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Hyper Light Breaker: Official Early Access Guide

By Hyper Light Breaker Dev and 1 collaborators

Based on our own internal 'How To Play Guide' at Heart Machine, this guide should give you all the tips and tricks you need to get started in Hyper Light Breaker, direct from the Devs!

Award

Created by

Rad
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Hyper Light Breaker Dev
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Category: Characters, Classes, Gameplay Basics, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

17 Jan @ 3:41pm

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Guide Index

Overview

Controls

Getting Started

About the Cursed Outpost (the Hub)

Hosting or Joining a Lobby

Starting a Run

HUD

Combat Basics

Traversal Basics

High Level Game Overview

Getting Medkits

Getting Stronger

Player Gear

Unlocking Crown Arenas

Drop Down Labs & Keys

The Danger Meter

Extraction

After Action Report

After All Biome Crowns Have Been Defeated

After Cycle Reports

Phantom Fragments (Narrative Elements)

Comments

Controls

Controller

Left Stick = Move the character.
Right Stick = Move the Camera/Aim Rail while holding Left Trigger/L2.
A/Cross = Jump
A/Cross hold = Glider
B/Circle = Parry
X/Square = Blade attack button
Y/Triangle = ~~Interact~~ Secondary Blade Attack
Right Trigger/R2 = Dash/Fire Rail while Aiming
Right Trigger/R2 hold = Hoverboard
Right Trigger / R2 + X/Square = Flash Step Attack
Left Bumper/L1 = ~~Macro~~ Amp
Right Bumper/R1 = ~~Amp~~ Interact
Left Trigger/L2 = Aim Rail
Directional pad Up = Heal
Directional pad Right = Ping
Show Menu/Options = Pause Menu
Show Address Bar/Touch pad = Inventory
Right Stick Click / R3 = Toggle Camera Lock

Keyboard/Mouse

W = Move Forward
S = Move Backward
D = Move Right
A = Move Left
Mouse Move = Move Camera / Aim Rail while holding Right Mouse Button
Spacebar = Jump
Spacebar hold = Glider
Q = Parry
Left Mouse Button = Blade attack
E = Secondary Blade Attack
Left Shift = Dash/Fire Rail while Aiming
Left Shift hold = Hoverboard
Left Shift + Left Mouse Button = Flash Step Attack
1 = ~~Macro~~ Amp
F = ~~Amp~~ Interact
Right Mouse hold = Aim Rail
C = Heal
Middle Mouse Button = Ping
Z = Toggle Camera Lock
M = Map

Getting Started

1. Launch the game via Steam.
2. Proceed through the splash screens by pressing A/Enter/Clicking the mouse
3. When you are shown the EULA, use the Right Stick on controller to scroll down to the Accept option (Mouse also works here)
4. At the Title Screen select Play.
5. After loading, you will arrive in the Cursed Outpost (the game's main hub).

About the Cursed Outpost (the Hub)

The Hub, or “the Cursed Outpost”, is the area the player returns to between Runs.

The Cursed Outpost is a floating chunk of an old city that has reached stasis at the Overgrowth’s edge.
It plays host to a number of refugees and ex-Breakers trapped in the endless cycle of the Overgrowth.

Points of Interest around the Cursed Outpost

Pherus Bit: a veteran Breaker and your commanding officer. She offers permanent upgrades in exchange for Golden Rations and Abyss Stones.
Omen the Bladesmith: an ex-Breaker that crafts and sells Blades in exchange for Brightblood and Materials.
Multiplayer Concierge Bot: a robot that helps put Breakers together for co-op missions.
see Hosting or Joining a Lobby for more details.
Skeksis the Tinkerer: an eccentric scientist and that sells Holobytes, Amps and Armor in exchange for Brightblood and Materials.
New players must pay a one-time fee in Materials to unlock Skeksis’ shop.
Cobra Balta the Rail Mechanic: an ex-Breaker mechanic that sells Rail weapons in exchange for Brightblood and Materials.
New Players must pay a one-time fee in Materials to unlock Cobra Balta’s shop.
The Telepad: a machine that moves Breakers between the Cursed Outpost and the Overgrowth. This is where players go to begin a Run.

