• Guide

How to upgrade weapons and armor - Assassin's Creed Shadows

If you find a weapon with perks that you love, you can upgrade it in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Aidan O'Brien

March 19, 2025 9:55 AM

Ubisoft

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Finding the perfect weapon in a modern video game is bittersweet, as you know that eventually, you will grow beyond it and move on to something else. At least in Assassin's Creed Shadows, you can upgrade your weapons a bit to make them stand up to the challenges that you will face for longer.

How to upgrade weapons and armor - Assassin's Creed Shadows

Weapons and armor can be upgraded after you find Heiji in Sakai, send him back to home base, and then return there yourself and build him a forge. Once that building has been constructed, you can visit him and take advantage of his skills. 

The main rule to keep in mind when upgrading is that you can only upgrade a weapon to match your level; each level you upgrade an item will give it a further increase across all stats. So, if you are level 10 and have a left 9 Katana, you can upgrade it one level. If you are level 10 with a level 5 Katana, you can upgrade it five levels.

There will also be a limit on what level Heiji can upgrade you to, so you will need to build upgrades to this forge to push that level higher and higher. You can do that from the small model of the hideout in the main building. Just hover over the forge on the map of the hideout, then select upgrade, and as long as you have the relevant resources, you can upgrade it to the next level. 

The resources you need for upgrading will vary, depending on what item you are looking to upgrade:

• Headgear - Hemp Cloth and Mon
• Katana - Ironsand and Mon
• Kusarigama - Ironsand and Mon
• Trinket - Silk and Mon
• Armor - Hemp Cloth and Mon

If you want to, you can use the Dismantle option to break down weapons and gear, gaining the relevant resources that you need to upgrade them. You will likely collect a lot of weapons and armor in the game, so don't be afraid to break them down unless they have solid stat combinations that you like.

You can also get Hemp Cloth, Iron Sand, Silk, and other resources by completing quests, looting crates, and finishing contracts that you can collect at the Kakurega camps spread throughout the game. 

For more Assassin's Creed guides and news, be sure to check out our Assassin's Creed Shadows page.

Aidan O'Brien

Contributing Guides Editor

Hailing from Ireland, Aidan has been conditioned by local weather conditions to survive hours at his PC grinding through whatever game is offering the lowest possible drop rates for loot. He thinks the easiest way to figure out what fans of games want to read is to just be a fan of games. You can normally find him logged into Warframe, Destiny, or a gacha game. You can reach out to him on X @scannerbarkly.