Five gear slots and seven rarities from Common to Prismatic. Collect boss sets and continent sets, roll unique abilities, enhance to +10, combine duplicates, and hope for a mutation.
Equipment
Your virus wears five pieces of gear. Each slot is named for a real part of a virus particle and works like a classic RPG equipment slot. Every virus in your lineage shares one loadout and one bag, so gear carries over whichever virus a generation becomes, and you keep it when you die.
The protein shell around the genome, worn as your helmet. It leans toward survival, stealth and ability charge.
The lipid membrane a virus steals from its host, worn as body armor. It's the main defensive slot.
The protein layer lining the envelope, worn as leg armor. It mixes movement with toughness.
Long gripping fibers, worn as the virus's boots. It's the movement and stealth slot.
The receptor-grabbing spike, worn as your weapon. It's the offense slot.
Loot tiers
Gear comes in seven tiers, from white Common to rainbow Prismatic. Higher tiers roll more stats, class-ability bonuses and unique abilities, and every roll is stronger. A tier can only drop once you've reached its organ, but combining two pieces can reach one tier beyond that.
The basic tier, found from the very first organ.
Two stats and a little more strength per roll.
The first tier with a class-ability bonus.
Four stats and two ability bonuses. Finding one plays a special rare-loot sound.
The first tier with a unique ability. A pillar of light marks it on the floor.
Six stats, three ability bonuses and two unique abilities.
The top tier: it rolls every stat its slot can carry and cycles through rainbow colours everywhere it's shown.
Rolls
A piece rolls as many stats as its tier allows (1 on Common, up to all 7 of its slot's on Prismatic). Each value lands within 20% of a base, times the tier's roll strength, then grows with enhancing, item level and mutations. The same stat on several pieces adds up, then applies once. Typical values below are before enhancing.
Shown as '+N% max HP'.
Shown as '+N% damage'.
Shown as '+N% move speed'.
Shown as '+N% fire rate'.
Shown as '+N% ultimate charge'.
Charges your signature ability faster. Shown as '+N% Shift charge', or 'Latency charge' for Retrovirus.
Shown as '−N% damage taken'.
Shown as 'Auto-attacks heal N% of their damage'.
Shown as 'Regenerate N HP/s'.
Shown as '+N% pickup range'.
Extra damage on hits against cells that haven't noticed you yet. Shown as '+N% ambush damage'.
Shown as 'Detection rises N% slower'.
Shown as 'N% chance to deal double damage'.
Class synergy
From Rare up, gear rolls bonuses to your class's abilities: 1 on Rare, 2 on Epic and Legendary, 3 on Mythic and Prismatic. Any piece also gains one when enhanced to +5. The same roll does something different for each virus, so a piece adapts to whichever virus wears it. The examples are typical values for an average Rare roll and an average Prismatic roll, before enhancing.
Sharpens your class's signature trick.
Boosts your Shift-style special ability.
Makes your ultimate hit harder.
Widens your ultimate for every virus.
Makes your infections, allies or bleeds last or hurt more.
Signature effects
Eight signature effects. They roll on Legendary (1), Mythic (2) and Prismatic (3) gear, and a Bonus ability mutation can add one to a piece of any tier. Uniques show in orange on the piece.
Dying cells burst and hurt their neighbours.
Cells that touch you take 20 damage.
+1 projectile on every shot.
Block the first hit in every room.
Start each run with Shift (Latency for Retrovirus) and your ultimate charged.
Auto-attacks heal 1% of their damage.
Immune cells see 40% less far.
Fire 20% faster.
Named loot
Every organ boss always drops one named piece of its own five-piece set. Set bonuses unlock at 3, 4 and 5 pieces worn and stack, so a full set has all three. A boss piece is the organ's best tier 40% of the time, one tier below 45% of the time and two below 15% of the time. Set pieces wear an outline and dot in their set's colour, and the Loadout shows how many of each set you wear.
The Mast Cell's set, built for raw firepower.
The Alveolar Macrophage's set, built for toughness.
The Plasma Cell's set, built around your ultimate.
The Follicular Helper T Cell's set, built for stealth and ambushes.
The Paneth Cell's set, built to tank and punish contact.
The Kupffer Cell's set, built for rate of fire.
The Hematopoietic Stem Cell's set, built for sustain.
The Microglia's set, built for critical hits and burst damage.