Tips

You can hold the [Y / Triangle Button] to instantly move your character to the Telepad from anywhere in the Cursed Outpost.
In multiplayer sessions, all members of the Breaker team will gather in the Hub prior to the start of a run.
Some functionality is locked out while players are inside the Hub. For example, players cannot use their equipped weapons, or dash up walls as they would in a run. However, they are free to dash and skate around on the Hoverboard.

Hosting or Joining a Lobby

1. Speak to the Concierge Bot near the spawn point of the Hub.

2. Select Start a Breaker Team to begin Hosting a Lobby.

3. Set the number of players, and a password if you want the Lobby to be private

4. Select “Invite Friend” to invite players from your Steam Friends List to your session.

5. If Joining a Lobby, search for a Lobby and select it from the list, then select Join.

6. Once all players are in the Lobby you can stand on the Teleport Pad to start a run.

Starting a Run

A Run is a single unique play through of the playable, procedurally generated open world stage that ends when a player or Breaker Team either dies or extracts from the level.
Time does not define a run
You can spend 3 seconds or 3 hours in a Run: it’s still a Run
Runs do not include the Hub
The Hub is your sanctuary, where you start from and where you go back to after each Run

1. Whether Single or Multiplayer, stand on the Teleport Pad and hold Interact to start Loadout Select

2. Interact with the Pad to bring up the Telepad Menu

3. Proceed through the screens that appear to confirm your objectives, select your character, and confirm your equipped Loadout.

4. Confirming your loadout will call the Ready Up Timer. When the timer hits 0, the Breaker will load into a new run.
a. Players can cancel out of the Ready Up Timer by holding [d-pad directional up / T key].
b. In Multiplayer sessions, a majority of players must be ready in order to start a run.

HUD

1. Bright Blood counter
2. HP bar
3. The player’s equipped Rail
4. The player’s equipped Blade
5. Secondary Blade Attack cooldown meter
6. Parry
7. The player’s equipped Amp + activation pips
8. Equipped Holobyte shelf
9. Keys counter
10. Inventory key prompt
11. Ammo counter, expressed as “shots in clip” over “shots left in reserve”
12. Med Kit counter
13. Stamina Bar
14. Mini-map / Radar
15. Danger Meter
16. Prism Counter + current Objective Text

Combat Basics

These are the basic combat actions in Hyper Light Breaker:

Blade Attack: players can swing their equipped Blade by pressing the [X /Cross] button. Pressing the button repeatedly will perform a Blade Combo.
Different blades have different combo strings, so it helps to experiment!
Secondary Blade Attack: Each blade has secondary attack that fires off of the [Y / Triangle] button. These Blade Specials are metered by a cooldown and must be used strategically.
Charge Up Blade Attack: Holding the [X / Cross] button roots the player in place while they wind up for a heavy swing with their equipped Blade. Charged hits inflict more damage on any enemy they come into contact with.
Flash Step: Pressing the [X / Cross] button and the [Right Trigger] at the same time will zip the player to a nearby target and deliver a light hit with their equipped Blade.
Aim Rail : If the player has a Rail equipped, squeezing the [Left Trigger] will pull it out and switch them into Aim Down Sights mode. While in ADS, the player can use the [Right Stick] to position their targeting reticule.
Fire Rail : Squeezing the [Right Trigger] in ADS mode fires a shot from the player’s equipped Rail.
Most rails are semi-auto, but others are fully automatic.
Amp Attack: If the player has an Amp equipped in their Amp slot, they can activate it by pressing the [Left Bumper] button.
Amps have limited uses, but the player can recharge them by fighting and taking damage.
Dash: Players can dash over short distances by squeezing the [Right Trigger]. A dash can be aimed in any direction by holding [Left Stick].
Players are invincible for first few frames of a dash, so it is extremely useful for evading incoming attacks.
Players can chain together multiple dashes, provided they have enough stamina pips.
Parry: Players can parry incoming attacks by pressing the button.
Parrying an attack requires precise timing, but it will often put the attacking enemy on the back foot and position the player to quickly follow up with an attack of their own.
Parrying enemies is also a good way to quickly build up their Stagger Bar

Traversal Basics

These are the basics of moving around the world in Hyper Light Breaker:

