Remnant 2: Best weapons tier list—ranked

Remnant 2 is a challenging game with lots of weapons to choose from, and it gets a lot easier once you know which weapons to look out for and what makes them powerful.

Personally, I would’ve had a far easier time fighting through the hellish, eerie worlds of Remnant 2 if I had a tier list telling me which guns to use, so I’m here to help. This guide will give you all the information you need to know about the most powerful killing machines in Remnant 2.

S-tier: the best in the game

XMG57 Bonesaw

The Bonesaw sits at the top of my best weapons tier list. It’s an absolute monster of a weapon in Remnant 2. It’s a machine gun—plain and simple. It doesn’t come with any particularly unique or fun design or mods, but it’s awesome, so much so that it’s perplexing that the Medic of all classes starts with it. 

Though it does overheat and has a long reload time, the weapon’s massive offensive potential combined with its huge magazine makes it invaluable for mid-range combat. It actually gets more accurate the longer you fire it for, so you don’t have to trade output for accuracy if you sustain your fire.

Widowmaker 

In the same vein, the Widowmaker is a meat-and-potatoes sniper rifle. It packs a punch, is very accurate at long distances, and comes with a scope. Like most good sniper rifles in shooters, it’s great for keeping situations manageable by picking off opponents before they even become a threat. Sure, there’s a higher skill cap than other weapons, but once you master it, the Widowmaker is one of the best.

Rune Pistol

Significantly less meat-and-potatoes is the Rune Pistol, but in my opinion this is the best handgun in the game. The Rune Pistol has a great fire rate, and it’s very accurate for a handgun.

Its mod, Soul Brand, marks enemies with an echo: After the enemy dies, you can walk up to the echo and pick it up to heal yourself. Though the weapon does considerable damage, its healing ability is what makes the Rune Pistol one of the most useful in Remnant 2. It’s great for sustaining yourself over multiple long fights.

Nightfall

The earlier version of Nightfall was great—really great. So great, in fact, that it was nerfed in an early patch. The new Nightfall is still good enough to be an S-tier weapon, however—it offers a brutal combination of damage, fire rate, and accuracy.

Nightfall is also good for staggering opponents, and it has a really fun mod. The Dreadwalker mod gives the player unlimited ammo, increases the rate of fire, and turns the weapon into an automatic machine gun for a short time, so you can do massive damage while the mod is active.

Sagittarius 

Sagittarius is a very accurate bow that has a slight stagger effect on opponents it hits. It’s great for damaging opponents’ weak spots, and its accuracy makes it easier to hit them every time.

The bow also comes with a fantastic mod called Starfall, which opens up a portal that calls down star fragments, damaging opponents in an area of effect. This mod is great for keeping opponents at a distance while you pick at their weak points. 

A-tier: great Remnant 2 weapons

Merciless

Merciless is a great weapon. Its high rate of fire makes Swiss cheese out of opponents, dealing bleeding damage that keeps them hurting even after you stop shooting them. On top of this, its Bloodline mod lets you fire out a shotgun-esque blast.

Though it tends to be best for mid-range combat, Bloodline is a fantastic get-off-me option for short quarters, making Merciless the best gun in the A-tier. 

Related: How to get the Merciless long gun in Remnant 2

Enigma 

The Enigma is a cool handgun with an intruiging design. Alone, Enigma shoots an arc of lightning that chains between opponents. It doesn’t do a huge amount of damage, especially after it was nerfed in a recent patch, but it can still be useful to clear out weaker mobs or deal damage to lots of enemies at once.

The Enigma’s Chaos Driver mod is fun and can deal considerable amounts of damage when used correctly: It shoots electrically charged rods that stick to enemies and deal damage over time. Electricity arcs between the rods, and the damage stacks if you shoot more than one. Enigma’s AoE damage is great for crowd control, especially on Remnant 2‘s harder difficulties, which earns it a spot in the A-tier of our list.

Pulse Rifle 

A pulse rifle in a sci-fi game is like a nice warm bowl of mac and cheese—it just feels like home. Almost all sci-fi themed games have them and they’re always a solid option in the right hands. 

There isn’t anything special about the Pulse Rifle—it’s a three-burst gun with no built-in mods or mutators. Its pinpoint accuracy and high rate of fire make it perfect for advanced players who know a thing or two about shooting in games. The right marksman can be unstoppable with this gun. 

Deceit

Deceit is a long range gun that does a lot of damage. With the right build it can put out some of the most damage in the game. Sure, the reload time is slow, but the right build—especially when using the Gunslinger archetype—can remedy that. It also looks really classy. The only thing keeping it out of the S-tier is the dominance of the Widowmaker, which covers the same niche.

