Upgrades in Metal Eden play a key role throughout the gameplay experience. At numerous points in-game, you’ll get to upgrade Aska using an upgrade core, letting you empower her beyond the standard experience. It hasn’t changed much from the early demo preview, though you can check out the entire kit in-game now.
Some will improve her movement, while others will make her stronger to withstand the oncoming challenges. However, you must prioritize the one that helps you in the long run. So, here are five different upgrades in Metal Eden that you should grab early on to even the battlefields.
Five Metal Eden Upgrades To Pick Up Early
Metal Eden comes with 36 different upgrade choices, allowing you to build an Aska that suits your playstyle. As such, here are five skills that you should consider unlocking early on in-game.
1. Combat Focus Mode
The first upgrade is the Combat Focus Mode, and it is one you can unlock early on when you get your first core in the first level of Metal Eden. It lets you briefly slow down time and catch your breath. While your surroundings momentarily slow down, you can look around in real-time and shoot at your opponents.
This skill helps when you want to dodge a volley of attacks or strategize the best ideas to take out numerous enemies. There’s no prerequisite for unlocking Combat Focus Mode, so you can go ahead and unlock this skill whenever you receive your first core update in Metal Eden.
In my case, I started using this skill after receiving the final gun in-game. By that point, the game increases the number of enemies spawned in an arena. So, it specifically helped avoid death by just slowing down, taking out a few of the enemies, and moving on.
2. Core Eruption
Core Eruption empowers the Core Extraction feature, making it more useful. So now, when you extract a core from an enemy in Metal Eden, it explodes the enemy, making a small AOE blast. This is useful when multiple enemy groups gather and rush you in a fight. You can extract the core, dealing AOE damage to the nearby enemy. Alternatively, you can extract the core and throw it back at the group, further dealing explosion damage.
Core Extraction is a feature you will use quite regularly in Metal Eden. We’d even say that it is an essential tool in Aska’s arsenal, and something you won’t be able to ignore. Hence, to further weaponise the one thing you’ll frequently use is a smart choice, and that is where Core Eruption comes in as a saving grace.
3. Ghost Runner
Ghost Runner lets Aska get high movement speed momentarily when a core is consumed. Now, not only can Aska be quick on her feet, she can be elusive during the fights where enemies are numerous and you have to dodge a lot of attacks. This skill requires unlocking the armor reconstruction skill, so you’ll have to get that before you can purchase this skill.
Speed and momentum hold high importance in Metal Eden. You’ll be moving, dodging, and jumping a lot, alongside killing enemies. Hence, this skill should be on your radar. Furthermore, the name of the skill is a nice nod to another fast-paced first-person action game with sci-fi and cyberpunk themes called Ghostrunner.
4. Coremunitions
Coremunitions is another core-reliant skill in this list, letting players once again leverage the system in Metal Eden and make it useful for things like ammo-drop. It lets players receive ammo by throwing the extracted cores towards an opponent. Not only does the player receive ammo from enemies getting hit by the cores, but they also damage them in the process, because throwing a core also explodes it.
Every gun in Metal Eden, outside of the starter gun, uses ammo. These guns, however, use bullets quickly, leaving players with a situation where they can’t use them at a crucial moment. Hence, Coremunitions decreases the chances of that happening. I immediately saw a point where the chances of my guns emptying mid-fight decreased as soon as I grabbed this upgrade.
5. Burst Inlets
Burst Inlets decrease the fuel cost requirement for dodges. Now, instead of using half of the fuel to dodge twice, Aska uses 1/4th of the fuel to dodge four times. This is a skill that you should focus on unlocking early in Metal Eden, as it directly improves your survivability chances, improving Aska’s movement and dodging capabilities.
Additionally, Burst Inlets also improve the fuel recovery time for Aska, cutting the downtime between the bar emptying and replenishing. So now, Aska can dodge more. To get this skill, you have to purchase the Air Drift skill, letting Aska drift through the air by holding the dodge button.
Ultimately, these five skills are just the tip of the iceberg in Metal Eden. Further into the 10-hour experience, you’ll get to unlock even better skills, which truly make Aska the ultimate Hyper Unit fit for her missions.
