Progression Guide

This page is designed for players who are stumped on what to do next (or are just curious about how progression in this game works). This page is split up into different sections, please read the descriptions on each to see which one is most applicable to you.

This page assumes that you have beaten your first run of Brutal Orchestra.

Early Game

For players who have beaten their first run but aren't sure what to do next.

So, you've beaten This Pitiful Corpse and finished your first run, congratulations! But now what? Once starting your next run, the only notable difference is the conversation between Nowak, Bosch, and a mysterious voice. Besides this, there are no new additions, so the next step is to unlock Hard Mode. Despite the name, Hard Mode isn't just a difficulty increase but is instead the "main game" and most of this game's content can be found there. In order to unlock this, you must take the advice of the mysterious voice and allow This Pitiful Corpse to perform Reject Death by not attacking them. Once this is done, a story event will play and you will unlock Hard Mode. There is an option in the Settings on the main menu to toggle Hard Mode on or off, although the only thing that's exclusive to Normal Mode is the achievement "The End?" that you receive from killing This Pitiful Corpse alongside the item Dried Paint. For advice on Hard Mode, look to the next section.

Intro to Hard Mode

For players who have unlocked Hard Mode and want a better understanding of where to go.

So, what's the deal with Hard Mode? What does it add? How long are the runs? How much more progression is there? Despite the name, Hard Mode isn't just a difficulty increase but is instead the "main game" and most of this game's content can be found there. There are new bosses and enemies in the Far Shore and Orpheum, many new characters, a new area after the Orpheum, NPC questlines, and new long-term progression. All of the enemies from Normal Mode remain untouched, although they can be found alongside new enemies, and the party members that were available are still able to be unlocked. While this technically only adds an extra 50% to the run time with the new area, many of the new enemies require more thought to defeat which can increase the length depending on the player. A full Hard Mode run will take approximately 1-1.5 hours. You might be wondering, what do you do now to progress? Well, the skies the limit honestly, there are a lot of paths and secrets throughout Hard Mode begging to be uncovered, but I'll give you some gentle directions. The most obvious and the one you're likely already attempting to do (or have already done) is to beat a run in Hard Mode. This will show you the true ending of the game as well as grant a few rewards, but unlike when bypassing Normal Mode, there aren't any further difficulties to unlock. Unlike Normal Mode, Hard Mode expands outward instead of forward and will add new things to itself as you progress, sometimes in surprising ways. Next will probably be the most attractive option to a lot of player, which is unlocking all of the characters. There are a good but not overwhelming amount of characters with easily trackable unlock requirements from the main menu, which helps them be a satisfying and rewarding thing to focus on early in your Hard Mode journey, and the added options will help greatly later on. I will point out one important achievement to be aware of this early, "God of Phalanges, Palms and Pain" in the Comedies section. This asks for you to kill every boss (or sometimes like in the case of Hickory, each part of a boss) with a slap. Unsurprisingly this achievement takes a long time, but having it at the back of your mind early will save you a lot of time later on. Selecting this achievement in the Achievement Menu in the game will show a tracker of what bosses you have done this with, making the journey much smoother. If you've beaten Hard Mode and have unlocked most of the characters, or just want more information on the other progression systems, move to the next section.

Travelling Deeper into Purgatory

For players who have a good few runs of Hard Mode under their belt and want to know what's next.

This section is for those who have most or all of the characters, or who just want to see what other forms of progression are in the game. At this point, the main goal for the player is to fill out the Achievements sheet available on the main menu. Several of these involve unique story situations and all of them provide some form of reward. But what should you focus on? There are 2 main sections that provide a lot of the mid-to-late game progress, that being the Boss Unlocks (both the Witness and Divine sections of the Achievements sheet) and the NPC Quests (the Strangers section). The most straightforward but longest-running progression will be the Boss Unlocks. Every single unlockable party member has items that unlock for beating the final bosses with them in the party (1 for each boss, and they have to be alive when the boss dies). These can be tracked by the white and red orbs that appear below each character on the character select screen. Next are the quests. There are handful of NPC Quests scattered throughout Purgatory that have a chance to show up in blue portals. Each one requires something to progress, and each you will meet with multiple times, either in one area or across multiple. Keep an eye out for any strange NPCs that you haven't met before. Some of them have requirements for their quests to begin, while others will just be found around their respective areas. These quests vary from mercenary missions to item hunts to challenges, and are overall more involved than the unlock requirements for characters. For added assistance, there is a chart below listing the basic descriptions of the quest-givers and where to find them. Once you've finished your boss hunting and questing journeys, feel free to proceed to the next section.

SPOILERS! Quest Description chart

Name	Description	Area
Ichor	A man with a round metal helmet	1
Fogs	A long purple serpent with a skull for a head	1
Dollmaster	A bloody and headless metal body	2
The Emissary	An egg with a skeletal hand	1
Bronzo	A skeleton in a purple suit	3
Mordrake	A static man	3

Into the Depths of the Beast Machine, Into the Pits of Heaven

For experienced players looking for help with their last few goals.

If you're here, you've beaten all of the Quests and unlocked most or all of the Boss Unlocks. Once again, a massive congratulations! But, there's still more, there are a few evasive achievements between you and 100%. This section assumes that the above statement is relevant to you and will contain spoilers to previously covered topics (ie Quests, Characters, etc.). The topics I will be covering here are some of the hardest and rarest achievements to acquire, these being the Final Character, Final Quest, Contest Items, and the Secret Boss. There will be light spoilers about these topics, but I will keep them to a minimum as best as possible. Starting with the most simple are the items from the Item Design Contest. These were added in the Exquisite Corpse update and are packaged within a series of achievements all revolving around one thing, the win-streak. While it isn't visible to the player, obtaining a win-streak of 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively will unlock these reward bundles. Next, the final playable character. By far the hardest character to unlock, this character expects mastery from you. In order to unlock them, you must have obtained 30 or more Boss unlocks on any combination of characters. This can be challenging as there are only 44 Boss Unlocks (not including the ones from this character), although at the point you are likely at, this may either be only a few away or already complete. Go visit the Garden and speak to the static man. Third is the Secret Boss. In order to initiate this fight, you must have fully completed the Bronzo Quest. Once this is completed, Bronzo can be talked to in the Far Shore and will gift you with items or gold. There is a chance, however, that Bronzo will grant you nothing. This will cause a 4th path to open in one of the 3 areas that can be accessed at anytime while exploring that area to initiate the Secret Boss fight. Good luck. Finally, the last quest. In order to proceed, you must have completed every other achievement besides the remaining Stranger achievement and the 100% achievement. Once you have completed everything else, travel to the Garden, speak with the static man, claim your prize, and put this longest and strangest dream to an end (at least until the next update comes out).

I. Need. More.

For veteran players who have completed all the game has to offer, yet desire more.

You've made it this far. You've seen every sight, fought every battle, befriended every ally. You've gotten that final Brutal Orchestra achievement. But, you have an itch for more. Thankfully, that I'm able to provide in 2 forms. The first is to simply show your support for the game. Give it a positive review on Steam, recommend it to content creators, take the wise words of Bronzo to heart and buy your friends a copy of Brutal Orchestra, or even go out and make content of the game yourself. Every bit of support helps to grow this game and could lead to a future with a Borchestra DLC, and that's one I'd like to see. Second is to make your own new content, or play the creations of others. Brutal Orchestra has a lively modding scene that can be found both on the official Discord server as well as the Modding Wiki linked on this site's main page. Whatever path you take, I wish you all the best and I look forward to seeing everything our community has to offer <3