Five gear slots and seven rarities from Common to Prismatic. Collect boss sets and continent sets, roll unique abilities, enhance your favourites, combine duplicates, and hope for a mutation.
Equipment
Your virus wears five pieces of gear, each named after part of a real virus particle. Your whole lineage shares one loadout, kept even through death.
The protein shell around the genome, worn as your helmet. It leans toward survival, stealth and charging your abilities, and the boss set pieces for this slot are Crowns.
The lipid membrane a virus steals from its host, worn as body armor. It's your main defensive slot, with room for a little lifesteal and damage too.
The protein layer lining the envelope, worn as leg armor. It mixes movement with toughness, so it's a good home for speed, armor and health on the same piece.
Long gripping fibers worn as your virus's boots. This is the movement and stealth slot, built for staying unnoticed and setting up ambushes on unaware cells.
The receptor-grabbing spike, worn as your weapon. It's the offense slot, where damage, fire rate, crits and lifesteal all come together on one piece.
Loot tiers
Gear runs from white Common to rainbow Prismatic. Each tier unlocks at a deeper organ, rolls more and stronger stats, and combining can reach one tier ahead.
The basic white tier, found from the very first organ. Common pieces are simple, with no ability bonus or unique, but two of them can combine into an Uncommon right away.
The green tier, dropping from the Lungs. It adds a second stat and makes every roll a little stronger, and combining two Commons gets you one even sooner.
The blue tier, dropping from the Bloodstream. It's the first tier that rolls a class-ability bonus, so your gear starts sharpening the way your virus plays.
The purple tier, dropping from the Gut. Epic pieces carry more stats and more ability bonuses, and finding one plays a special rare-loot sound.
The orange tier, dropping from the Liver. It's the first tier with a unique ability, and a pillar of light marks it on the floor so you never miss one.
The red tier, dropping from the Bone Marrow. Mythic gear stacks even more stats, ability bonuses and unique abilities onto a single piece, with much stronger rolls.
The top tier, dropping from the Brain. A Prismatic piece rolls every stat its slot can carry and cycles through rainbow colours everywhere it's shown.
Rolls
Each piece rolls as many stats as its tier allows. Matching stats across your gear add together, and enhancing, item level and mutations all make them stronger.
A bigger health pool to soak up hits. It rolls on the Capsid, Envelope and Matrix, and higher tiers roll it much larger.
A straight boost to the damage you deal. It rolls on the Spike Protein and Envelope, so your weapon and your armor can both push your hits harder.
Makes your virus move faster. It rolls on the Matrix and Tail Fibers, the two slots built around movement, and grows stronger on higher tiers.
Lets you shoot faster. It rolls on the Spike Protein and Tail Fibers, and pairs nicely with damage and crit for a quicker, harder-hitting weapon.
Fills your ultimate faster, so you can unleash it more often. It rolls on the Spike Protein, Capsid and Envelope, and grows with every tier.
Charges your signature ability faster, shown as Latency charge for Retrovirus. It's the only stat that four slots can roll, which makes it easy to stack.
Cuts the damage you take from every hit. It rolls on the Envelope, Matrix and Tail Fibers, and stacking it across pieces makes your virus noticeably sturdier.
Your auto-attacks heal you for a slice of the damage they deal. It rolls on the Spike Protein and Envelope, and total lifesteal has a firm cap.
Steadily restores health over time. It rolls on the Capsid, Envelope and Matrix, and pairs well with max HP, which rolls on those same slots.
Pulls in drops from farther away, so you spend less time chasing loot around the room. It rolls on the Capsid, Matrix and Tail Fibers.
Extra damage on hits against cells that haven't noticed you yet. It rolls on the Spike Protein, Matrix and Tail Fibers, rewarding a sneaky opening strike.
Makes Detection rise more slowly, helping you stay hidden for longer. It rolls on the Capsid, Envelope and Tail Fibers, with a cap on how far gear can stretch it.
Gives your hits a chance to land a critical hit for extra damage, flashing CRIT on screen. It rolls on the Spike Protein and Capsid.
Class synergy
From Rare up, gear rolls bonuses to your class's abilities. The same roll does something different for each virus, so a piece adapts to whoever wears it.
Sharpens your class's signature trick. Each virus gets its own version, from faster shot rotation for Influenza A to a better bleed chance for Filovirus.
Boosts your Shift-style special ability. Every virus gets a version tuned to its own special, whether that means more bolts, longer effects or harder bleeds.
Makes your ultimate hit harder. Influenza A and Halovirus get a hotter infection burn, while Retrovirus's Integration Surge deals more damage to bosses.
