Buried City JKV Employee access card in ARC Raiders

Buried city JKV employee access card: what it actually unlocks

The buried city JKV employee access card is one of the most frequently missed keys in ARC Raiders because it never tells you which point of interest to visit. Most key cards in the game name a building or a small room when you read their description. This one stays vague, so players who pick it up during a normal raid often put it back in their stash and forget about it. The card is tied to J Kozma Ventures, the in-game company that sponsors the orbital projects around the Buried City map, and it opens a single locked door on the fourth floor of the Space Travel building.

That single door is the reason the card matters. Inside the locked room on the fourth floor you can find Mechanical Components, Electrical Components, a weapon case, and a raider cache, all in one quiet hallway. The room is small enough to clear quickly, but it sits inside one of the busiest points of interest on the map, so the reward is balanced against the risk of running into other squads. The card itself drops from JKV-related caches, dead raiders, and a small set of dedicated spawn points around the Buried City map, and the IGN wiki page on the JKV Employee Access Card confirms the building, floor, and loot table for the door.

This guide focuses on the practical side of using the buried city JKV employee card. It covers the exact building and floor, the two ascent routes, the loot you should expect, the timing considerations for the surrounding POI, and the most common mistakes that turn a quick fourth-floor run into a lost loadout. The goal is to give a single page that is useful the first time you hold the card in your inventory, before you walk up the stairs and before you decide whether to push or reset the raid.

Where the JKV Employee Access Card is used in ARC Raiders

The JKV Employee Access Card is consumed at a single door in the Space Travel building on the Buried City map. The card does not work anywhere else, so there is no fallback location if you misread the building. The card unlocks a locked door located on the fourth floor of the building, and the floors are clearly marked inside the stairwell, so the climb is straightforward once you commit to it.

Space Travel sits in the central portion of the Buried City map, which makes it a natural convergence point for squads rotating between mid-map POIs. The building itself is a four-story concrete structure with a stairwell in one corner and a zipline running up the exterior wall for rapid ascent. Both approaches land you on or near the fourth floor, where the locked door sits in a hallway by the northwestern stairwell.

Because the building is busy, you should plan the approach as carefully as the loot. Most players who lose the card’s value do so because they sprint straight to the building and arrive at the door in the middle of a firefight. The card becomes valuable when you treat it as a structured route with a clear extraction plan, not as a side errand you run on your way somewhere else.

Route to the fourth floor of Space Travel

There are two reliable ways to reach the fourth floor of Space Travel, and the choice depends on whether you want speed or noise. The stairwell is the quieter route, while the zipline is the faster route that also acts as a visible signal to nearby squads.

Stairwell approach: Enter the building from the ground floor and take the corner stairwell on the left as you face the main entrance. The floors are numbered, so you can move directly to the fourth-floor landing without exploring intermediate floors.
Zipline approach: Use the exterior zipline that runs along the outside of the building. It deposits you on the upper floors and saves time, but the line is visible from neighboring rooftops, which makes it a common ambush point.
Roof drop: If you already control a nearby high point, you can drop onto the roof and work down the internal stairs to the fourth floor. This is the safest descent but it requires you to clear the top of the building first.
Service corridor: Some players enter through a side service door on the lower floors and cut through the internal corridor. This path is longer but keeps you off the main stairwell, where ambushes are most common.

Once you reach the fourth floor, the locked door is on the northwestern side of the building, adjacent to the stairwell. The hallway is short, which means you can clear it with one primary weapon and a single secondary rather than a full loadout. Bring a breach tool. Several of the containers inside the room require breaching before they drop their contents, and the door itself has a short interaction that exposes you while it opens.

What is inside the locked JKV room

The JKV room is a loot room, not a story room, and the room contents are the entire reason the buried city JKV employee card has value. The room is small, with a few crates, a weapon case, and a chance at a raider cache, all packed into a single hallway.