Jumping: players can jump into the air by tapping the [A / Cross] button. Tapping the button again at the apex of a jump will trigger a double jump.
Gliding: holding the [A / Cross] during a jump will deploy the glider. Gliding allows players to take advantage of high cliffs, letting them cover a lot of ground horizontally while controlling their vertical descent.
Players can only use the Glider for a few seconds at a time, as indicated by the small circular meter that appears next to their Sycom on activation. If the player runs out of Glider stamina while they are still in the air, the Glider will de-materialize and the player will fall back to the ground.
Wall Dashing: If a player performs a dash while hugging a vertical surface, their Breaker will dash up that surface.
Players can chain two wall dashes together before they must touch the ground again.
Wall Dashing is essential for scaling many of the irregular terrain features of the Overgrowth.
Hoverboarding: If the player holds [Right Trigger], their Breaker will deploy the Hoverboard. The hoverboard allows the player to cover a lot of ground very quickly, albeit with less precise steering.
Players can only use the Hoverboard for a few seconds at a time, as indicated by the small circular meter that appears next to their Sycom on activation. If the player runs out Hoverboard stamina, their board will de-materialize.
Hoverboards can be used to cross bodies of water! This is an important thing to remember whether you’re trying to find a shortcut across the map or evading an enemy.

High Level Game Overview

Hyper Light Breaker is broken into Runs and Cycles.

A Run represents a single journey into the Overgrowth. Every Run is an opportunity to explore the Overgrowth, gather resources, fight monsters and become more powerful. A Run can end in one of two ways:

The Breaker Team is defeated.
The Breaker Team extracts from the Overgrowth via an Extraction Pad.

A Cycle represents one version of the Overgrowth. A player can go on as many runs as they like to complete the objectives for the Cycle, but they can only die 4 times before the Cycle ends and a new version of the Overgrowth is created.
Tip: Extracting makes it far more likely that the Breaker Team will survive long enough to complete a cycle.

The Breaker Team’s objectives for the Cycle are to:

Explore the map and gather loot in order to grow more powerful.
Search the world for Prisms, marked on the map by a gold diamond.
Some Prisms can be found through exploration; others must be acquired by defeating Elite enemies.
Collecting Prisms will unlock the Boss Arenas, which are marked on the map.
Boss Arenas remain open after they have been unlocked, and remain open until that boss is defeated. This means you can unlock a boss during one run but wait to challenge it until a later run. The choice is yours.
Defeat all the bosses (also known as Crowns) in the Overgrowth and gain access to the Abyss and defeat the Abyss King.

Players can spend as much time as they want in the Overgrowth on each run; There is no hard time limit, but there are many soft ones that will pressure the player to leave. After exploring to your satisfaction you must interact with an Extraction Point to return to the Hub. More on this below.

Getting Medkits

First, you must earn a Golden Ration and use it to unlock and equip the Medkit Capacity ability from Pherus Bit.

Once you do, you’ll have the ability to have one Medkit – and there’s different methods to refilling your Medkit.

Method 1: Get Medigems > Spend Medigems at a Shrine to Refill Medkit

To be able to refill your Medkit, you’ll need Medigems! Medigems are glowing plants with healing properties that bloom in the Overgrowth. 🌱

The first method for refilling your Medkit is getting Medigems and spending them at a Shrine to refill your Medkit. 💟

Method 2: Get Bright Blood > Find a Vendor Who Sells Medkits in the Overgrowth > Buy Medkit

As you explore the Overgrowth, you can come across secret vendors who have Medkits for sale! Be on the lookout for these vendors… they can usually be found in areas that require a Key to enter. 🔑

Method 3: Get Medigems > Automatically convert Medigems to Medkits at Cursed Outpost Telepad

The last method is when you begin your run and right before you enter the Overgrowth, three Medigems can be automatically synthesized into one Medkit. ❤️

If you increase your Medkit Capacity twice (i.e., unlock and equip the 2nd Medkit Capacity ability from Pherus Bit), you can convert six Medigems into two Medkits! 💕

Getting Stronger

The Overgrowth is a harsh place and best thing a Breaker can do to even the odds is to fill their loadout with powerful gear.

1. Holobyte Slots
2. Sycom Slot
3. Amp Slot
4. Blade Slot
5. Rail slot
6. Armor Slot
7. Gear Info Panel
8. Sycom Info Panel
9. Lives Counter
10. Collectibles Slots

In order to power up your Breaker, you will need to find new Gear. New pieces of Gear occasionally drop from defeated enemies, but guaranteed drops come from the objects placed around the Map.

Locate the piece of Gear you are looking for, travel to that location and find the Corpse object in the world, pay the indicated amount of Bright Blood, and a Drop of that kind will spawn from the Corpse.

