End of Abyss Weapon Upgrades: What to Buy First With Fragments

Fragments are only half of a weapon upgrade bill. The other half is complex alloy and other materials you have to find in the world, which is why a save file can be stuffed with Fragments and still refuse to buy anything. Spend at a Workbench inside a Save Room, buy the Pulse Gun and the one secondary you actually carry first, and leave everything else until the game shows you which guns you use.

• Defeated enemies drop Fragments, and they are abundant enough that IGN treated the surplus as a design problem.
• Enemies respawn every time you save, so Fragments are farmable. Complex alloy is not something the same kills hand you.
• Upgrades only happen at a Workbench, one per Save Room, and the first Workbench you meet is switched off.
• Two achievements watch this line: Power Up at 2% of players, Super Power at 0.1%.

Why fragments pile up while upgrades stay locked

GamingTrend's reviewer summed the economy up in one paragraph. Enemies drop fragments, fragments buy weapon upgrades and crafting, and "weapons also require complex alloys and other materials to upgrade." Fragments are plentiful, enemies respawn when you save, and the reviewer still "always had more than enough fragments for anything I needed to craft or upgrade."

That paragraph is the problem in miniature. Fragments are the currency; complex alloy is the gate. You can farm the currency indefinitely without ever touching the gate, which is the state most players hit a couple of Save Rooms in: a full counter and a greyed-out purchase. It is also why IGN argued the surplus devalues exploration — the currency meant to reward a new weapon turns up five rooms later in every direction, while the thing blocking you sits in a room you have not entered. So the answer is not to hoard Fragments. It is to know which upgrades are worth chasing alloy for.

What an upgrade actually gives you

Two things, per the same GamingTrend review: more damage, and alternate firing methods, "such as a charged shot." A tier is therefore not a flat damage bump. Later tiers can change how the gun fires instead of only how hard it lands, and that is the part worth planning around, because an alternate fire mode is the difference between a gun you shoot on reflex and a gun you pick for one specific fight.

Two rules shape everything after that. You carry two weapons at once and swap on the fly, so an upgrade only pays out if that weapon is one of the two you brought — the full weapon list has all six. And the Pulse Gun, the starting weapon, never runs dry, which makes it your safety net rather than a dead slot.

Where upgrades happen, and the one that looks broken

Only at a Workbench. Safe rooms hold a Restoration Pod and a Workbench: the pod restores health, refills Health Booster charges and handles Suit Mods, while the Workbench upgrades your arsenal and crafts ammo. GameRant's walkthrough confirms a Workbench sits in every Save Room and flags the trap — the first one, in the Habitation Sector, is inactive when you arrive. That is why the early game feels broken: you can stand at the station and have nothing happen, then come back after the area opens.

Shacknews adds why these feel like decisions rather than errands: the same rooms are the only place you can manually save, so a purchase made right before a boss attempt is a purchase made against a save you may want to reload anyway. Batching upgrades between rooms costs nothing.

The Suit Mod side of the pod runs on its own progression and its own collectibles, covered separately in Suit Power and Suit Mods. This page only covers the damage line.

What to upgrade first

1. Pulse Gun. No ammo constraint, and the gun you draw when a room turns bad. Upgrading it improves every fight you were going to have anyway.
2. Your carried secondary. Not the most impressive weapon you own — the one on your other slot. If you genuinely swap between the shotgun and the rifle, split tiers between them instead of finishing one; if you have settled, pour everything into it.
3. Everything else, last. Both Shacknews and GamingTrend describe the ammo-fed guns as weapons to hold back for dire situations. Upgrading a gun you fire three times per area buys you very little.

There is a hard argument for leaving third place on the shelf. There is no New Game+, and while death itself costs nothing, consumables such as ammo and explosives used before a death are not replenished. An upgrade that clears a room in four shots instead of eight is ammunition you never craft again.

Weapons to leave alone until later

The three guns you should not spend alloy on early are the three progression hands you late or leaves entirely optional. Check the boss guide for what sits behind each keycard, and the shuttle station list for whether you can reach a Save Room quickly between attempts.

The two achievements that track weapon upgrades

Those rates are the live figures Epic publishes, read on 2026-10-03, three days into the launch build.

Official source: End of Abyss Achievements — Epic Games Store

Super Power at 0.1% sits in the same rarity band as Fully Suited Up on the suit line, which makes a complete weapon sweep a post-game project rather than a checklist item, and every trophy can be earned after the credits. The wider rarity picture is in Trophies and Achievements.

What is not documented anywhere

Checked against the launch build on 2026-10-03, and better said plainly than guessed. No official page, review or guide I could verify publishes the Fragments or complex alloy price of any weapon tier. Nothing verified gives before-and-after damage for a tier, so any claim about which tier crosses a threshold is unsourced. And complex alloy is named in exactly one review I could verify, with no verified source listing where it appears.

If the numbers on your screen disagree with this page, the screen wins: costs and drop rates are exactly what a patch moves, and this game shipped a fix one day after launch. While you are backtracking for materials, the beginner guide covers what the first hour should look like. Note also that PC is Epic Games Store only — there is no Steam build to compare against.

FAQ

Why can't I buy the upgrade when I clearly have enough Fragments? Fragments are one input, not the whole price. Weapon tiers also consume complex alloy and other materials that come from the world rather than from the enemies you farm for Fragments. Read the full cost line at the Workbench before you leave.

Should I farm Fragments? You can. Enemies respawn when you save, and saving happens in safe rooms. But the surplus is already the thing IGN complained about, so farm toward a specific tier rather than building a stockpile.

Does dying take my Fragments away? There is no penalty for death, but consumables such as ammo and explosives used before you died are not replenished. Fragments you already spent are not refunded either.

Is End of Abyss on Steam? No. It launched on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and the PC version is Epic Games Store exclusive.

Related Guides

• End of Abyss Weapons: All 6 Guns, Locations and Ammo Rules — where each gun sits and why ammo decides the pairing.
• End of Abyss Suit Power and Suit Mods — the other progression line, Energy Cells and mod slots.
• End of Abyss Trophies and Achievements — the rarest unlocks ranked by real completion rates.
• End of Abyss Bosses: All 7 Named Bosses — what each boss guards and which keycard it drops.
• End of Abyss Fast Travel Shuttle Stations — the seven stations and which areas still need walking.