Mechanical Components: Multiple stacks that are used for crafting, repairs, and several workshop upgrades. The components are common, but the concentration in one room makes the door worth the climb.
Electrical Components: Stacks that feed electronics-related crafting, mid-game gear upgrades, and several late-game workshop projects. They share the same concentrated drop pattern as the mechanical stacks.
Weapon case: A standard high-tier weapon container that can drop a wide range of firearms. The contents are randomized, so the case is a high-variance reward.
Raider cache: A rare container that can include rare crafting materials, attachments, or a small amount of premium currency. Spawn rate is lower than the components, so do not plan the run around it.

Most of the containers inside the room must be breached before they drop their items, so plan to spend a few seconds on each crate rather than running through the hallway and grabbing what is visible. The breaching animation is short, but it locks you in place, which is the main vulnerability of the room. A squad that pushes you while you are breaching will usually win the engagement because you cannot move and shoot at the same time.

How to plan the run around other squads

Space Travel is one of the busiest points of interest on the Buried City map, and the buried city JKV employee room sits at the top of a building that everyone else can see. A successful run requires you to time the approach so you arrive at the door with enough time to clear the room and reach an extract before the next wave of squads rotates in.

Use the early raid window: Most squads spawn at the edges of the map and rotate inward. The first ten to fifteen minutes are usually the safest time to enter Space Travel because the surrounding POIs have not yet pushed into mid-map.
Listen for gunfire below: If you hear sustained combat on the lower floors, the fourth-floor hallway becomes a flank route for whoever wins the lower engagement. Either wait for the fight to end or push immediately while the winning squad is still looting.
Avoid the zipline during peak traffic: The exterior zipline is fast, but it is also the most visible entry point. Use it during the early window or when you have already scouted the rooftops and confirmed they are clear.
Plan an off-angle exit: The northwestern stairwell is the obvious descent route, so expect ambushes there. A small fire escape or window drop on the opposite side of the building gives you an exit that other squads do not watch by default.

The underlying logic is that the buried city JKV employee card converts a high-traffic POI into a high-value room for as long as you hold the initiative. The moment you lose the initiative, the room becomes a trap, because there is only one entrance and the breaching animations pin you in place. Treat the room as a structured objective with a fixed duration, not as a permanent source of components.

How the JKV room compares to other Buried City POIs

Buried City has several locked rooms and high-value containers, and the JKV room sits in the middle of that list. It is more reliable than a random raider cache because the door guarantees a small floor of components, but it is also more contested than a quiet residential block because the Space Travel building is on every rotating squad’s route.

POI	Lock requirement	Loot focus	Traffic level	Risk profile
Space Travel (fourth floor)	JKV Employee Access Card	Mechanical and Electrical Components, weapon case, raider cache	High	Contested during mid-raid rotations, safest in the early window
Residential blocks (scattered)	None, but interior loot is randomized	Basic components, occasional weapon spawns	Low to medium	Squads rotate in unpredictably because the loot is unpredictable
Industrial yards (eastern Buried City)	None, but yard-wide loot pools	Bulk components, vehicle parts	Medium	Open sightlines, so long-range fights dominate
JKV company building (ground floor)	None for the public lobby	Lore items, mid-tier components	Medium	Used as a waypoint more often than a loot objective

The table is a quick reference rather than a tier list, and the relative value of each POI shifts with the current patch, the surrounding event state, and the squad density on the server. As a rule of thumb, the buried city JKV employee door is worth a dedicated run when you already hold the card and the surrounding POIs are quiet, and it is worth skipping when the map is hot and you expect three or more squads to rotate through Space Travel in the next ten minutes.

Loot expectations and the breaching loop

The breaching loop is the part of the buried city JKV employee run that most players underestimate. The door opens in a few seconds, but the containers inside the room each require a short breach action before they drop their contents. The total breach time is around thirty to forty seconds if you chain the actions, which is long enough for a squad on the stairwell to push you.