When viewing a Drop you have two options:
1. Equip the Drop by pressing the indicated button
2. Cache the Drop and add it to your Vault back in the Hub.

Player Gear

General Note on Gear

There are a handful of qualities that apply to some, but not all, pieces of equipable gear :

Rarity: Breakers can pick up rarer, more powerful versions of regular gear.

There are four tiers of rarity in HLB. Gear rarity is indicated by both the color and the number of pips in the upper left corner of the gear icon:

Common (gray, 1 pip)
Uncommon (blue, 2 pips)
Rare (orange, 3 pips)
Hyper (purple, 4 pips)
Rarer gear bestows stronger stat bonuses and additional buffs on Breakers when equipped.

Durability: player gear breaks down and becomes unusable over time.

Gear Durability is indicated by the number of pips along the bottom of a gear icon.
Every time a Breaker dies in a run, 1 pip of durability is lost on every equipped item. Items with zero durability are immediately destroyed and cannot be recovered.

Gear Level: players can unlock the ability to upgrade their Blades and Rails by paying the appropriate Vendor in the Hub.

Gear can by upgraded up to 5 times.
Increasing a weapon’s Gear Level increases its damage output.
Most player gear can be found during a run by defeating enemies and looting corpses, but they can also be purchased from the various Vendors in the Hub.

Blades

Players start a Run cycle with one default Blade, based on their SyCom class.
Damage is denoted by white numbers, with Critical Hits and Status Effects receiving their own coloring. Some Status Effects use an icon to denote their activation, such as Bleed or Burn.

Rails

Rails are the projectile weapons of Hyper Light Breaker.
You can have one equipped at a time.
Rails trigger their Status Effects on hit
Rail ammo is indicated in the Bottom-right corner of the UI
After firing, you can reload by pressing the button below the ammo counter. This will display an icon with 3 bullets on screen while reloading.
To refill ammo you must collect an Ammo pickup, pictured below

Amps

Amps are high damage abilities or modifiers for the player.
Amps have a limited number of uses, but their energy can be recharged by damaging enemies.
Think of these like an ultimate ability in other games.

Holobytes

Holobytes are buffs that can be equipped to modify some aspect of your Breaker.
Some Holobytes come with effects such as “Increase Armor by 10%”;
Others will enable effects on specific events, such as “Staggering an enemy recharges your Battery”.
A Breaker can equip up to 5 holobytes at any given time. Mix and match to find what works for you.

Armor

Armor pieces increase a Breaker’s max HP and Armor score, allowing them to take more punishment in combat.

Sycoms

Sycoms are unique to each Breaker, and different Breakers have access to different Sycoms.
Early Access launch will only feature ~ 6 Sycoms across 3 Breakers, but every unlockable Breaker in the game will eventually have 2-3 Sycoms.
Different Sycoms lend themselves to different playstyles, so it pays to unlock new Breakers and Sycoms.
A quick rundown of Sycom Stats:
HP: a Breaker’s maximum health, and an indicator of how much damage they can take before dying.
BATT: a Breaker’s maximum battery capacity; Breakers with higher BATT can fire more shots with their Rail before requiring a recharge.
ARMOR: a Breaker’s damage resistance. Breakers with higher ARMOR stats will sustain less damage on each hit they take.
STRIKE: a Breaker’s proficiency with Blades. As a Breaker’s STRIKE stat goes up, so too does their melee damage output.
BLAST: a Breaker’s skill with Rail weapons. Breakers with high BLAST deal more damage with their Rails.
STAM: a Breaker’s stamina. Stamina affects the number of dashes a Breaker can chain together. Every 50 units of Stamina translates into 1 dash pip on the stamina bar.
CRIT CHANCE %: indicates the likelihood that a Breaker will inflict a Critical Hit when they strike an enemy.
CRIT DMG %: an expression of how much more damage a Breaker will inflict with a Critical Hit compared to a regular hit.
OPS: measures how lucky a Breaker is. OPS affects things like:
the likelihood of rare items dropping from enemies and loot corpses.
the likelihood that a Breaker will inflict damage on the higher end of their Blade or Rail’s damage range.

Players can spend Cores and Abyss Stones to permanently upgrade a Sycom’s base stats.
This can be done at any time in the Hub by opening the Loadout Screen and pressing [Y / Triangle Button]
The upgrade potential for each stat differs from Sycom to Sycom.

