Best Weapons & Upgrade Order

Practical progression instead of buying everything

Video-tested: The launch-day runs consistently performed better when players bought for the next boss instead of collecting every gun immediately.

Early game: Knife or Brass Knuckles

A basic melee weapon is enough to make Spider Crab much safer than fists. The Knife remains useful later for tiny creatures and finishing weakened targets.

Giant Piranha: Shotgun has a clear role

The Giant Piranha fight floods the island with small piranhas. Shotgun spread helps crowd control, and one multiplayer run repeatedly scored strong multipliers on the adds.

Mid game: SMG after recoil control

Players liked the SMG’s damage output but repeatedly complained about raw recoil. Suppressor or Compensator upgrades made it far easier to keep shots on fast targets.

Casino/Bird stage: Sniper becomes useful

The Giant Bird spends much of the encounter moving through the air. A Sniper can create high-value precision kills and gives a better long-range option, although some players preferred an upgraded SMG for raw DPS.

Volcano: Assault Rifle

The Assault Rifle appears at the volcano stage and performed much better against late whales in the tested run. The same player concluded that Shotgun damage was too low for Magma Whale compared with upgraded AR hits.

This is a route recommendation from video testing, not an official weapon tier list. Patches can change weapon balance.

Patch 1.1.0 - a new weapon (28 Sep 2026)

The Islet Update adds a new weapon. The studio did not name it, classify it, or publish damage numbers, so it gets no slot on the route above - anything that names it is guessing. Two practical consequences:

• The route above is unchanged for the weapons it already covers; 1.1.0 does not rebalance the Knife, Brass Knuckles, Shotgun, SMG, Sniper or Assault Rifle by any published note.
• The Assault Rifle is the pick to re-test first. It earned its late-game slot against late whales in video testing, and a brand-new weapon is the most likely thing to move it. Test it on Magma Whale before you spend on an upgrade path.