History Main / EquipmentBasedProgression

* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' was the UrExample for FPS games using this trope (being the first game in the genre) while ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' was the TropeCodifier (having popularised it); both games had the player go from the basic fists and pistol, all the way up to [[{{BFG}} room clearing super weapons]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': Your character's abilities come entirely from whatever gear you happen to be wearing. Indeed, even the Terraria equivalent of your character class is derived from equipment. A character is only a "mage" because they're wearing gear that boost magic weapons in some way. This allows free-form multiclassing.

This trope typically occurs in more action-oriented games, where the focus is less on character building (since this is one of things which defines the {{RPG}} genre, examples which are purely this trope are rare) and more on exploration or combat, making StatGrinding less attractive as a gameplay element (since it keeps the player from progressing or breaks up the action). Exploration based games (particularly in the {{Metroidvania}} subgenre, although some also use RPGElements) will often combine this trope with UtilityWeapon; expecting the player to use their new abilities to get to the next area, while combat based games will simply make the player more powerful. Since items can be given and [[BagOfSpilling taken away]] freely, it also allows the game to make the player less powerful (although a good designer [[FakeDifficulty won't abuse this]]). If the items can be picked up in any order (and they're balanced, rather than offering a simple increase in power), it can also make the game less linear. Finding an extra RareCandy is also a good way to reward the player for exploring.

* While ''VideoGame/NetHack'' features a conventional ExperiencePoints system, no [[PointOfNoReturn ascension run]] is complete without a [[ClothesMakeTheSuperman fully-compensatory]], [[MySuitIsAlsoSuper well-enchanted]] ascension kit. In fact, the midgame is typically recognized as the collection and construction of this high-level gear that will carry you through the endgame.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' ties progression into equipment "data" that is delivered to Samus by the Galactic Federation, ostensibly to help her survive against the X parasites on the BSL. At several points, a "percentage" is displayed regarding Samus' survival rate against the SA-X, based upon what equipment has been unlocked, though the plot takes steps to avert this at points by having "hidden" upgrades that Samus will find and unlock as part of the story (such as the Diffusion Missile, which she finds on her own and later finds out [[spoiler:was being kept in the dark on by the Federation to stop her from becoming too powerful]]).

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantsyLegendII'': While humans and mutants gain stats based on their actions in battle, robots are entirely this trope, gaining HP and stat boosts only by equipping new gear.

* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' is a prime example. If Ratchet gains XP at all, it is only to raise his health. Otherwise, the damage he deals and takes is determined by his equipment (weapons and armor respectively). Weapons can be bought and, from second game onward, leveled as well to make them stronger and in general more useful. However, to truly fit this trope, you need to get specific gadgets (either found or bought for a hefty price) that allow your progress. It is possible to get blocked from progress, especially in earlier games, where you need to use specific gadget you don't have yet - for example on your first visit of Orxon in the first game you don't have Oxygen Helmet so only Clank can explore limited section of it, which warrants you the coordinates of a planet where it can be found.

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'':
** The first thing you have to do in ''VideoGame/Metroid1'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus'' is get the Morph Ball so you can roll under a ledge to the right.

** In general, all ''Metroid'' games make use of this trope. Ironically, the first game's remake, ''VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission'', was the first to have several progression elements not based around new equipment.

* In ''VideoGame/SpiralKnights'', the players don't gain experience themselves, instead, you can craft different pieces of armor and weapons, each one with its own [[ElementalRockPaperScissors elemental bonuses and weaknesses]], and each item requires Experience points (or "Heat") separately, and usually has an additional bonus when they reach its level cap. They (and the levels' difficulty) are also divided on tiers. In order to be allowed to go deeper on the clockworks, you also need to craft better equipment (usually using a level capped item of a lower tier).