Widens your ultimate so it catches more cells. It works for every virus, making it the one bonus that pays off whichever class wears the piece.
Makes your infections, allies or bleeds last longer or hurt more, depending on which virus wears it. It's all about the damage that keeps on going.
Signature effects
Eight signature effects that roll on Legendary and better gear, shown in orange. A Bonus ability mutation can add one to a piece of any tier.
Cells you kill burst and hurt their neighbours, turning every kill into a small explosion. It's great for clearing tight crowds, though bosses don't burst.
Cells that touch you take damage, so anything that rushes you pays for it. Pieces with it stack, making the barbs hurt even more.
Adds an extra projectile to every shot you fire. It stacks with other pieces that carry it, so a few of them can turn your weapon into a spray.
Blocks the first hit you take in every room. It's a free safety net that forgives one mistake each time you step into a new room.
Starts every run with your Shift ability and your ultimate already charged, or Latency for Retrovirus. You can open the run with your biggest moves.
Your auto-attacks heal you for a bit of the damage they deal. It adds to lifesteal from stats, though total lifesteal is still capped.
Immune cells can't see nearly as far, making it much easier to slip past them or line up an ambush. A natural fit with stealth and ambush gear.
You fire noticeably faster. It stacks with other pieces that have it, so collecting a few can make your weapon fire at a furious pace.
Named loot
Every organ boss drops a named piece of its own five-piece set. Wear more pieces to unlock stacking bonuses, with the best saved for a full set.
The Mast Cell's set from the Nasal Passage, built for raw firepower. Each extra piece adds more damage and more shots, ending in shots that pierce through cells.
The Alveolar Macrophage's set from the Lungs, built for toughness. It piles on health, blocks the first hit in each room, then adds armor and regeneration.
The Plasma Cell's set from the Bloodstream, built around your ultimate. It charges your ultimate faster, has it ready at the start of a run, and finally widens it.
The Follicular Helper T Cell's set from the Lymph Node, built for stealth and ambushes. It keeps you hidden longer, then makes your opening hits far deadlier.
The Paneth Cell's set from the Gut, built to tank hits and punish anything that touches you. Wear it all and you shrug off damage while healing steadily.
The Kupffer Cell's set from the Liver, built for rate of fire. Each step of the set speeds up your shooting, adding faster-flying shots and finally an extra projectile.
The Hematopoietic Stem Cell's set from the Bone Marrow, built for sustain. It heals you as you fight, then rewards a full set with more health and damage.
The Microglia's set from the Brain, built for critical hits and burst damage. It's the deepest boss set, stacking crit chance and ambush power before a big damage boost.
Pandemic Game Mode
Nine sets you can't find anywhere else. Infect a whole continent in Pandemic Game Mode for its full Legendary set, or the world for the Prismatic Pandemic Crown.
North America's set, arriving as a full Legendary set. It brings more loot, then more shots, then a big damage boost when you wear all five pieces.
Europe's set, built to be stealthy and deadly. It slows Detection, sharpens your critical hits and finishes with a heavy damage boost on the full set.
Asia's set, all about fast, far-flying shots. You fire faster, your shots travel faster, and the full set adds an extra projectile with more damage.
The Middle East's set, built for reach and mobility. It greatly extends how far you grab drops, recharges your dashes faster and lets them carry you farther.
South America's set, starting with health and regeneration before turning to firepower. It keeps you alive first, then makes the full set hit harder and faster.
Africa's set, mixing speed with healing on every kill. Wear all five pieces and it caps things off with a big health boost and extra damage.
Oceania's set of armor, thorns and lifesteal. It cuts the damage you take, hurts cells that touch you, and rounds out with lifesteal and regeneration.
Antarctica's set, one of the last continents to open up. It slows enemy cells, charges your ultimate faster, and the full set adds both damage and health.
The reward for infecting the entire world: a full Prismatic set with the strongest bonuses in the game. It blends damage, health, extra shots, stealth, piercing and regeneration.
Loot sources
Gear drops from cells, chests, bosses and more. Walk over a piece to grab it, and it's yours to keep even if the run ends in death.
Any immune cell you kill has a small chance to drop a piece. Most of these finds are Common, with the occasional better one mixed in.
Tiered elite cells drop gear far more often than ordinary ones. Orange elites usually drop a piece, and red elites always do.
Killer T cells only sometimes drop a piece, but when they do the odds lean toward much better tiers than ordinary cells give.
Walk into a vesicle chest to burst it open. Many of them hold a gear piece, and every one spills Polymerase Shards and nucleotides.
