Arc Raiders 1.20.0: The Il Toro Is Finally Dead (And Your Money Farm Too)

If you've played Arc Raiders in the last five months, you know the Il Toro. You've been killed by the Il Toro. You've probably equipped the Il Toro because — why wouldn't you? It was the best weapon in the game by a mile, and everybody knew it.

Today, Embark Studios finally pulled the trigger on what the community has been begging for since October. Patch 1.20.0 is live on all platforms, and the Il Toro has been, as PC Gamer eloquently put it, "put in its grave."

But the Toro nerf isn't the only thing worth talking about in this update. Your Energy Clip money farm? That's dead too. Let's break it all down.

The Il Toro Nerf: Five Months of Community Rage, Answered

The Il Toro has been the single most complained-about weapon in Arc Raiders since launch. Reddit threads, Discord rants, Twitter posts — the community was relentless. And the data backed them up: among the top 30% of players, the Il Toro was the primary weapon. It wasn't just strong; it was the obvious, no-brainer pick that made everything else feel pointless.

Three weeks ago, a Reddit post titled "What good reason has the IL Toro gone 5 months without a nerf?" went viral on r/ArcRaiders. Embark responded by confirming adjustments were in the works. Today, those adjustments arrived — and "adjustment" is putting it mildly. This is a full-spectrum nerf that hits every meaningful stat:

The Numbers

Stat	Before	After	% Change
Pellet Damage	7.5	7.0	-6.7%
Base Fire Rate	43	38	-11.6%
Base Dispersion	4.5	6.0	+33.3% (worse accuracy)
Total Reload Time	4.3s	5.7s	+32.6% (slower)
Looping Reload Entry	0.8s	1.0s	+25% (slower)
Looping Reload Time	0.5s	0.7s	+40% (slower)
Damage Falloff	40%	50%	+25% (more damage loss at range)

Let's translate these numbers into what actually matters in a firefight:

DPS is down roughly 17%. Between the pellet damage reduction and the fire rate nerf, the Il Toro simply does less damage per second. The critical threshold that's changed: you can no longer two-shot a medium shield. That was the Toro's most oppressive capability — melting shields before the opponent could react — and it's gone.

Range effectiveness is gutted. The dispersion increase from 4.5 to 6.0 means your pellet spread is 33% wider. Combined with the increased damage falloff (40% to 50%), the Toro is now significantly weaker at anything beyond close range. If you were running it with a choke mod to snipe people from medium range, that playstyle just took a massive hit.

Reload punishes overcommitting. Going from 4.3 to 5.7 seconds of total reload time is brutal. That's 1.4 extra seconds where you're completely vulnerable. Miss your shots? You're now standing there for nearly 6 seconds reloading while your opponent pushes you.

Embark's Design Intent

Here's what Embark said in the dev note:

"We have tuned the Il Toro to address its DPS and effectiveness at range, especially when combined with a choke. We're also making some changes so it performs more like a weapon of its rarity — less versatile at lower upgrade levels and more dependent on upgrades and mods."

This is the right philosophy. The Toro's problem wasn't that it was strong at high upgrade levels — that's fine for a rare weapon. The problem was that it was dominant even at base level, making it the default choice regardless of your build or playstyle. Now, you'll need to invest upgrades and mods to get it performing, which means you're making a meaningful choice to specialize in it rather than just grabbing it because it's objectively the best option.

Is It Dead or Just Balanced?

Here's the real question: did Embark nerf the Toro into the ground, or did they bring it in line with the rest of the arsenal?

The honest answer: it's probably slightly overnerfed in the short term. Hitting every stat simultaneously — damage, fire rate, accuracy, reload, AND falloff — is aggressive. Most balance patches target one or two axes of power and see how it shakes out. Embark went for all of them at once.

That said, Embark explicitly stated they'll "continue to keep a close eye on this" and make further adjustments. If the Toro drops to unusable status, expect a small buff in a follow-up patch. But for now, the meta has been cracked wide open, and that's exactly what the game needed.