* The ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' is similar to the ''Metroid'' series, but it tends to include levelling up.
* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', another {{Metroidvania}}-style game, has you collect various guns, each one leveling up and down individually as you collect XP triangles and take damage.
* The ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' games generally follow this format, in that you get better weapons to do more damage, and better armor to get more health (the first had a "sync" bar that increased through the game as you did various sidequests).
* In ''Franchise/MegaMan'' the entire point of the series was to acquire new weapons from one boss to take down the next. Since you could fight them in any order, the trick was discovering the optimum sequence to fight them in.
* ''VideoGame/LarryAndTheGnomes'' has no leveling system. The player must find projectiles and weapons to get more powerful. Part of the strategy consists in knowing which weapon will be better in the long term, or knowing which will be the most useful for the current stage.
* In ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory'', the player progresses by finding {{heart container}}s and abilities which let them reach areas that were inaccessible before. Later, ability finding is replaced with searching for [[PlotCoupon golden orbs]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Chantelise}}'': Equipment is the only way to improve every stat except health, which is improved permanently through Ferromin purchased from Aira. Gloves boost strength, staves boost magical attack, shields boost physical defense, charms boost magical defense, and other items change the item drop system or add elemental resistances.

* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' was the UrExample for FPS games using this trope (being the first game in the genre) while ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' was the TropeCodifier (having popularised it); both games had the player go from the basic fists and pistol, all the way up to [[{{BFG}} room clearing super weapons]].

* ''VideoGame/MetroExodus:'' New gear becomes available during the game, but most progression comes from upgrading your existing kit. \\
An example: one of your starting weapons is a revolver. It only has a three shot cylinder and fires slowly, but at least it has a suppressed barrel for being sneaky. If you keep your eyes open, you can find an eight shot cylinder, a faster action, a long barrel, a rifle stock and telescopic sights. Put them all together and you now have a decent sniper rifle. Swap the long barrel for the suppressed barrel and the long sights for iron sights and you can be sneaky again, but faster and with a higher capacity.

* ''[[VideoGame/ARESExtinctionAgenda A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda]]'' features the titular Ares (and Tarus in ''EX'') can get upgrades to his arsenal and suit as they progress through the game, which can then be further upgraded by obtaining datacubes and using materials from defeated enemies or found laying around the stages. These new abilities includes an air-dash, a suit that protects Ares from the Zytron gases, an energy machine gun, and a Wave Emitter that can shoot through walls. In the original, there's a special Genesis Suit that can be unlocked, once the player has SS ranked almost every stage in the game.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' 0% growth runs, players have a variety of options to increase stats due to not gaining any on level ups anymore such as: promotional bonuses, reclassing, stat boosters, tonics, meals/provisions, skills, forges and for the few games that have them, accessories or stat boosting talk conversations. With strong experimentation, even unpromoted units can find ways to be on par with promoted units in this mode.

* ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'': Ashley's stats can be permanently boosted by killing bosses or finding rare elixirs and wines, but the game's mechanics and RandomDrop rules encourage the player to make Ashley stronger by finding new weapons and armor, or by reforging and improving existing ones in workshops.
* Your power in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' is based completely on the equipment you own, and the point of the game revolves almost entirely around finding new ways to create new gear. You hunt monsters to skin them for body parts, of course, but you also have to mine for ores, catch fish and bugs, collect herbs and mushrooms and plant crops to ''really'' get the most out of everything.

* In ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'', the only stats that you can find increasers for are HitPoints and kB (the latter is used to set a chip as available first turn). Because of this, the only real way you can increase your power is by finding and equipping more powerful chips and Customizer parts (which can increase other stats, like rate of buster fire, and give other abilities).
* While multiplayer characters in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' do gain experience and upgrade their skills, their levels are {{cap}}ped at 20 (single-player cap is ''60'') and the players have to reset them back to level 1 if they want to keep advancing up the score ladder. This effectively renders character progression meaningless in the long term, while rare weapons, weapon upgrades, and advanced equipment mods (randomly awarded for winning online matches) become crucial on higher difficulty settings.
* Any of the ''VideoGame/RecordOfAgarestWar'' games are made out of this trope. Sure you level up and such, but most of the time you'll be doing a lot of equipment customization.

* ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' handles parts of the progression this way. While you can level up your HP, FP (Mana), and BP (Badge Points, which define how much you can equip), attack and defense are solely dependant on your equipment. Mario's jump and hammer become more powerful once he upgrades his boots or hammer, which happens at certain points in the game, and everything else is dependent on which badges he has equipped.
** By far, one of the most common [[SelfImposedChallenge challenge runs]] is the "BP-Only Run" because of this, since the ability to increase the power of your attacks with badges is probably the most helpful levelling strategy, especially as you approach the endgame.
** Later games in the series eschew leveling up, FP and Badges entirely. Instead, Mario gains more HP by collecting HP-Up hearts (''[[VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar Sticker Star]]'', ''[[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing Origami King]]'') or advancing the plot (''[[VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash Color Splash]]''), while more powerful boot, hammer and other attack items become available as one progresses. While ''all'' attacks in ''Sticker Star'' and ''Color Splash'' are consumed after a single use, ''Origami King'' has the basic Jump and Hammer always be available, with more powerful versions having durability and breaking after several uses instead of just one, and everything else being regulated to the Item slot. Thus, battles in these games only serve to gather more [[MoneyGrinding coins]] to fund buying replacements and upgrades.
* ''VideoGame/{{Toukiden}}'' characters never gain levels and only become more powerful by making and upgrading weapons and armour. Special abilities and passive boosts come from equipping Mitama, the souls of old heroes devoured by oni.

* ''VideoGame/EvilIslands'' features this to some degree, thanks to its emphasis on ItemCrafting (with the pseudo level-up only increasing HitPoints and ManaPoints, and purchasable skills only affecting secondary stats such as chance to hit or attack speed), but especially with physical damage. There's no way at all to increase the damage inflicted through weapons by earning experience, you must equip a better weapon for that. This is notable because experience points can be spent on skills such as increased night vision or maximum equipable weight, so you'd expect something as important as damage would be affected by experience. Also present in regards to armor points (can only be increased by equipping better armor) and magical damage (can only be increased by equipping better spells available through SpellCrafting, experience only affects, indirectly, whether you're actually able to use them, but once crsfted and equipped, the spell's damage can't be increased).
* ''[[VideoGame/VandalHearts Vandal Hearts 2]]'' has an interesting hybrid between this and LevelLockedLoot: The main game itself does not use class system, and any character can be seamlessly re-oriented from one specialization to the other simply by changing their equipment (that is, if you want to make a mage out of a swordsman, just swap the sword for a staff and the armor for a robe). However, characters do gain EXP and level, and level determines the maximum amount of HP and SP one will get out of a piece of armor. That being said, the characters are not prohibited outright to equip anything that is above their level; they just couldn't utilize said equipment to their fullest potential.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Moonlighter}}'', you don't gain experience or levels from killing enemies or selling items in your shop. The only way to get more powerful is by having Andrei TheBlacksmith craft weapons and armor for you and (ideally) having Eris the Enchanter upgrade them for you with Empowering Crystals.
* The first ''VideoGame/{{Deception}}'' allowed you to level up your character, but its primary focus was to unlock new breeds of trap and monsters to create; in a later chapter, you acquired a sword which unlocked enhanced trap types. Later games in the series dispensed with the leveling entirely[[labelnote:*]]and monsters, coincidentally[[/labelnote]] and instead had you solely focus on expanding your armament of traps.

* In ''VideoGame/EmeraldDragon'' only the protagonist Atrushan and his LoveInterest Tamryn gain EXP and level up as usual. The rest of your party have no levels, so they can only get stronger as you progress by getting them better equipment.
* In most ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' games, levelling up only grants characters minor stat increases and the occasional new skill. In comparison, crafting better gear can result in an immediate, drastic increase in power, sometimes to the point of turning challenging encounters into cakewalk. This is not limited to equipment, but also includes consumable items: a well-crafted bomb can deal several times the damage of a weaker one. Veteran ''Atelier'' players can often be seen advising newbies not to worry about grinding levels, and to instead focus on making better items when they hit a roadblock.
* ''VideoGame/TheHeartPumpsClay'': As described in the [[https://rpgmaker.net/games/6541/ game's description]]:
--> Character progression comes through a variety of equipment found throughout the Tree of Life, including equippable spells for Mara.
* ''VideoGame/HelensMysteriousCastle'': As said in the game's FAQ on the [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/418190/Helens_Mysterious_Castle/ store page]], basically stating that only items matter to her combat ability:
--> FAQQ. Does Helen level up?\\
A. While Helen herself does not level up, her items can be enhanced using experience points.

* The ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' series gives you new abilities and weapon upgrades from the second game onwards (the first game just placed temporary powerups in certain parts of the levels) as you reach certain points in the story.