Sorrow

By far my favorite handgun in the game—a crossbow called Sorrow that looks like it came straight out of a metal album. A hand-held magic crossbow, Sorrow deals tons of weak-spot damage, and with its Eulogy mod, it can pull its own bolts out of your target and return them to the crossbow, dealing 30 damage on their way out. The extra damage and ammo makes this weapon go from good to great. 

Cube Gun

You have to love the cube gun. One of the weirdest weapons in a game full of weird weapons, the Cube Gun is a handgun with a mod called Cube Shield, which allows you to shoot a giant purple cube-shaped energy shield that eats damage from projectiles.

The Cube Gun will take new players a while to get, however; you can only craft it after picking up the Conflux Prism that the Labyrinth Sentinel—one of the hardest bosses in the game—drops. The defensive potential keeps the Cube Gun in the A-tier.

Stonebreaker 

For my money, the Stonebreaker is the best Melee weapon in Remnant 2. In a game that punishes you for getting too close to opponents, the Faultline mod area attack that comes automatically equipped with the Stonebreaker is incredibly useful. The only thing keeping this massive sword out of the S-tier is the fact that it’s a Melee weapon. 

B-tier: good weapons in Remnant 2

Crescent Moon

A lot of people consider this the best weapon in the game. It puts out plenty of damage, and the Moonlight Barrage mod allows players to retrieve an arrow, à la Sorrow, which also provides a little more health, a faster reload time, and a quicker rate of fire.

The Crescent Moon bow stays in the B-tier for me because I feel it relies too heavily on activating its mod. The Crescent Moon works best when a player customizes their build specifically for the Crescent Moon, and generally is less broadly powerful than the other weapons on this list.

Atom Smasher 

The atom smasher is a big hammer that causes an almost comical amount of damage. It also has a stagger effect, setting up your opponents for more attacks. With the Accelerator mod, your Hammer swings faster, allowing you to stun and smash your opponents over and over until they die. This mod combined with the weapon’s stagger effect places it above most other melee weapons in the game, but I still don’t think it deserves a spot in the A-tier.

Alpha/Omega

This weapon certainly wins points for the cool factor. A glowing, pulsating, magical gun made from bark and branches, the Alpha/Omega is a solid mid-to-long-range option that, with its mod, can brand an enemy. You can detonate these brands for massive damage. It’s a strong mod, but the weapon relies a bit too much on its mod to hold its own in battle.

Aphelion

This might be a controversial take. I’ve even seen some tier lists online put this weapon in the S-tier. The Aphelion is a powerful weapon that can shoot through opponents. Its damage and piercing shots are nice, as is its mod, which lets you shoot an exploding charge for massive damage. In my opinion, though, the Aphelion is just too slow to be practical, so I can’t place it any higher than the B-tier.

Chicago Typewriter

It’s a Tommy gun. The Chicago Typewriter is great if you want to spray and pray at short range. If hordes of enemies are charging you and you need to unload to save your skin, this is a nice weapon to have by your side.

Unfortunately, it fills the same niche as the Bonesaw, and that just happens to be my favorite weapon in this game. Sure, it’s a bit more accurate and doesn’t overheat, but if you want accuracy, you shouldn’t be looking for a machine gun in the first place. 

Starshot 

The Starshot is a hand-cannon that shooting explosive projectiles. The Starshot comes with a built-in mod called Big Bang which lets you—you guessed it—fire a bigger explosion, and it can hurt opponents pretty badly. It’s a good option for offense as far as handguns though, but if you want to do a lot of damage fast, there are better alternatives. 

Sporebloom

The Spore Bloom has obvious downsides. It only has one round in its chamber and it’s slow to reload. You’re not going to want to use it in most fights. 

However, the Spore Bloom can be explosively powerful. It deals 20 percent stagger damage, and has a mod that creates a cloud of gas that slows opponents down. The Spore Bloom has been called a boss killer for good reason—it’s a fantastic tool to punish one big opponent by draining their health. It’s not nearly as useful in standard combat, however, and if you’re rushed at by multiple foes you’re toast.

Plasma Cutter

Unlike other weapons, the Plasma Cutter doesn’t fire out multiple bullets or lasers but one continuous beam. While clipping your opponent really quickly will do very little damage, if you track your opponent with the beam for a substantial amount of time, you’ll wrack up the pain pretty fast. Unfortunately, this weapon also overheats, so it’s not always good in clutch situations.