The Ascent Achievement Guide & Road Map

The Ascent
The Ascent Achievement Guide

Overview:
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 3/10 [Achievement Difficulty Rating]
- Offline or Online, Solo or Co-Op: 44 [970]
- Offline or Online, Co-Op Required: 2 [30]
- Approximate amount of time to 1000

: 12-16 Hours [Estimated Time to 100%]
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
- Missable achievements: No
- Does difficulty affect achievements: N/A
- Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No

For questions, comments or feedback, please visit the Achievements and Guide Discussion thread.

Introduction:

The Ascent is a solo and co-op Action-shooter RPG, set on Veles, a packed cyberpunk world. Welcome to The Ascent Group arcology, a corporate-run metropolis stretching high into the sky and filled with creatures from all over the galaxy. You play as a worker, enslaved by the company that owns you and everyone else in your district. One day, you are suddenly caught in a vortex of catastrophic events: The Ascent Group shuts down for unknown reasons and the survival of your district is threatened. You must take up arms and embark on a new mission to find out what started it all.

Step 1: Complete Solo Playthrough
Now, I suggest playing this game solo solely for achievement purposes. The game's achievements are very finnicky when playing co-op, and there is no guarantee what will or won't have issues as far as tracking progress for quests, codex entries, etc. If you DO play in co-op, you should ONLY play in co-op and try to always play with the same person/people so nothing changes as far as the game is concerned - you should probably never swap back and forth between a solo and co-op playthrough either. Playing solo will bypass all that.

Anyway, whichever way you decide to try for the completion, your main focus should be to complete the story first. There is nothing missable, and all content and locations will be available to play after the story is complete.

Step 2: Mop Up Non Co-Op Achievements
After you finish the story, look through your list and see what is left to complete. Finish up any remaining side-quests, find out what if any codex entries you are missing and where to find them, and see if you have any miscellaneous or combat related achievements to knock out and do so now. You should only have two achievements left at this point which will require a quick co-op session.

Step 3: Co-Op Achievements

For the final two achievements, start a quick couch co-op session with a second controller or find a friend to play with online, and you will get one achievement simply for starting the session. Have your friend rush into an encounter and die, then revive them to get the second and final easy co-op achievement and hopefully your completion!

Conclusion:

The Ascent is a pretty good Diablo clone set in a cyberpunk setting with lots of gore and other mature content. It's fairly short, but the asthestic and gameplay are pretty solid. I played this a few months after launch once all the bugs and achievement issues were mostly sorted out and really enjoyed it, though it was a bit rougher at launch. With an easy and short achievement list, it's hard not to recommend this to any ARPG fan, or even casual fans who might enjoy a good co-op experience.

[XBA would like to thank The Pants Party for this Roadmap]

We're just getting started

5
First enemy kill
(1)
Story related and can not be missed.
Suicidal

5
Die more than 100 times
(2)
Not sure calling this achievement "suicidal" was nice for anyone who got it without trying, but I doubt most people will actually die 100 times during the game. Once you complete all your other achievements if you still need deaths, head to one of the tougher areas, remove all your armor, and rush into a big fight. You generally respawn close to where you died and can repeat that for 10-20 minutes until you're done.
Do Over

5
Reset your proficiencies once
I would highly suggest doing this the first time you are pointed to the Grafter during an early quest. The more skill points you have allocated, the more expensive this will be. Grafters will be marked on your map with a double-helix DNA icon. Select the surgery option from their menu to reset your skill points and unlock the achievement.

Note: If you stay on the table and let achievement unlock, you can dashboard and exit the game if you want to save your money and keep your skill points the way they were.
Fair trade

10
Sell Something
At any of the game's shops (weapons, armor, etc) you can hit to swap to the selling area and get rid of any item for this achievement. Later on, you can hold to sell all duplicate items at once which is probably going to be your primary way of making money.
Sashimi

5
Get killed by a katana
Rojin enemies show up during the third main story mission on highStreet. Kill off any other enemies in the area and then let yourself be skewered by them to unlock this achievement.
Helping hand

20
Revive a DBNO friend
In co-op, you must have a partner die and then hold to revive them.
Drop your weapon!

10
Make an enemy drop an exploding grenade
This will likely come naturally as you mow down enemies, but when you see an enemy with a bullseye symbol underneath them, that means they are trying to throw a grenade at you. Hit them with one bullet and they will stagger and drop the grenade.
Added extras

15
Equip two augmentations and a module
You will pick up plenty of different augs and modules to use for this. Once you get at least two augs and one mod, equip them to your character for this achievement.
Fullchrome

20
Equip augmentations and upgrade attributes resulting in the fullchrome appearance
Getting "fullchrome" status occurs when you have any attribute at Level 20, and have an aug equipped that is affected by that attribute. You can get to 20 in the skill by skill points alone, or by skill points and equipped items increasing it to 20+, and the aug just needs to be affected by that skill in some way. You'll likely get this without realizing it as you get toward the end of the game and have multiple skills maxed out.
Self improvement

30
Allocate 3 Skill points
After leveling up for the first time, apply your earned skill points to any categories for this achievement.
Teamwork

10
Start your first co-op session
You can do this in either couch or online mode. Just start a session with a second player to unlock.
Aficionado

30
Fully upgrade a weapon
For this achievement, you must get a weapon to Mk X (Level 10). You will need 11 Basic, 6 Advanced, and 3 Superior components to do this. Basic and Advanced parts are dropped and found as pickups or in chests fairly plentifully, but the Superior components only show up very late in the game and are quite rare. Don't upgrade a bunch of weapons to Mk 9 and have to farm forever to finally get one to Mk 10, use your first three to get this achievement out of the way.

