Weird West is aptly named, but the frontier could also be described as hostile, uninviting, and deadly. You’ll want to upgrade guns early and often to ensure you’ve got the best possible loadout for whatever lies ahead–be it a pack of hungry wolves, a band of murdering thieves, or whatever else the west has to offer. Upgrading guns and melee weapons in Weird West is a bit tricky, though, and not always the ideal way to enhance what you’ve got holstered, so let us walk you through all you need to know about how to upgrade guns and melee weapons in Weird West.
Weird West – How to upgrade guns and melee weapons
Weapons in Weird West are split into four tiers according to a number of stars assigned to each weapon. The more stars a weapon has, the better its stats will be. One-star weapons are the lowest tier and you’ll find those early on in your adventure, while four-star guns offer the top-shelf stats on things like damage, reload time, and bullet capacity.
To upgrade a weapon from one tier to the next, you’ll need enough copper, silver, or gold nuggets. You can find these nuggets most reliably by mining with your pickaxe in underground areas, many of which are found during the game’s random encounters during travel times.
Here’s what’s required for each upgrade:
One-star weapon: Starter level weapon, lowest tier availableTwo-star weapon: One-star weapon + two copper nuggetsThree-star weapon: Two-star weapon + seven silver nuggetsFour-star weapon: Three-star weapon + 10 gold nuggets
Provided you have the right tier of weapon and the right number of mineral nuggets, you can visit the Blacksmith’s Forge in Grackle–or find other forges on your travels–to upgrade your weapons. If you don’t have enough for a particular weapon upgrade, it won’t appear in the list when you interact with the forge.
The tricky part is knowing the difference between mineral nuggets and bars of ore. Each mineral–copper, silver, and gold–can be applied as nuggets to upgrade weapons or smelted into ore bars. When you have bars, their only use is either to be sold to the miner inside the bank for a decent chunk of change, or to be smelted down into nuggets for upgrading. Making an ore bar requires multiple nuggets (and thus smelting one gives you multiple nuggets in return), but you’ll want to consider transforming your nuggets into bars if you don’t have enough nuggets for an upgrade, but you may be just a few dollars shy of buying a similar gun in the weapons shop.
Whether by mining for minerals or snatching them off of bandits, you’ll soon have a good chunk of them to work with, and from there you need only to decide whether to buy better guns or craft them yourself. For more helpful hints, check out our Weird West tips for beginners.