Pre-stage your breach tool: Switch to your breach tool before you enter the room so the first container opens without a weapon swap.
Start with the components: The Mechanical and Electrical Components are the most common drops and the most likely to be the reason you ran the card. Clear them first so the value is secured even if you have to leave mid-loop.
Save the weapon case for last: The weapon case is the highest-variance container in the room. Looting it first means you can leave it if a fight starts, but it also means you spend the most exposed time in the room.
Keep one eye on the stairwell: The hallway is short, so a single corner watch is enough to catch a squad pushing from the northwestern stairwell.

The breaching loop is also the point at which most of the buried city JKV employee value is realized. If you breach three of the four component crates and a squad pushes, you can extract with most of the value already in your bag. If you start with the weapon case and the squad pushes, you usually lose the case and the components because you have to leave before you finish the loop.

Common mistakes that cost you the run

The buried city JKV employee card is a simple key on paper, but most lost runs come from a small set of recurring mistakes. They are worth listing because each one converts a guaranteed component floor into a wasted climb.

Climbing the zipline during peak traffic: The zipline is a visible line on the outside of the building. Using it while two squads are already on the surrounding rooftops turns you into a free kill.
Entering the room before the stairwell is clear: The fourth-floor hallway is short, and breaching animations pin you in place. If you have not checked the stairwell, you are breaching into a probable engagement.
Forgetting the breaching tool: The door opens with the card, but the crates require a separate tool. Players who arrive without one see the crates and cannot interact with them.
Looting the weapon case first: The case is the highest-variance container, so it is also the most likely to make you stay in the room longer than planned.
Extracting through the northwestern stairwell: It is the obvious exit and the most common ambush point. Plan a secondary exit before you enter the room.
Running the card without a route plan: The buried city JKV employee room is a structured objective, not a side errand. Players who run it on the way to another POI usually arrive late, fight for the room, and lose the value.

Each of these mistakes is recoverable on its own, but they compound quickly. A late arrival combined with a zipline approach and a weapon-case-first loop usually ends with a lost loadout and the card still on the corpse. The card respawns in your stash, but the raid timer does not.

When the JKV room is worth the risk

Not every raid is a good time to use the buried city JKV employee card. The card has a fixed value in components, and the cost of using it scales with the surrounding activity. A short decision checklist helps to decide whether to spend the card or hold it for a quieter raid.

Condition	Worth the run	Hold the card
Time since raid start	First 10-15 minutes of the raid	Late raid, less than 8 minutes remaining
Squad density on the map	Two or fewer squads in mid-map	Three or more squads rotating through Space Travel
Your loadout	Breach tool, mid-range weapon, and a planned exit	Heavy kit that cannot extract quickly, or no breach tool
Component inventory	Low on Mechanical and Electrical Components	Already stocked for the next workshop tier
Stash capacity	Enough room to carry the full loot floor	Already near the carry limit from earlier POIs

The checklist is a heuristic, not a hard rule. There are situations where a late raid with a heavy kit is still worth the run because you need a specific component for a workshop project, and there are situations where an early raid with a light kit is still not worth it because the map event has stacked the lobby with experienced squads. Use the checklist to make the decision quickly, then commit.

How the buried city JKV employee fits into a wider Buried City route

The buried city JKV employee room rarely justifies a dedicated raid on its own. It is more useful as a high-value stop on a route that already passes through mid-map. Most successful runs treat the card as a waypoint rather than a destination.

Early rotation route: Spawn at the map edge, clear one or two low-traffic POIs, then push Space Travel during the early window. This route is the safest way to use the card because the surrounding activity is still low.
Mid-raid pivot route: Use the card after you have cleared a nearby POI and the lobby has rotated past you. The room becomes a quiet stop because the squads that originally contested it have already moved on.
Reverse rotation route: Enter Space Travel from a high point and work down to the ground floor, then extract through a side street. This route avoids the main stairwell ambush point and is the best option for solo players.
Pair route with a second POI: Combine the JKV room with a nearby industrial yard or residential block. The card pays for the rotation, and the second POI fills any remaining stash space.

