-themselves-to-turning-stella-montis-into-an-inescapable-maze-revelling-in-the-cries-of-stuck-players-i-am-the-engineer-of-chaos/