Collectibles

Breakers pick up a variety of resources over the course of a run. Some collectables can be exchanged for gear and upgrades, while others keep you alive and fighting longer. A short list includes:

Prisms: objects of power that open the way to Boss Arenas. These can be found out in the world but are primarily dropped by Elite Enemies.
Brightblood: crystallized blood that acts as the primary currency in the Overgrowth. Drops from enemies and crates and can be exchanged for items and gear at a vendor.
Materials: scraps of old technology that function as a secondary currency. Materials are spent in addition to Brightblood when purchasing gear from vendors. They can be gathered from small chests with a purple highlight.
Keys: keys are used to unlock labs and purple force fields. They can found in small chests with a white highlight.
Medigems: Plants with healing properties that bloom in the Overgrowth. Picking up a medigem will heal back a little bit of lost health.
After the player unlocks the Medkit upgrade, medigems will be automatically synthesized into Medkits at the beginning of every run.
Cores: artifacts that can be exchanged for Sycom upgrades. These can be found inside of the large blue chests scattered around the world.
Players can also gather Core Shards by defeating certain enemies. Collecting four shards nets the player one full Core.
Golden Rations: Delicious rations from an earlier time; Golden Rations can be given to Hub NPC’s in exchange for permanent upgrades. They can be found inside of the large, golden chests tucked away in the Drop Down Labs.
Players will also receive a handful of Golden Rations at the end of every cycle, based on their progress.
Abyss Stones: Abyss Stones are rare collectables used a secondary currency for unlocking high-end permanent upgrades. Breakers receive Abyss Stones for defeating the first boss of every cycle and for successfully completing an entire cycle.
Phantom Fragments: Memories of the Crowns; Breakers can visit Pherus Bit in the Hub to examine their Phantom Fragments and learn more about the past of the Overgrowth. Fragments can be extracted from the Artifacts scattered around the map
see “Artifacts” below
Battery Charges: Battery Charges immediately refill the ammo counter on your Rail. These typically drop from enemies and breakable crates.
Health Orbs: Health Orbs restore a fraction of your Breaker’s health on pickup, depending on the size of the orb. Small orbs drop from regular enemies while larger orbs drop from Bosses and Elites.

Unlocking Crown Arenas

Boss Arenas are activated by collecting enough boss keys, otherwise known as Prisms.

This is a Prism

When you collect a Prism you are shown two pop-ups:
1. Tells you how many Prisms you have out of the 6 total needed to open all Boss Arenas
2. That a Danger Meter event was triggered.
1. Collecting a Prism fills a large chunk of the Danger Meter, which essentially guarantees that an event will be triggered.
1. see “the Danger Meter” below.

When a Boss Arena is locked the door has a pink VFX over it, with UI showing the number of boss keys needed to unlock the door.

This Boss door is locked

When the Door is opened the VFX will disappear. A pop-up will also play saying that the Boss Gate is open.
Interacting with the door starts a countdown. In multiplayer all players must vote to enter the Boss Arena.
Each Boss has its own unique Arena in which they are fought. General expectations for all boss encounters are as follows:

Players should load into the Boss Arena at roughly the same time.
Bosses’ actions and health should be networked for all players.
Players and the Boss should not be able to leave the arena until the fight is over.
After the Boss has been defeated, a countdown should begin.
At the end of the countdown all players will begin loading back into the Overgrowth.
You can leave the Boss Room early by exiting through the Door.

Returning to the Overgrowth

All players should be returned to The Overgrowth near where the Boss Gate was in that Biome.
If a player is returned to a location other than the Boss Gate, that is a bug!
All enemies and environmental objects should function and be placed as they were before.
Chests that have been opened should be opened, and vice versa.
Enemy Health Bars should display properly for all players.

Drop Down Labs & Keys

Drop Down Labs are underground areas that contain enemies and loot.

In order to enter a Drop Down Lab, you will need a Key. Keys can be found from specific Chests or if you defeat a Crown, you'll automatically get one.
- Interact with the Chest to open it and obtain a Key.
- You’ll know you’ve found a Key chest because it won't appear on your map or radar. This is intentional.

Drop Down Lab entrances look like this

Interact with the elevator while you have a Key to unlock the elevator and go down into the lab.