The pairing is important because the buried city JKV employee room is component-heavy but small. A solo player who runs the room alone will often leave with less than a full bag, which makes the climb feel unrewarding. A squad that pairs the room with a second POI can fill the bag and extract as a single rotation, which is when the card’s value becomes obvious.

What to do if the card is missing from your stash

Players who do not yet have the buried city JKV employee card usually assume it is a rare drop, but the card is actually a common find that is easy to overlook. It appears in JKV-branded containers, on dead raiders in the company building area, and in a small set of rotating spawn points around the Buried City map.

Check JKV-branded containers: The company uses a small set of branded crates around its ground-floor lobby and the surrounding streets. These are the most reliable source of the card.
Loot dead raiders in JKV uniforms: Some raiders spawn with the card in their inventory. Their uniforms make them easy to spot in the company building area.
Watch for the rotating spawn points: A small number of caches in mid-map have a chance to spawn the card. These caches are shared with other mid-tier keys, so they rotate on a regular cycle.
Buy it from a vendor when available: Some patches add the card to a rotating vendor. The rotation is patch-specific, so check the current vendor inventory before assuming it is a random drop only.

If the card is genuinely missing from a session, the most common reason is that another player looted it before you reached the cache. The card respawns on the standard loot cycle, so it will return in a future raid. There is no need to farm a specific cache for hours, because the spawn points rotate and the next card is usually one or two POIs away.

Build and loadout choices for the JKV run

The buried city JKV employee run is a short, structured objective, so the loadout should match that structure. A heavy long-range kit is overkill for a fourth-floor hallway, and a stealth-only kit lacks the damage to clear a contested stairwell. The best loadout sits between the two.

Slot	Recommended choice	Why it fits the room
Primary weapon	Mid-range rifle with controllable recoil	Covers both the stairwell push and the rooftop drop
Secondary weapon	Close-range weapon with a fast reload	Useful for the breaching loop and the short hallway
Breach tool	Standard breach tool or equivalent	Required for the component crates inside the room
Armor	Medium armor with reasonable mobility	Allows quick extraction without sacrificing survivability in a push
Utility	One healing item and one mobility tool	Enough to recover from a short fight and reposition for the exit

Solo players should lean slightly lighter so the extraction is faster, while squads can afford a heavier primary because they have teammates to cover the stairwell during the breaching loop. The exact weapon choices are patch-dependent, but the structure of a mid-range primary, a close-range secondary, and a dedicated breach tool is stable across most of the current ARC Raiders patches.

How the JKV room interacts with current ARC Raiders events

ARC Raiders runs a regular schedule of map events that change the loot tables, the squad density, and the safest rotation paths around the Buried City map. The buried city JKV employee room is not directly affected by most of these events, but the surrounding activity is, so the value of the card shifts with the event calendar.

Map-wide events: These events add bonus loot to mid-map POIs and pull squads toward Space Travel. The room becomes more contested but also more rewarding when the event aligns with the room’s natural loot pool.
Company events: Events tied to J Kozma Ventures or its orbital projects usually boost the spawn rate of the card and add bonus components to the room. These events are the best time to run the buried city JKV employee card.
Server-wide modifiers: Modifiers that increase squad density or visibility make the room harder to clear. Skip the run during these modifiers unless the bonus loot is critical for your current workshop project.
Quiet hours: Off-peak servers usually have lower squad density, which makes the early rotation route the safest option. The buried city JKV employee room is a good objective for quiet-hour farming because the value is consistent across sessions.

Because the event calendar changes regularly, the exact value of the room changes with it. The structure of the run does not change: enter during the early window, clear the components first, and extract through a planned exit. The timing is what shifts.

