You stagger into camp, weapon nicked and stained from the last fight. A ping on the map shows a convoy you can’t ignore. You realize your arsenal needs more than luck to survive.
I’ve spent nights farming hides and tinkering at the bench so you don’t waste yours. Below I’ll walk you through the upgrade path step by step, with the exact actions that separate patched-together gear from weapons that actually scale with the threats ahead. Read this like a field manual: short, practical, and aimed at keeping you alive long enough to dominate.
At the workbench you can still see the scorch marks from the first reforging. Windrose weapon upgrades explained
Your first stop is the Weaponsmith Workshop. Open the workshop, switch to the upgrade tab, and you’ll be presented with the weapons in your collection and their specific upgrade paths.
- Select the weapon you want to improve — upgrades aren’t universal; each item has its own requirements.
- Inspect the material list shown on the right. The game tells you what’s missing so you don’t guess.
- Add the required items and confirm the upgrade. If the workshop level is too low the option will stay greyed out.
How do I upgrade weapons in Windrose?
Use the Weaponsmith Workshop, pick the weapon, slot the materials, and hit confirm while within range of a bonfire. If an upgrade option is locked, you likely need to raise the workshop level using anvils and bellows.
Your inventory becomes a forge of potential. That’s why you should always store raw materials at base: upgrades only complete near a bonfire, and carrying everything on a run risks losing items on death.
There’s a dent on the anvil where I first learned about workshop tiers. Workshop levels and tools
Base weaponsmithing starts cheap; starter arms need low-tier components and will get you through early skirmishes. Advanced blueprints demand rarer parts and a stronger workshop.
- To raise the Weaponsmith Workshop you must spend anvils and bellows — think of them as the workshop’s currency for new recipes.
- Advanced upgrades will list Silver or Gold Ingots and higher-grade hides; without workshop upgrades those options remain locked.
- Plan your progression: upgrade the workshop when you have a stockpile of ingots so you can immediately apply higher-tier materials.
What materials are needed to upgrade weapons?
Most upgrades fall into two buckets: hides and ingots. Rough Hides (from boars) power many early upgrades; Copper and Iron Ingots are smelted from ores. Silver and Gold Ingots show up in rarer loot caches and vendor chests on higher-tier maps.
I once chased a boar for over ten minutes before it dropped the hide I needed. Farming materials and strategy
Hides are primarily Rough Hides from boars — they’re not gifts, they’re fights. Approach them cautiously; they hit harder than their size suggests. Ingots come from smelting ore or finding rare loot. Copper and Iron are common; Silver and Gold require higher-risk runs.
- Kill boars carefully; take them one at a time and kite if needed to avoid costly deaths.
- Smelt ores at your base to convert to basic ingots. Save Silver and Gold for weapons that list them explicitly.
- Store everything at base. You can only perform upgrades inside bonfire range, so carrying materials across the map is wasted inventory space and risk.
Tools and platforms you should know: Steam handles Windrose updates and community guides; track patch notes there to see when materials or requirements change. The screenshot above is credited to Kraken Express and hosted on Moyens I/O — they often publish visual tips that clarify in-game UI before patch notes arrive.
If you want quick wins, focus on upgrading one reliable weapon to mid-tier rather than spreading materials across every item. A single upgraded blade will outperform several unupgraded ones in hostile encounters — the Weaponsmith Workshop is a cathedral of steel, and you need only one sermon to win a fight.
So — do you shore up a single weapon and push forward, or spread materials thin and risk being outgunned when the next convoy appears?