Pandemic Game Mode exclusives
Nine sets you can't get anywhere else. Infect every city on a continent in Pandemic Game Mode and that continent's full five-piece set arrives at Legendary, along with 8 RNA strands. Its item level is 20 plus 6 for each continent you've infected. Infect the whole world for the Prismatic Pandemic Crown set and 25 RNA strands.
North America's set: more loot, more shots, more damage.
Europe's set: stealthy and deadly.
Asia's set: fast, far-flying shots.
The Middle East's set: reach and mobility.
South America's set: health, regeneration, then firepower.
Africa's set: speed and healing on kills.
Oceania's set: armor, thorns and lifesteal.
Antarctica's set: slowed enemies and a faster ultimate.
The reward for infecting the entire world: a full Prismatic set with the strongest bonuses in the game.
Loot sources
Gear drops from cells, Killer T cells, chests, bosses and more. Walk over a drop to pick it up: it floats with a 'GEAR LV' tag in its rarity colour, and anything you leave behind is still there when you come back to the room. Pieces go straight into your bag, so you keep them even if the run ends in death. Rarity odds below are before the organ cap.
Any immune cell you kill has a small chance to drop a piece.
Tiered elite cells drop gear far more often. Orange elites usually drop a piece and red elites always do.
About 1 in 5 Killer T cells drops a piece, at much better odds.
Walk into a vesicle chest to burst it open. 40% of them hold a gear piece.
Every organ boss drops one named piece of its set, every time.
The guardians that hold each organ's gene have a 35% chance to drop a piece.
Eliminating a rival virus always drops gear. The rival's tier and how many generations it has survived decide how good the piece is.
Clearing an Endless set always pays a gear piece, with more on every third set and on boss sets.
Hard, Elite and Legendary challenges each pay a random gear piece for the virus you're playing.
Taking cities, continents and the world pays gear you can't get anywhere else.
Nothing drops above the best tier the current organ allows. A piece that would is rerolled at the cap.
Every piece has an item level (shown as Lv). It's higher the deeper and more dangerous the place it dropped.
Upgrading
Spend enhancement materials to raise a piece from +0 to +10. Each level makes all of its stats and ability bonuses 8% stronger. +3 and +5 add extra rolls, and every enhance has a chance to mutate the piece. There's no level requirement, only the materials.
Each level adds 8% power to everything on the piece, up to +80% at +10.
Reaching +3 adds a bonus stat: one its slot can carry that the piece doesn't have yet.
Reaching +5 adds a class-ability bonus the piece doesn't have yet, even on Common and Uncommon pieces that can't normally roll one.
Base material costs for each level, for a Common piece at item level 1.
Rarer and higher-level pieces cost more to push further.
Fusion
Fuse two pieces of the same slot and tier into one piece of the next tier up. You choose exactly what the new piece keeps. Combining can make a tier one above anything that drops yet, so it's the only way to get gear ahead of your furthest organ.
Two pieces of the same slot (Capsid with Capsid, and so on) and the same tier become one piece of the next tier.
The combine sheet lists every stat, ability bonus and unique the two pieces could pass on, already scaled to the new tier. You tick the ones to keep.
If one piece belongs to a set, the result keeps it. If the two belong to different sets, you pick one, or no set.
You can carry one mutation from either parent onto the result, and every combine can roll a new one.
Costs at item level 1, rising 3% per average item level above 1.
Combining to a tier opens at the organ where the tier below it starts dropping.
Happy accidents
Combining (18%) and enhancing (8%) can mutate a piece. Each mutation a piece already carries halves the chance of another. A mutation is either Amplified (bigger numbers) or a Bonus ability (an extra unique), 50/50. Mutated pieces carry a pink atom badge, with ×N when they have several.
Every stat and ability bonus on the piece becomes 25% stronger.
Every stat and ability bonus on the piece becomes 35% stronger.
Every stat and ability bonus on the piece becomes 50% stronger.
Every stat and ability bonus on the piece becomes 75% stronger.
Adds one of the 8 unique abilities the piece doesn't already have, even to a Common.
The chance halves for every mutation a piece already carries.
Managing loot
The Gear screen opens from the main menu once you've finished a run. The Loadout is on the left, the bag (grouped by slot, best first) in the middle, and the inspected piece with Equip, Enhance, Combine and Dismantle on the right. Spare gear breaks down into nucleotides.