The Danger Meter

The Breakers’ trespasses into the Overgrowth do not go unnoticed by the Abyss King. During a run, player actions such defeating enemies or picking up Prisms will fill the meter on the upper left corner of the screen. When a section of the meter is filled, a random (terrible) event occurs. These events can be as minor as a random enemy spawn, or as dire as the arrival of an Assassin.

The severity of Danger Meter events escalates as the bar fills.
The Danger Meter resets after each run, so it is often prudent to extract before it fills completely.

Extraction

In order to successfully leave the Overgrowth and keep your lives, players must go through the Extraction process at an Extraction Point.

You can find Extraction Points on the map by looking for the following icon.

Go to the Extraction Point and stand on the telepad. Interact to start the Extraction process.

In Multiplayer, if any one player interacts with the telepad the UI should bring up a UI on the left side of the screen and ask players to Vote to start Extraction. The players that did not initially interact with the pad should be required to hold a button, as indicated by the UI, to place their vote.

Enemies will spawn in the Extraction Zone. Defeat them to charge the Extraction Meter and return to the Hub.

When Extraction is active, a pink barrier should appear around the Extraction Point

There will also be some VFX in the sky.

The pink Barrier should:

Allow players to enter the Extraction zone.
Disallow players to leave the Extraction zone once entered (this is a one-way wall effectively).
Players can Wall Dash on the barrier once inside.

Other notes:

When Extraction starts and at least one player is in the Extraction zone, enemy waves will spawn.
This will also display some UI in the form of a pink meter to indicate: the current wave number and how much progress has been made on that wave.
When 90% of the enemies in a wave have been defeated, the meter will fill.
A new meter will appear.
Players must defeat all waves of enemies to Extract successfully.
Enemies that are not spawned inside the Extraction zone should not be able to enter the extraction zone under any circumstances.
Enemies outside the Extraction zone should not be able to fire projectiles into the Extraction area.
Mini Boss enemies (Assassins) CAN enter the Extraction Zone if the walls are active.

When Extraction is complete:

A special animation should play showing the players teleporting into the air.
SFX and music stingers should play to accompany the Extraction.

After Action Report

At the end of a run, win or lose, the player is shown an After Action Report.
The report will display all of the gear and collectables the player gathered during that run.
If the player died during the run, all equipment with a durability rating will lose one pip of durability.
The Breaker Team’s progress is logged and difficulty level of the Overgrowth increases.
New enemy variants will appear during the next run.
Existing enemies will become stronger.

After All Biome Crowns Have Been Defeated

The player can enter the Abyss Gate via the Teleport Pad in the Hub.

After the player returns to the Hub upon defeating all bosses the Teleport Pad will be orange in color.

Interacting with the Pad will show a new option before you enter the Overgrowth, Enter Abyss Gate
Selecting this option brings up another screen. Hold the indicated button to Progress to the Next Cycle.
This will generate a new world, and break down all your Gear, Bright Blood, etc. into Golden Rations.
Completing a Successful Cycle in this way also grants 1 Abyss Stone.

After Cycle Reports

After the final run of a Cycle, the player must speak with Pherus Bit and initiate a new Cycle.

If you Succeed in the Cycle (meaning you defeated all the bosses and returned to the Hub) you will see the screens listed under the “After all Biome Bosses have been defeated…” section.
If you Failed the Cycle (meaning you lost all your lives before returning to the Hub after defeating all bosses):
Pherus Bit will move from her usual spot from behind her desk to a spot next to the TelePad, and will want to speak with the player.
Pherus Bit will offer her usual menu, but will also have a new option for “Create New World Composition”
As part of the cost of rolling a new map, Pherus Bit will extract a percentage of the player’s Brightblood and Materials.
You are then shown a series of screens that tallies up all your excess resources you have collected.
All these resources are converted into Golden Rations, which can be used to buy new permanent upgrades from Pherus Bit as well as new Sycoms.
After all the tallies are complete you are prompted to Proceed to the Next Cycle and start anew.
Certain resources, like Keys and Medigems, are zero’d out and do not carry over to the new Cycle.
All other currencies (Bright Blood, Materials, Cores, etc.) carry over between cycles

Phantom Fragments (Narrative Elements)

Phantom Fragments refers to the Narrative objects that you can find in the world.
While on a run, you may find an obelisk like the one below

Interacting with this grants you some Narrative Panels in the form of Phantom Fragments

After collecting these Fragments, Extract from the Run and speak to Pherus Bit. You cannot lose these Fragments in any way, so you do not need to worry about dying.
Tab over till you get to the Film-looking icon menu that allows you to decode Fragments

The UI that appears will show you the Bosses in the game, as well as a collection of locked panel spaces. Each Fragment you collect will show up here. Once you have all Fragments for one Memory, you will be able to Decode that Memory by paying Bright Blood.
After decoding the image will unblur during an animation. You can then scroll through the images making up the Memory.
Memories can be viewed at any time via Pherus Bit, or via the System menu.

