Remnant From the Ashes Crafting: A Complete Upgrade Guide

The only way to get your hands on the best weapons and abilities in Remnant: From the Ashes is through crafting. And you’ll need to beat the game’s many bosses for crafting materials, then wander its wastelands for upgrade items. That’s where this complete crafting guide comes in handy. 

This Remnant: From the Ashes crafting guide will tell you where to find everything you need to make your weapons, armor, and abilities better. Beating bosses is its own challenge, and part of the experience.

How to Upgrade Your Equipment in Remnant

So how do you upgrade your equipment? You need to visit Rigs in Ward 13. You’ll meet Rigs as part of the tutorial, but if you’ve forgotten, he is east of the large red crystal in Ward 13, the hub area. It doesn’t matter what kind of weapon or armor you have: if you’ve got the crafting mats, Rigs can enhance the item for you.

What Crafting Resources Do What and Where to Find Them

Every piece of gear in Remnant: From The Ashes uses the same upgrade material: varying types of Iron.

Boss weapons use Iron and its variants as well, though you’ll also need a special material called Lumenite Crystals to enhance those. This resource is most often dropped from elite enemies, though they can be purchased from Ace. 

When you first start the story campaign — and until you have a few pieces of +5 gear — you will only find basic Iron. This is because the game randomly generates areas and scales the difficultly of each area to your current gear score and character level.

Every time you load into a new dungeon or world space, Remnant automatically randomizes its layout and adjusts the damage-dealing capabilities and health of enemies accordingly.

It also places loot around the newly created map based on the upgrade level of your gear, only adding in better materials and crafting resources as your equipment increases in level.

The five upgrade items and their level breakpoints are as follows:

• Iron: Used to improve to +5.
  • This item looks like brown hunks of metal haphazardly stacked.
• Forged Iron: Used to improve to +10.
  • This item looks like a small group of rusted plates of Iron with holes in them.
• Galvanized Iron: Used to improve to +15.
  • This item looks like large blue-silver scraps of metal in a pile.
• Hardened Iron: Used to improve to +19.
  • This item looks like a large hunk of cream-white colored metal with a few smaller bars of similar metal.
• Simulacrum: Used to improve to +20.
  • This item looks like a tri-pronged crystal that glows with a red light.

It’s worth noting that unlike the other materials, Simulacra spawns are tied to planets, with a hard limit of one spawn per planet. You will need to be on the lookout, as if you miss it, it’s gone.

To create a new version of the planet, you need to reset the campaign for a guaranteed drop. Adventures have a high chance for one, but it’s not a sure thing. There’s also an incredibly small chance the NPC Ace will sell it.

Crafting Boss Weapons

How do you craft boss weapons? You’ll need to visit McGabe to craft the weapons. She is in the workshop right next to Rigs.

Every boss you kill will drop an item only they possess, and these special crafting materials allow you to create a weapon or mod based on that boss’s abilities. You’ll also need Lumenite Crystals for crafting these boss soul weapons. 

Below is a complete list of all the boss items and the weapon they’ll let you create.