Troubleshooting the buried city JKV employee run

Most failed runs come from a small set of repeatable problems. Each problem has a clear diagnostic and a clear fix, so a short troubleshooting section is useful for players who keep losing the card to the same pattern.

Card does not work on the door: The most common cause is using the card on a similar-looking door in a nearby building. Confirm the building name, the floor, and the northwestern stairwell before you spend the card.
Crates do not open: The room’s containers require a breach tool, not the access card. Switch to the breach tool and try again.
Room is already looted: The door can be opened by any player who holds the card, so the room can be cleared before you arrive. Check the door state and the surrounding corpse markers before you commit to the climb.
Squad on the stairwell: The most dangerous situation in the run. Hold the hallway, breach the components, and extract through a side exit. Do not push the stairwell from the hallway because the angle favors the defender.
Extraction timer is too short: The room is not worth a panic extract. If the timer is already low, reset the raid and save the card for the next session.

If the problem persists after a full troubleshooting pass, the most likely cause is a patch change. The room’s contents, the card’s spawn points, and the surrounding POI activity all rotate with the patch cycle, so a working pattern from a previous patch can stop working after a major update. Re-read the current patch notes before assuming the room is bugged.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the buried city JKV employee door in ARC Raiders?

The door is on the fourth floor of the Space Travel building on the Buried City map, in a hallway by the northwestern stairwell. The building has a stairwell in the corner and a zipline on the exterior wall, both of which lead to the upper floors.

Do I need a breach tool in addition to the access card?

Yes. The access card opens the locked door, but the Mechanical and Electrical Component crates inside the room require a separate breach tool before they drop their contents. The weapon case and the raider cache use the same breaching action.

Is the JKV room worth running solo, or should I bring a squad?

Both work, but the trade-off is real. Solo runs are faster to extract and quieter, but you have to handle the stairwell and the breaching loop alone. Squad runs are louder and more contested, but the stairwell is easier to hold while you breach. Choose solo if you already have a planned exit and the map is quiet, and choose a squad if the surrounding POIs are hot.

What is the best time during a raid to use the buried city JKV employee card?

The first ten to fifteen minutes of a raid are usually the safest, because most squads spawn at the edges and rotate inward. The room is also usable in the mid-raid window after a nearby POI has been cleared, but late-raid runs are risky because the extraction timer is short and the room is small enough that one squad can lock the stairwell.

Can the door be opened by any player, or is it locked to a single user?

Any player who holds the JKV Employee Access Card can open the door. The card is not consumed on a per-player basis, but the room’s contents are shared, so the first squad to clear the room takes the loot.

Where can I confirm the current loot table for the JKV room?

The IGN wiki page on the JKV Employee Access Card confirms the building, the floor, and the main loot categories. For exact drop rates and any patch-specific additions, the current patch notes are the authoritative source, because the loot table rotates with each major update.

Does the buried city JKV employee card respawn if I lose it in a raid?

Yes. The card returns to your stash on the standard loot cycle, which is usually one or two raids. There is no need to farm a specific cache, because the card’s spawn points rotate around the Buried City map and the JKV company building area.

Is the Space Travel building always this busy, or does the traffic change?

Traffic scales with squad density, the current event state, and the time of day on the server. Off-peak sessions are usually quiet enough to run the buried city JKV employee card on a solo rotation, while peak sessions and event windows can stack two or three squads on the building at the same time.

Should I loot the weapon case first or the components first?

Components first. The Mechanical and Electrical Components are the guaranteed value of the run, while the weapon case is high-variance. Clearing the components first secures the floor of the run, and the weapon case is a bonus you grab if the stairwell is still clear.

What is the best exit from the fourth floor if the stairwell is contested?

The northwestern stairwell is the obvious exit and the most common ambush point, so plan a secondary exit before you enter the room. A window drop on the opposite side of the building, a small fire escape, or a controlled descent to the roof are all options, and the right one depends on the building’s current layout in your patch.

Buried City JKV Employee access card in ARC Raiders: where to use it and what you get