8 Comments

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BubbaBasher 4 May @ 7:26pm

Crazy that a lot of this guide is now outdated as the recent update totally changed how like half the game works lmao

Raziel Paragorne 19 Jan @ 5:14pm

- Executions seem to do a good chunk of damage but do not have any other inherent properties. This seems strange to me and I suspect I'm missing something.
- The first Crown in each cycle appears with a little cinematic when you enter their arena. All subsequent Crowns however do *not* have an intro cinematic and will leap on you the instant the team loads in. Be ready to dash as soon as you load into the arena.
- Gear you find in the Overgrowth can be stashed to the Vault rather than equipped however Holobytes cannot. You can overwrite a Holobyte in your inventory when it is full but there isn't a direct way to stash them.
- There doesn't appear to be a way unequip a piece of gear or Holobyte while modifying your loadout apart from equipping another in its place. This makes it worthwhile to buy or acquire at least one common tier gear of each type to allow for switching out good gear (example: You're on your last life and think the Cycle will be a wash) to save its durability.

Raziel Paragorne 19 Jan @ 5:14pm

- When you take damage the last hit you endured is subtracted from your HP and a red section appears on your health bar representing your previous HP total. This section does not stack (though DoT's appear to make it stack during their effect) and only logs the last hit you took. This red section can be recovered through some Holobyte's (example: Butcher's tool) or by parrying enemy attacks and projectiles.
- There are a few ways to heal other than Medikits, Medigems, etc including collecting a Prism and starting an extraction event.
- Staggering is somewhat counter-intuitive because when an enemies stagger gauge is filled you must then hit them with a Flashtep attack to actually stagger them. This will cause their health bar to glow with a rainbow VFX and the skull will be replaced by a button prompt that you can press to perform an 'execution' on them. This can only seemingly be done once per stagger.

Raziel Paragorne 19 Jan @ 5:12pm

- Refilling your Medkit at a shrine is one-time process, once a single Breaker uses a Shrine to refill their medkit that shrine is now burned and cannot be used again during that cycle either by the same or other Breakers. This *heavily* incentives the party to extract rather than try and refill their Medkits within the Overgrowth.
- The cost of refilling your Medikits in the Overgrowth increases as you burn shrines, The first refill is 5 medigems, second 8, third 12, etc. This becomes very costly very quickly and further incentivises the team to extract and refill their kits in the hub instead.

Raziel Paragorne 19 Jan @ 5:12pm

This is a great guide and much needed at the moment. Love the game but dear lord is it opaque to start with.

I think there's a few less intuitive things that should be added. This is just based on my observations so the dev's or community hopefully can correct me where they're wrong:

- Pickups in general are shared between team members but but used individually. For keys in particular this means that collecting one key can allow access to multiple locked nodes because each Breaker gets their own copy.
- There seems to be a glitch in medigem sharing during multiplayer at the moment. If the Host collects a medigem it is *not* shared with the team, however if a client picks one up it is shared with the team and everyone's count increases. This doesn't seem to be related to distance between players so I assume it is a glitch since it's easily repeatable.

AstraGaloi 18 Jan @ 8:34pm

Don't forget to equip your medkit after purchase!

ChubbiChibbai 18 Jan @ 8:23pm

Thanks @DOOMnoodle.
That is indeed some useful advice.

D00mnoodle 17 Jan @ 5:26pm

If anone reads this please take this advice, you don't have to kill crowns on your first run. It's perfectly fine to do a few extractions while you find synergistic holo's, farm meds and improve your gear. I highly recommend checking the blacksmith and gun merchant for purple weapons as these make a huge difference. Upgrading them will make seemingly impossible challenges such as crowns into addictively fun fights. I went from dying within my first 5 minutes each run in my first hours to killing my first crown solo today. And i'm not good at games, just keep at it and don't give up :)

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