How to forge and upgrade gear in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin has a straightforward system to craft new armor and gear. Unlike other games in the franchise that requires hours of farming for specific monster materials, this RPG-focused game in the franchise has easier requirements to fill for new gear.

This Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin armor and weapon forging guide will walk you through the steps to create new gear. We’ll explain what needs to be brought to smithies to create new equipment and how to find the materials you need.

How to forge armor and weapons

In each village in the game, you’ll find a smithy who will craft and upgrade armor and weapons for you. Unlike the more combat-heavy games in the Monster Hunter franchise, forging new gear is much simpler in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin.

To forge a full set of armor or a new weapon, you need to deliver materials to the smithy and pay a fee.

You can gain monster materials from defeated creatures. Each time you win a fight against a beast, your opponent will drop a random assortment of materials in the form of various body parts like scales or internal organs. These pieces of their flesh and bones have different point values depending on how rare they are to obtain. When crafting new gear, you can choose which materials you want to use to meet the crafting point requirement.

Image: Capcom via Polygon

In the example above, we need four points worth of Kut-Ku materials to craft a Great Sword. We can use a scale which is one point and a piece of webbing that’s worth three points. Instead of manually having to calculate point values, you can hit the X button to automatically use your available materials to meet each piece of gear’s point requirements.

Once your materials are selected, you’ll also have to pay a fee in zenny, the game’s currency. Once you deliver the materials and cough up the cash, your gear will be crafted. If you’re short on zenny, you can sell old gear to the smithy.

How to upgrade armor and weapons

To upgrade armor and weapons, you’ll need to also visit the smithy. Like crafting, upgrading gear requires materials and zenny.

Image: Capcom via Polygon

However, unlike crafting, you will need both materials from the monster that helped forge the equipment as well as materials from other sources. Some gear requires materials from items you find in the open world while other equipment may need materials from other monsters.

Each piece of gear can be upgraded several times. The more you upgrade a piece of equipment, the rarer materials you will need as well as having to pay exponentially more zenny.