• Ancient Core (Use the Control Rod found by breaking the Houndmaster’s Horn to activate and kill the Ancient Construct on Rhom)
  • Crafts the Iron Sentinel weapon mod, which creates a fully-automatic gun turret minion that shoots at anything it can see.
• Barbed Sinew (Barbed Terror)
  • Used to create the Unstable Quills weapon mod, which fires 12 Corrosive damage quills you can remote detonate to deal AoE damage. Can also be overcharged to increase the damage.
• Black Tear (Shade and Shatter dual boss fight)
  • Used to craft the Veil of the Black Tear weapon mod, which generates an energy shield around one or more players.
• Blink Spear Shard (Onslaught):
  • Creates the Blink Token weapon mod, which teleports the caster forward and generates an electrical explosion that deals AoE shock damage.
• Blazing Heart (Singe):
  • Used to craft the Spitfire Hand Gun, a flamethrower.
• Crystalline Plasma (Iskal Queen from Swamps of Corsus)
  • Creates the Pride of Iskal Hand Gun, which comes with the Vampiric weapon mod, firing four beetles that attach to enemies. It drains their health and returns to heal the caster.
• Displacement Crystal (Riphide):
  • Creates the Flicker Cloak weapon mod, which generates a shield around the caster that absorbs damage and prevents stagger.
• Dragon Links (Signe by breaking his tail)
  • Used to create Smolder, a fast-swinging Fire elemental sword.
• Dreamer’s Mana (Nightmare)
  • Creates the Repulsor Long Gun, with an attached weapon mod called Banish, which banishes enemies to another dimension for a short time. When they return, they take 1.5x the damage for a brief period.
• Flesh Barb (Gorefist)
  • Used to create the Mantle of Thorns weapon mod, which reduces melee damage taken and reflects incoming melee damage, plus a stagger effect.
• Glacial Scepter (Ikro the Ice Conjurer in Subject 2923)
  • Creates the Blizzard weapon mod, which casts a cloud that travels forward, raining Frostbite damaging icicles down on enemies in its path.
• Guardian Tentacle (Ixillis by killing both in quick succession)
  • Creates the Guardian Axe melee weapon capable of quick flurries of attacks, with charged attacks hitting multiple times for massive damage.
• Hardened Carapace (The Skettering temple world event on Corsus)
  • Allows the purchase of the Carapace Armor Set from the Mar’Gosh merchant, but you can only talk to it if you have the Parasite status effect from the Iskal Infector present in the event. 
• Hammerhead’s Ore (The Unclean One by going to the basement of the arena before the boss fight begins and hiding in a pot)
  • Creates the Butcher’s Flail melee weapon, which deals corrosive damage and benefits from slow, charged attacks.
• Hivestone (Ixillis)
  • Used to craft the Hive Cannon Hand Gun, which deals corrosive AoE damage and has an unremovable weapon mod that fires a hive projectile dealing 20 damage on hit with another AoE effect.
• Hollow Seed (The Mangler)
  • Used to craft the Seed Caller weapon mod, which summons up to two Root Hollow minions that wander near enemies and attack.
• Hound Choker (Maul)
  • Used to craft the Howler’s Immunity weapon mod, which creates a stationary aura that reduces damage to any standing inside it.
• Iskal Husk (Iskal Queen in Swamps of Corsus by dropping a pillar on her head once she jumps into the arena)
  • Creates the Seeker weapon mod, which generates up to three Beetle minions that follow enemies and explode, dealing corrosive damage.
• Jackal’s Ivory (Erfor, the Jackal in Subject 2923)
  • Creates the Cold Spear weapon mod. Fires an icicle that deals Frost damage and freezes enemies on contact.
• Kin Caller’s Bell (The Warden)
  • Creates the Song of Swords weapon mod, which creates a wide damage debuff aura around the player.
• Luminous Gland (Dream Eater in Swamps of Corsus)
  • Creates the Rift Walker weapon mod. Generates a small rift at the casting point that creates clones of the player that draw aggro in a short-range, makes the caster invulnerable, and the clone explodes when leaving the rift.
• Orbyk’s Bracelet (Obryk, the Shield Warden, Subject 2923)
  • Creates the Frozen Mist weapon mod, which sends out a Frost-damage projectile that, on hit, explodes into a Frost cloud that damages everything inside it, player included.
• Radioactive Skull (Scourge)
  • Creates the Breath of the Desert weapon mod, which shoots out seven radioactive, heat-seeking projectiles.
• Root Neoplasm (Harsgaard, Root Harbinger in Subject 2923)
  • Creates the World’s Edge melee weapon.
• Sentinel Shard (Raze)
  • Creates the Beckon weapon mod, which summons up to two Wasteland Skull minions that shoot projectiles.
• Shadewood (Shroud)
  • Creates the Rattle Weed weapon mod, which generates a Rattle Weed that aggros enemies in a 10-meter radius.
• Shrapnel Shard (Brabus)
  • Creates the Explosive Shot weapon mod, which allows your gun to shoot bullets that explode.
• Silver Fragment (Tian, the Assassin in Subject 2923)
  • Creates the Fan of Knives weapon mod, which sends out a flurry of knives that applies bleed damage over time.
• Spore Gland (The Ent)
  • Creates the Sporebloom Long Gun, a one-shot shotgun that deals Rot damage. Comes with an unremovable weapon mod called Spore Shot that deals massive Rot damage and leaves a damaging cloud behind.
• Stalker’s Claw (Pacify The Ravager boss using a Lullaby at the entrance to his boss arena. The bells are 1-5 from left to right. The Lullaby order is 5-1-5-1-2-3-4-1)
  • Creates the Scar of the Jungle God melee weapon, a set of energy claws with fast attacks.
• Steel of Agony (Brudvaak, the Rider and Vargr, the Warg in Subject 2923)
  • Creates the Chain Blade melee weapon, an extendable bladed chain for use with charge attacks. 
• Stone of the Guardian (Claviger if he absorbs a minion)
  • Used to create the World Breaker melee weapon, which creates an area of effect explosion when you use its ability.
• Storm Crystal (Stormcaller)
  • Creates the Stormcaller weapon mod, which generates a large lightning storm around the caster dealing Shock damage and reducing incoming damage to the player.
• Swarm Tusk (The Thrall)
  • Creates the Swarm weapon mod, which sends out a swarm of insects that seek enemies within a large radius, dealing Corrosive damage.
• Tempest Heartstring (Totem Father if the totem outside the arena is red)
  • Used to craft the Voice of the Tempest melee weapon, a fast-attacking spear with a chance to cause the Overloaded effect.
• Tentacle Pod (The Ravager)
  • Creates the Curse of the Jungle God Hand Gun, a fully automatic weapon with a mod that creates a Shock damage tentacle wherever the shot lands. The tentacle attacks whatever comes near it.
• Thermal Geode (The Harrow)
  • Used to create the Defiler Hand Gun, which can fire six Radioactive orbs that heat-seek.
• Twisted Heart (The Ent if you kill it after breaking its legs)
  • Creates the Petrifying Maul, a Rot damage-dealing sledgehammer that generates a small AoE on slam.
• Unclean Heart (The Unclean One)
  • Creates the Devastator Long Gun, a crossbow with high precision damage and critical chance.
• The Undying Heart (The Undying King)
  • Used to create the Ruin Long Gun, which allows you to revive once on death, followed by a five-minute ability cooldown. 
• Void Silver (Claviger without allowing him to absorb a minion)
  • Used to create the Particle Accelerator Long Gun, a single-shot rifle that can send out a black hole that explodes after a short time of pulling enemies towards its center.
• Zephyr’s Conduit (Sear and Scald)
  • Used to create the Wildfire Shot weapon mod, which generates arcing fireballs that ignite targets and deals Burning damage over time.

That’s everything you need to know about crafting and upgrading in Remnant: From the Ashes and its DLCs, The Swamps of Corsus and Subject 2923. There are a huge number of builds possible with just a few weapons, mods, and gear pieces on offer, but spend enough time in the worlds, and you can do wondrous things. Check out our Remnant guides hub for even more.