Every organ boss drops one named piece of its set, every time. It's often the organ's best tier, and it comes with a haul of enhancement materials.
The guardians that hold each organ's gene have a fair chance to drop a piece. Even without gear, they always pay out Shards and Chaperones.
Eliminating a rival virus always drops gear. The tougher the rival and the more generations it has survived, the better the piece you get.
Clearing a set in Endless Game Mode always pays a gear piece, with bonus pieces every few sets and on boss sets.
Hard, Elite and Legendary challenges each pay a random gear piece for the virus you're playing. Harder challenges pay a higher tier.
In Pandemic Game Mode, taking cities, continents and the world pays gear you can't get anywhere else. Every win also adds RNA and materials.
Nothing drops above the best tier the current organ allows, and a piece that would is rerolled at the cap. Each deeper organ raises the ceiling.
Every piece has an item level, shown as Lv. The deeper and more dangerous the place it dropped, the higher it is, and higher levels make every stat stronger.
Upgrading
Spend enhancement materials to make a piece stronger, one level at a time. Milestones add extra rolls, every enhance might mutate the piece, and there's no level requirement.
Each enhancement level makes everything on the piece stronger, all the way up to its maximum. Costs rise with rarity and item level, and each enhance might mutate it.
Partway up the track, the piece gains a bonus stat it doesn't have yet, rolled at full strength for its tier and marked with an orange star.
The next milestone adds a class-ability bonus the piece doesn't have yet. It even works on Common and Uncommon pieces that can't normally roll one.
Every level costs Polymerase Shards and Chaperones, and the higher levels also need Ribozyme Cores. Each step costs noticeably more than the one before it.
Rarer and higher-level pieces cost more to push further. Maxing out a top-tier Prismatic piece costs far more than maxing out a Common.
Fusion
Fuse two matching pieces into one of the next tier up, choosing exactly what it keeps. It's the only way to get gear ahead of your furthest organ.
Two pieces of the same slot and tier become one piece of the next tier. Equipped pieces can join in, and the result starts fresh with no enhancement.
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 come from different sets, you pick one of them, or no set at all.
You can carry one mutation from either parent onto the result, and every combine also has a chance to roll a brand-new one.
Combining is paid in nucleotides, and each step up the tiers costs much more than the last. Higher item levels raise the price a little too.
Combining to a tier opens at the organ where the tier below it starts dropping. That lets you stay one step ahead of what the organ itself gives you.
Happy accidents
Combining and enhancing can mutate a piece, either Amplified or with a Bonus ability. Each mutation makes another less likely. Look for the pink atom badge.
The mildest Amplified roll, giving every stat and ability bonus on the piece a solid boost. It multiplies with any other Amplified mutations on the same piece.
A step up from the mildest roll, making every stat and ability bonus on the piece noticeably stronger. It stacks with other Amplified mutations too.
A big Amplified roll that makes every stat and ability bonus on the piece much stronger. Land it alongside another Amplified mutation and the boosts compound.
The strongest Amplified roll there is, making every stat and ability bonus on the piece dramatically stronger. Finding one on a good piece is a real jackpot.
Adds one of the eight unique abilities the piece doesn't already have, even to a lowly Common. It's how lower-tier gear gets a unique of its own.
Enhancing and combining can both mutate a piece, and each mutation it already carries makes the next one less likely. Enhancing is how you stack several on one piece.
Managing loot
Open the Gear screen from the main menu after your first run to equip, enhance, combine or dismantle. Spare gear breaks down into nucleotides.
Break a spare piece down for nucleotides and some materials back. Rarer, higher-level and enhanced pieces return more, but it can't be undone.
Tap Select, tick the pieces you want (or All), then dismantle them in one go. The confirmation shows the total nucleotides you'll get before you commit.
'Dismantle…' breaks down every unequipped piece of a chosen tier and below, from Common up to Epic. It's the fastest way to clear out old gear.
After a run, everything you found is laid out to inspect, compare with what you wear, and equip or dismantle on the spot.
One roomy bag holds your pieces, shared by every virus in your lineage. When it fills up, weaker spare gear is dismantled automatically, so you still get its value.
Each icon shows the piece's state at a glance: item level, equipped, enhancement, mutations, set membership and whether you've inspected it yet.
Crafting
Three enhancement materials named for real enzymes viruses rely on, plus the four nucleotides. Tap any resource counter to see where it comes from.
The everyday enhancement material, a fragment of the viral polymerase. Every enhancement level needs some, and it drops from almost everything you fight or open.
Helper proteins that fold other proteins, needed at every enhancement level. They come from tougher foes like Killer T cells, bosses and stronger elites.
