How to upgrade weapons and armor in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Upgrading your armor and weapons sounds like keeping your steel sharp in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but it’s really about keeping your wits sharp. While you’ll constantly be getting new gear, upgrading your weapons and armor is how you’ll ensure your favorites maintain an appropriately powerful level.

You won’t, however, be able to upgrade anything until after you’ve finished the “Way of the Blacksmith” quest and built the Forge at your Hideout.

Our Assassin’s Creed Shadows guide will tell you how to upgrade your armor and weapons.

How to upgrade gear in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

As part of setting up your Hideout at Tomiko’s Homestead, you’ll have to find Heiji and build the Forge. Once you’ve placed it, you can visit Heiji and start upgrading.

Upgrading your gear requires resources and mon. You can upgrade weapons and armor one level at a time or hit the right trigger to upgrade something multiple levels at once. You can only upgrade gear to your current level and the max level allowed by upgrading the Forge (more on this below).

In the upgrade menu at the Forge, you’ll be able to see the new stats for the upgraded gear on the right. You cannot, however, compare it to what you’ve currently got equipped, so it’s best to make sure you’ve picked out your gear before you go into the menu (it’s a pain to back out, swap out your gear, and talk to Heiji over and over).

How to upgrade armor in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Upgrading armor requires mon and resources that you’ll collect from chests or as rewards for completing contracts at a kakurega. You can also get extra materials by dismantling gear at the Forge.

To upgrade armor, you’ll need:

• Hemp cloth for Naoe’s armor
• Leather for Yasuke’s armor
• Silk for trinkets and amulets

How to upgrade weapons in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Upgrading your weapons requires mon and the same class of resources you used above — the stuff you get from chests, contracts, and dismantling gear at the Forge.

To upgrade weapons, you’ll need:

• Ironsand for Naoe’s weapons
• Tamahagane for Yasuke’s melee weapons
• Oakwood for Yasuke’s ranged weapons

How to add perks to gear in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Beyond just improving your gear’s stats, you can also engrave perks onto anything of rare rarity or better. On that gear, you’ll see a second perk slot that says “Visit the Hideout’s blacksmith to engrave a perk.”

These engravings vary widely and cover everything from extra damage at night to adding armor piercing to just increasing damage. Perks cost mon to engrave, and you’ll find new perks in chests out in the world or you can purchase them from gear merchants. Perks are not consumed when they’re engraved, so you can use them multiple times.

Heiji’s ability to engrave perks unlocks with the second upgrade (350 crops, 260 wood, 90 minerals) to the Forge. But before you drop all those resources, though…

Don’t upgrade your Forge (right away) in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

At the first level, the Forge lets Heiji can upgrade gear up to level 20. That will probably last you 15 hours or more since you can’t wield anything higher than your current level. With the second upgrade (350 crops, 260 wood, 90 minerals), that jumps to level 40.

That said, you’ll be changing gear constantly — especially early on — so you can probably hold off on upgrading the Forge until you’re closer to level 20.

To get the most out of your home base in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, we have explainers on how to unlock the Zashiki and Tea Room, and how to get pets. Or see our lists of all armor and all weapons.