* In ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', getting new and better gear is the only way to increase stats. You do still gain ExperiencePoints to buy new skills.
* ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsOnline'': The only stats you get at all are never attached to your character. "Progression" isn't the main idea, it's just being stronger during battles, but the weapon you use makes up 95% of your combat stats. This dips into the bad end when all weapons have unique movesets but the stats are constant as well, and it in fact rendered one of the fan favorite movesets obsolete because of the poor stat choice, but other than that it works fairly well.
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'', leveling up in a class is helpful for three things: gaining more base stats to meet equipment minimum stat-requirements, gaining more skill points to strengthen that class's skill tree, and meeting minimum level requirements for higher difficulties. The ''actual'' contribution of leveling up towards your effective power is otherwise low, as leveling up affords shockingly small stat boosts at a time. A character's power is dependent primarily on their class setup and their weapon(s), to the point the mere acquisition of [[InfinityPlusOneSword the proper 14-star weapon]] immediately kicks a character into endgame-tier once it's been outfitted with the proper abilities.

* The whole "catapult" genre of flash games such as ''VideoGame/TossTheTurtle'' has this as the main game mechanic. The farther you launch the projectile the more money is available for upgrades, and each upgrade helps you go further, and so on ad infinitum.

* Especially in its third and fourth editions, ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' basically assumes that player characters will be picking up increasingly powerful magical items in their adventures as they advance in level. To an extent the assumption has always been there (often in the form of more dangerous monsters that would already make more plausible opposition for higher-level characters anyway curiously also requiring increasingly powerful magical weapons to hit), it's just in these two editions that it's all but coded into the level progression math under the hood.
* ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'' 1st edition has no "XP", skills are improved by purchasing a SleepLearning device while attributes gain one dot every three sessions up to a threshold, at which point augmentations will need to be bought.
* In ''TabletopGame/RedMarkets'' skills and Potentials are improved in-game using Bounty, the same currency used to obtain goods and services, pay upkeep on gear, keep your character and their dependents fed.

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', the first part in the name of the {{Metroidvania}} genre, uses this trope (the other half, ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', tends to include levelling up).

* ''VideoGame/RealmOfTheMadGod'' is intentionally designed such that it is easy to reach the max level in less than a few hours, then it becomes this trope. While leveling up does boost your stats, the main focus is in fighting monsters to acquire better and better equipment. There are no prerequisites to use any of the equipment (besides obtaining the item).

* ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsOnline''. Oh yes. The only stats you get at all are never attached to your character. "Progression" isn't the main idea, it's just being stronger during battles, but the weapon you use makes up 95% of your combat stats. This dips into the bad end when all weapons have unique movesets but the stats are constant as well, and it in fact rendered one of the fan favorite movesets obsolete because of the poor stat choice, but other than that it works fairly well.

''VideoGame/YokusIslandExpress'': Yoku doesn't level up or gain any inherent abilities beyond being a pinball -- finding new items, such as the Sootling and the Slug Vacuum, and using them in creative ways are the only ways to progress and[=/=]or find hidden items in the game.

* ''VideoGame/VagrantStory''; Ashley's stats can be permanently boosted by killing bosses or finding rare elixirs and wines, but the game's mechanics and RandomDrop rules encourage the player to make Ashley stronger by finding new weapons and armor, or by reforging and improving existing ones in workshops.

* In the ''[[VideoGame/KisekiSeries Trails Series]], Quartz serves as your main method of character progression. While leveling will give small increases to a character's stats, HP, and EP, and occasionally grants new [[SpecialAttack Crafts]] the series' AntiGrinding feature quickly grounds the party at the level the game expects you to be. By attaching different Elemental Quartz to a character's Orbment, depending on the Quartz used will substantially alter a character's stats, gives immunity or lets the character dish out specific status effects, and can use Arts (spells). By earning Sepith, exploring chests, and especially completing sidequests, you can find new and improved Quartz. Since unlike most games in the genre characters don't learn spells, Quartz becomes the only way not only to boost character stats, but make your magically-inclined party members stronger.

** In ''VideGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'', leveling up in a class is helpful for three things: gaining more base stats to meet equipment minimum stat-requirements, gaining more skill points to strengthen that class's skill tree, and meeting minimum level requirements for higher difficulties. The ''actual'' contribution of leveling up towards your effective power is otherwise low, as leveling up affords shockingly small stat boosts at a time. A character's power is dependent primarily on their class setup and their weapon(s), to the point the mere acquisition of [[InfinityPlusOneSword the proper 14-star weapon]] immediately kicks a character into endgame-tier once it's been outfitted with the proper abilities.