The rare material for the upper enhancement levels. It only drops in Endless Game Mode, though each city taken in Pandemic Game Mode also pays one.
The game's currency, in four bases: A, T, C and G. Combining costs them, dismantling returns them, and G is always the scarcest of the bunch.
Run modifiers are crafted from nucleotides plus these materials, then a few can be loaded into each run. Recipes range from cheap basics to pricey ones needing Ribozyme Cores.
Flavor
Every regular drop gets a hand-written name for its slot and tier. Influenza A draws from flu history, Retrovirus from its own, and Filovirus and Halovirus from both.
Helmets named for the flu's segmented core and the great pandemics of history. They climb from humble cracked shells to crowns that honour every strain.
Body armor that runs from thin lipid wraps all the way to the Aegis of Antigenic Shift, with stops for swine flu and wild waterfowl along the way.
Leg armor named for the flu's matrix protein and the way strains mix and reassort. Look for Mixing-Vessel Legplates and Greaves of the Avian Flyway.
Boots that ride sneezes, aerosols and bird migrations around the globe. They start as Drifting Sneeze Treads and end as Prism Wings of Every Migration.
Weapons forged from hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, the flu's own spikes. They grow from a Blunt HA Spike into The Spectrum Hemagglutinin at Prismatic.
Helmets named for the retrovirus's cone-shaped capsid. They run from the Lopsided Capsid and Immature Gag Shell up to the Helm of Endless Latency.
Body armor built from stolen host membranes and glycan shields, the retrovirus's ways of slipping past immunity. Top pieces include the Envelope of the Unseen.
Leg armor named for the retrovirus's accessory proteins and its integrated provirus. Higher tiers bring pieces like the Legplates of Lifelong Latency.
Boots built for spreading from cell to cell and travelling unseen. They range from Shuffling Virion Steps all the way to Boots of the Silent Decade.
Weapons named for the retrovirus's spike, the receptor it grabs and the enzymes it carries. Expect scythes, cleavers and shears as the tiers climb.
Cosmetics
Skins change only looks, never how your virus plays. They come only from the Store, work on every virus and show up 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 wherever you move.
Your movement trail sheds the theme's own particle shapes in its palette, so every move leaves a mark that matches your look.
A themed projectile shape replaces the plain bolt your virus fires, so every shot you take carries your theme across the room.
Kills burst into the theme's spinning ring and a spray of its particles, in its colours. It turns every takedown into a little celebration.
Every dash leaves a themed speed streak and two fading afterimages of your body, so quick moves look as sharp as they feel.
A glow around your virus with theme particles drifting off it, theme shapes orbiting and quick twinkles. It's off by default, so it's pure extra flair.
All six pieces of a theme together as one set: virus, trail, shots, kill burst, dash and aura. Once you own a full set, equip it in one tap.
Theme gallery
Thirteen themes, each available in every slot 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. Rock shards tumble down off it.
Ocean blue: a teardrop core with ripple rings, wave-shaped spikes and a fan prow, all glowing blue. Droplets float upward all around it.
Pale storm-white: a round core with a three-arm swirl, blade spikes and a lance prow. Wisps whirl out from it in every direction.
Deep-sea teal: an octagonal core dotted with lights, bulb-tipped spikes and a fan prow, glowing aqua. Glowing bubbles drift along with it.
Toxic green: a five-point star core, bulb spikes and a horned prow. Spores drift upward off it wherever you go.
Orange-red fire: a triangular swirling core, fin spikes and an arrow prow. Flames rise off it as it moves, giving you a blazing look.
Ice blue: a hexagonal core with spokes, a double ring of crystal spikes and a lance prow. Snowflakes drift gently down around it.
Blood red: a round ringed core with prong spikes, bulbs tucked between them and a horned prow. Blood droplets fall away from it as it moves.
Dark crimson: an octagonal core of nested rings bristling with needles, led by a ram prow. Falling crescents give it an eerie, moonlit feel.
Indigo and lightning yellow: a six-point star core with spokes, prong spikes and an arrow prow. Fast-crackling sparks snap around it like a thunderstorm.
Near-black with violet light: a swirling round core bristling with needles and a lance prow. Dark rings slowly swell around it like a passing eclipse.
Gold and white: an eight-point star core with rings, triangle spikes and a fan prow. Radiating stars stream off it, wrapping you in light.
Rainbow facets on a hexagonal crystal core with crystal spikes and an arrow prow. Every piece cycles through the rainbow in game, shedding rainbow gems.
Next up
Infect, Pandemic and Endless Game Modes, plus the Codex and controls.
