Look for these icons on your map to find ARES missions. The mission difficulty is represented both by the scale on the right (higher=harder), and by the color of the solid bar on the left (grey= trivial, green=easy, yellow=average, orange=hard red=very hard). Are missions appearing as too easy or too hard? Each leveling area in the open world will have missions around it corresponding to the level range displayed on each POI.

If you’re in a group, look for mission icons with this symbol. These missions are tuned for 2+ players and have more enemies and sometimes additional objectives. If you’re not in a group, feel free to try them for an added challenge.

Once you venture into an ARES site (usually an indoor cave or structure), you’ll receive an audio queue informing you of your mission. The following types of missions can be found at ARES sites:

• Hacked Terminals - Bandits are stealing our secrets! These missions are very straightforward—find each terminal and activate it before time runs out.
  
  
• Demolition - Whether it’s a cave infested with Aranha nests or an abandoned facility loaded with Chosen Strifebringers, the answer is the same: interact with each one to blow them up!
  
  
• Chosen Bomb - Lucky for us, the Chosen never blow anything up without lots of safety protocols. Find one of three colored defusers and walk over it to pick it up. Be careful—you can’t shoot while you are carrying the defuser! The bomb itself will cycle between colors. Be sure the bomb matches the color of the defuser you are carrying when you put it in. Repeat for each of three colors (red, white, purple) and you will save the day!
  
  
• Stolen Datapad - Start by finding the data pad somewhere in the ARES site. The fun doesn’t end there though, you have to get out too! And just like the Chosen Bomb missions, you can’t shoot while you’re carrying the data pad. Oh, and don’t forget to access terminals during your escape for some big EXP bonuses!
  
  
• Payload Recovery - Similar to the Stolen Datapad missions, you must find a cache of goods and carry them out to the start of the mission. The only problem? You don’t need just one delivery, you need up to four!

ARES missions aren't the only open world missions that appear on your map. Look for different map icons to find new mission types. These missions show their difficulty with a scale and colored bar just like ARES missions.


Tornado - A force of melded nature that needs to be shot! A Melding tornado whips four giant melded boulders through the air. Shoot them to get at the tornado core—just be sure to shoot the one that’s not shielded.

Afterwards…well, that’s where the real fun begins. Take the portal to your bonus round! Be sure to find the exit before the Melding collapses!

Crashed LGV - Open for big prizes, or waves of bloodthirsty bandits. Really, this could go either way…


Crashed Thumper - Funny thing—mining via rockets has some occasional drawbacks. If you find a thumper crashed in the wild, interact with it to begin the repair process. Find the scattered parts and bring them back to fix the thumper.

In addition to the missions described above, several mission types don’t appear on your map. You’ll just stumble upon these (and others!) while exploring.

• Bandit Cache - Start shooting bandits and don’t stop until you see a key. What else would you do with all these locked boxes around?
  
  
• Accord Cache - How is the Accord cache different from the Bandit cache? It blows up! Afterwards, you’ll meet the most reasonable enemies in all of Firefall—three bandits running away from you as fast as they can! You know what to do (shoot them and take their stuff).
  
  
• Kestrel Nests - These dang birds stocked up for the end of the world better than humans did. Steal from their nests to get even! Fun fact: this is significantly easier if the birds are dead.