In Vanquish there are two ways to upgrade your weapons. The first and easiest way is to get an upgrade chip. When you get one of these chips, your equiped weapon will gain one level.


You will know it gained a level when the badge over the weapon gets a star. However, neither of your grenades can be upgraded using these chips.

The next way to upgrade your weapons is by picking up the same weapon or grenade that you already have equiped AND if that weapon or grenade are at full ammo. This will give you one chevron (stripe on a badge). If you are able to get three of these your weapon will gain a level and you will get a star on the badge. The grenades will only gain a chevron when they are currently equiped. So switch to the appropriate grenade before picking them up.



Note: This is the only way to level up your grenades. Also, if you get an upgrade chip and the weapon already has a chevron or two, you will retain those chevrons.

When you die all of your equiped weapons lose one chevron. This only affects your first death on a single mission. Additional deaths will not dock your weapons any further even if you equip a new weapon.

As mentioned before, the only way to get a chevron for your weapon is to have max ammo in the gun that you want to grant a chevron too. So, what if you have fired your weapon but there is another on the ground and you want to upgrade your weapon? You pick it up but you didnt get a chevron but now your ammo is full. Well heres how to avoid that.

Lets say that you have fired your Assault Rifle and you come across an Assault Rifle in a box.

First look for another weapon that you don't currently have in your inventory. Lets say that there is a Rocket Launcher near by. Replace your Assualt Rifle with the Rocket Launcher. Now go back to the assault rifle in the box and replace the Rocket Launcher with the Assault Rifle. Now you have an Assault Rifle with max ammo and it still retains all previous chevrons. Now go back to the Assault Rifle you dropped and pick it up. You gained a chevron.

Unfortunately, there is no way to do this with your grenades and they only gain a chevron when full. So if you use a grenade and there are some out in the field to get. Its better to use all of them first before picking up more.

Now lets say you died but you don't want to lose your progress on your weapons. All you have to do is to choose to go back to the title screen instead of back at the checkpoint. Once you return to your game it wont count as a death and you will start at the same spot as if you selected checkpoint. (This also helps you get the no death achievement.)

Assault Rifle
Infantry automatic rifle with standard power, rate of fire, and recoil performance. These aspects can all be upgraded via an upgrade chip.



Heavy Machine Gun
A heavy machine gun that trade strong recoil for high fire power. Upgrading its scatter makes this weapon incredibly reliable.



Shotgun
Boasts incredible power at close range, but also a slow rate of fire. Upgrading magazine capacity and rate of fire will increase effectiveness.

Sniper Rifle
A sharpshooter's rifle witha high pwered scope. Upgrading this weapon will increase its accuracy.


Disk Launcher
Weapon modified to fire spinning disks constructed of carbon nanotubes. The spinning disk can be used as an effective weaopon even with out firing.


Rocket Launcher
A rocket launcher that can lock onto a target and fire a rocket-powered guided missile.

Lock-On Laser
An optical weapon system that can track and engage multiple targets simultaneously. Targeting systems can be upgraded to increase targets.


LFE Gun
A low frequency energy weapon with penetrative abilities, it has limited rate of fire and range.

Hand Grenade
A modified Mk II fragmentation grenade for use in low-gravity space environments. Especially effective against targets behind cover.


EMP Emitter
Emits an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts the motor and control systems of nearby R.I.s, rendering them temporarily immobile.

These weapons are included in the base game on PC. But on PS3/X360 they were DLC.

Boost Machine Gun
A large bore HMG with impressive overall firepower and rate of fire, this weapon is limited by its mageazine capacity.


Laser Cannon
A portable laser cannon made possible only by pairing it with the ARS. Firing for short durations, it boasts battleship-class destructive power.


Anit-Armor Pistol
A hand cannon that fires a special penetrative shell. Can be upgraded for further power and total round capacity.