How to get level 100 weapons, external components, and reactors in The First Descendant

The First Descendant has proved to be extremely popular in its early days, not least because it's free to play, and has full cross-platform play and progression. Literally anyone can try it out, and so far at least, it seems to be working out.

For folks who like a game to grind, it's well-equipped. There are a number of different progression systems in the game, as well as a ridiculous amount of things to unlock. When it comes to gear, that is, weapons, reactors and external modules, the current cap is level 100, but you won't be able to get any of those in a hurry.

Here's what you need to know about getting your hands on the strongest gear in the game.

What you need to do first

There's one very key objective to complete before you'll be able to get your hands on level 100 gear; Complete the campaign.

None of the missions you'll play in the campaign will drop level 100 rewards, not even the last one. You'll get close, with drops into the 90s, but nothing at that magic max level.

You don't, however, need to have beaten the final Void Intercept battle. These have been barriers to campaign progress up to this point, but in this case, you don't need to worry.

How to get level 100 gear in The First Descendant

The reason you need to have beaten the campaign is because you need to unlock hard mode. You've probably seen mentions of it to this point, but to get max level gear drops you have to play missions on hard.

It isn't automatically enabled, and you'll always have the opportunity to switch between normal and hard at your leisure. If you're only farming materials, for example, the last thing you need is things being harder than they ought to be.

To enable hard mode, you simply have to open the map and change the difficulty in the top left-hand corner. When you do, you'll see the color of the icons on the map change to red.

That's all there is to it. Gear drops in hard missions will be at level 100, and you can go about putting together the hard hitting build of your dreams.

It's worth also remembering you can transfer the level from a new drop to one of your existing weapons if you have a great roll you just don't want to part with. You can do this at the workbench, but remember you need phase exchangers or precision phase exchangers (for Ultimate rarity weapons) so stop off at Anais first to research some.

Additionally, if you just want some level 100 items fast and easy to get going, I recommend hitting up Sterile Land. Jump in to the Classified Area, and head to the Large Nuclear Reactor mission close to the fast travel point.

It only takes a couple of minutes to complete each time, and the trigger point for the mission is just outside for quick resets. Better still, as this is one of the prime spots in the game to farm Kuiper Shards, there's a good chance there will be others already there to run it with you.

But each run will drop weapons and reactors, which even if you don't want for themselves, are perfect fodder for transferring their level.