Break a spare piece down for nucleotides and some materials back. It can't be undone.
Tap Select, tick pieces (or All), then dismantle them all at once.
'Dismantle…' breaks down every unequipped piece of a tier and below: Common, Uncommon, Rare or Epic.
After a run, everything you found is laid out to inspect, compare with what you wear, equip or dismantle.
One bag holds up to 150 pieces, shared by every virus in your lineage.
Each icon shows the piece's state at a glance.
Crafting
Three enhancement materials, each named for a real enzyme a virus depends on, plus the four nucleotides (A, T, C, G) that combining costs and dismantling returns. Tap any resource counter in game to see where it comes from. The same materials also craft run modifiers.
The everyday enhancement material, a fragment of the viral polymerase. Every enhancement level needs some.
Helper proteins that fold other proteins, used at every enhancement level.
The rare material for enhancing from +3 to +10. It only drops in Endless Game Mode.
The game's currency. Combining costs them and dismantling returns them.
Run modifiers are crafted from nucleotides plus these materials, then up to 3 are loaded into a run.
Flavor
Every regular drop gets a hand-written name for its slot and tier: 95 drawn from influenza's history and biology and 95 from the retrovirus's. Influenza A finds the first pool, Retrovirus the second, and Filovirus and Halovirus pieces draw from both. Boss and Pandemic set pieces carry their set's own names.
Helmets named for the flu's segmented core and the great pandemics.
Body armor from lipid wraps to the Aegis of Antigenic Shift.
Leg armor named for the M1 matrix and reassortment.
Boots that ride sneezes, aerosols and bird migrations.
Weapons forged from hemagglutinin and neuraminidase.
Helmets named for the cone-shaped p24 capsid.
Body armor built from stolen membranes and glycan shields.
Leg armor named for the retrovirus's accessory proteins and the provirus.
Boots for cell-to-cell spread and silent travel.
Weapons named for gp120, the CD4 receptor and the retroviral enzymes.
Cosmetics
Skins change how your virus and its effects look, and nothing else. They come only from the Store, never dropped or earned in play. The Store opens on the main menu at Level 3 and has seven categories: Theme sets, Virus, Trail, Shots, Kill Burst, Dash and Aura. Each slot offers 14 looks: the free Original (None for Aura), 12 themes and Prismatic. Skins work on every virus class and show up in your next run.
Replaces your virus's body with the theme's own shape: a styled core, a ring of spikes and a prow that faces where you move.
Your movement trail sheds the theme's own particle shapes in its palette.
A themed projectile shape replaces the plain bolt your virus fires.
Kills burst into the theme's spinning ring and a spray of its particles, in its colours.
Every dash leaves a themed speed streak and two fading afterimages of your body.
A glow around your virus, theme particles drifting off it, three theme shapes orbiting and quick twinkles.
All six pieces of a theme (virus, trail, shots, kill burst, dash and aura, with their particles) together as one set.
Cosmetics
Thirteen themes, each available in all six slots so a full set reads as one look. Every theme has its own body design, colour palette and particle shape.
Bronze and amber stone: a faceted hexagonal core ringed in crystal spikes and needles, led by a battering-ram prow.
Ocean blue: a teardrop core with ripple rings, seven wave-shaped spikes and a fan prow, glowing blue.
Pale storm-white: a round core with a three-arm swirl, six blade spikes and a lance prow.
Deep-sea teal: an octagonal core dotted with lights, bulb-tipped spikes and a fan prow, glowing aqua.
Toxic green: a five-point star core, ten bulb spikes and a horned prow.
Orange-red fire: a triangular swirling core, fin spikes and an arrow prow.
Ice blue: a hexagonal core with spokes, a double ring of crystal spikes and a lance prow.
Blood red: a round ringed core, prong spikes with bulbs between them and a horned prow.
Dark crimson: an octagonal core of nested rings bristling with 16 needles, led by a ram prow.
Indigo and lightning yellow: a six-point star core with twelve spokes, prong spikes and an arrow prow.
Near-black with violet light: a swirling round core bristling with 20 needles and a lance prow.
Gold and white: an eight-point star core with rings, twelve triangle spikes and a fan prow.
Rainbow facets on a hexagonal crystal core with crystal spikes and an arrow prow. Every piece cycles through the rainbow in game.
Next up
Infect, Pandemic and Endless Game Modes, plus the Codex and controls.