Energy Clips: Your Money Printer Just Got Shut Down

The other major change in 1.20.0 is one that'll hurt your wallet more than any weapon nerf:

Energy Clips sell price: 1,000 → 200 coins. An 80% cut.

If you know, you know. Energy Clips had become the game's unofficial currency exploit. Players were running Harvester specifically to farm crafting materials for Energy Clips, then selling them for 1,000 coins a pop. It was by far the most profitable craft in the game, and it wasn't close.

Embark's dev note is refreshingly honest: "Energy Clips have unintentionally become a very profitable craft, so we are reducing the sell price to make the value profitability in line with other crafts."

Translation: they didn't mean for this to be a money farm, and now it's not. If you were stockpiling Energy Clips to sell, you just lost 80% of their value overnight. Hope you cashed out.

New Cosmetics: Rawhide and Fresh Cuts

On the lighter side, 1.20.0 brings a few new cosmetic options to the shop:

Rawhide Outfit (1,200 coins) — A western-style set with three alternate colors, headgear, mask, straps, and vest. It's a solid look if you want your raider channeling cowboy energy in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world. Which, honestly, kind of works.

Two new haircuts (400 coins each):

• Curtain Fade — The K-pop special. You either love it or you hate it.
• Low Bun — Practical, clean, keeps your hair out of your face while you're dodging ARC machines. Respectable choice.

Nothing groundbreaking, but cosmetic drip is cosmetic drip.

Bug Fixes: Small but Welcome

Three fixes round out the patch:

• Persistent audio from destroyed Comets and Fireballs — If you've been hearing phantom explosion sounds lingering after you clear a wave, that's fixed. This was genuinely annoying.
• Dam wall clip — Players could get pushed through a wall and stuck in the Dam Controlled Access Zone. Fixed.
• Spaceport collision gaps — Missing collision near the east elevator and under pipes. Fixed.

These are minor but the kind of QoL fixes that add up over time. No more getting randomly stuck in geometry.

What's Missing (And What's Coming)

Let's be real: 1.20.0 is a balance and maintenance patch, not a content patch. There are no new weapons, no new maps, no new enemies, and no new game modes.

The community has a growing wishlist that this patch doesn't address:

• Anti-cheat improvements — Cheating reports have been increasing
• Server stability — Embark literally just gave out loadout refunds last week for a major server outage
• New map areas or POIs — The current map rotation is getting stale for veteran players
• PvE mode — One of the hottest debates in the community right now
• More weapon variety — With the Toro nerfed, the meta needs fresh options to fill the gap

The good news? The Flashpoint expansion is reportedly coming next week. That should be the big content drop the game needs. If Embark can follow up this balance patch with meaningful new content, the one-two punch could reinvigorate the player base heading into spring.

The Verdict

The Good:

• Il Toro nerf was long overdue and hits all the right areas
• Energy Clips exploit fix restores economic balance
• Bug fixes address real annoyances
• Embark's communication is transparent (dev notes explain reasoning)

The Mid:

• Cosmetics are fine but won't excite anyone
• Toro nerf might be too aggressive (all stats hit simultaneously)
• No compensation for players who built their loadout around the Toro

The Missing:

• Zero new content
• No anti-cheat updates
• No server stability improvements
• No new weapons to shake up the post-Toro meta

1.20.0 is the patch Arc Raiders needed for balance, but not the patch it needed for retention. The Il Toro fix alone makes this a net positive — the game is genuinely more fun when one weapon doesn't dominate every encounter. But Embark needs to follow this up with real content, and fast.

Flashpoint can't come soon enough.

Sources

• Arc Raiders Official Patch Notes 1.20.0
• PC Gamer: Arc Raiders' New Update Puts the Il Toro in Its Place
• Vice: Arc Raiders Update 1.20.0 Nerfs Toro Hard
• Game Rant: New ARC Raiders Update Nerfs Popular Weapon
• Game Rant: ARC Raiders Addresses Nerf Backlash, Confirms Il Toro Adjustments