Note: Upgrades on weapons are permanent, even if you sell the weapon. If you buy or find another copy of that same weapon, it will be at the level you upgraded it to previously.
Getting things done

20
Finish a side mission
See For both our benefits (50G) for more info.
For both our benefits

50
Complete all side missions
(1)
There are a total of 28 side missions in The Ascent. These will show up as a yellow diamond on your map, and can be tracked separately from your main mission if you need help find where to go. Some of these can be slightly buggy, so if you find you've got to a location where the side missions should progress and it doesn't, you may need to exit your game and reload to try again. This happened for me during Lost and Found when you inspect the yellow bags (didn't progress after checking all three) and during Dreadful Situation when you need to kill everyone in the Glittering Rose (they didn't spawn). Below is a complete list of all the side missions, their suggested level, and the area the quest-giver is located.
1. Anabolic Express [lvl 2] - Cluster 13
2. Balls Deep [lvl 7] - Cluster 13
3. Bubble Trouble [lvl 10] - Serenity Plus (Cluster 13)
4. Casino Courier (I) [lvl 7] - The Golden Satori (Arcology: highStreet)
5. Casino Courier II [lvl 18] - The Golden Satori (Arcology: highStreet)
6. Casino Courier III [lvl 18] - The Golden Satori (Arcology: highStreet)
7. Casino Courier IV [lvl 22] - The Golden Satori (Arcology: highStreet)
8. Casino Courier V [lvl 22] - The Golden Satori (Arcology: highStreet)
9. Double Charge [lvl 7] - Cluster 13
10. Dreadful Situation [lvl 24] - Blossom Hills
11. Dreaming High [lvl 20] - Blossom Hills
12. Exotic Dinner [lvl 23] - The Node
13. Gear up! [lvl 1] - Serenity Plus (Cluster 13)
14. Gen 9 H20 [lvl 17] - Arcology: highStreet
15. Humidity Doctor [lvl 13] - Cluster 13
16. Liberation Operation [lvl 25] - Nitroad
17. Lost and Found [lvl 14] - The Node
18. One More Rep [lvl 5] - Cluster 13
19. Plug & Play [lvl 25] - Stimtown
20. Prison Break [lvl 15] - The Glut
21. That Guy [lvl 28] - Dirty Dive (Stimtown)
22. The Champ [lvl 18] - Dirty Dive (Stimtown)
23. The Dark Horse [lvl 17] - The Node
24. The Recipe [lvl 20] - Stimtown
25. The Stash [lvl 5] - The Grinder (datapad near body)
26. Silicon Optics [lvl 22] - Cluster 13
27. Wash-n'-Go [lvl 21] - Dream World (corpZone)
28. You Snooze You Lose [lvl 25] - Scrapland
Once you have completed all the quests, the achievement will unlock.
Anonymous withdrawal

10
Hack an ATM
To unlock this achievement, you must find a minimum of eight cyberdeck upgrades. See Omnihacker (20G) for their locations. These will be blue, but since everything in the game world is somewhat small, they can be hard to spot. Once you are at The Arcade (Level 8) status in your cyberdeck or higher, hold near an ATM to hack it and have it shoot out a bunch of money for you to collect.
Free candy

15
Get the goods by both hacking and destroying vending machines
This works on any vending machine type. To hack a vending machine you must have at least four cyberdeck upgrades. See Omnihacker (20G) for their locations. Once you are at Plug (Level 4) status or higher, hold near any machine for it to spit out health or energy for you. For the second half of the achievement, simply shoot a vending machine enough that it explodes and drops some items. Once you have done both, the achievement will unlock.
Omnihacker

20
Hack at least one of each hackable category
For this achievement, there are five different things you need to hack. Below is a list of all five, and the cyberdeck level you need to be at to properly hack them. Doors and chests come in various levels, so I've only included the lowest level you'll need. Below that is a video with locations of all nine cyberdeck upgrades.
1. Doors - City Kicker (Level 1)
2. Turrets - Peacemaker CD (Level 2)
3. Chests - Icepick (Level 3)
4. Vending Machines - Plug (Level 4)
5. ATM - The Arcade (Level 8)
Video courtesy of Legacy Gaming:
Black ICE

25
Deploy black ICE against hacker enemy
Later on during the story, you will enter an area called corpZone where you fill first encounter the Combat Hacker enemy. This enemy will try to hack you, and you'll see a yellow circle under your character to indicate that it is happening. When you see it, hold to initiate a counter-hack and deploy black ICE to unlock the achievement.
Getting out of the slums

20
Collect 200'000 uCreds
Money in this game is extremely easy to come by. Make sure you pick up every weapon drop from enemies, and you'll get this about halfway through the story. Be sure to hold when selling at a shop to sell all duplicates of any item, and you'll generally get tens of thousand of credits after each main mission.
Bounty Hunter

20
Claim a bounty
Bounties will begin showing up early in the game, and are indicated as a red skull on the mini-map. These enemies will usually drop a component and an item that you need to collect to prove you killed them. In any of the game's safe zones you should find a vendor indicated by a money bag where you can turn these bounties in. Once you turn in your first, you'll unlock this achievement.
Snooze or lose

10
Try Snooze
You can unlock this achievement once you have access to Stimtown during the story. Find a place called Wanda's which is lit up with pink lights and just outside you'll find someone you can speak with who will offer you Snooze. Agree to try it and your screen will go crazy for a bit and you'll unlock the achievement.
Fight smart

20
Kill a robot with energy damage type
Each weapon you get will have a different attribute, with most being simple ballistic types. You'll want to find a weapon with an energy type (indicated by a lightning bolt), and with that equipped kill any of the red robot enemies.
Extreme Overcharge

30
Deliver 4000 amount of stasis damage on one target
For this achievement, you will first need a way to put an enemy in stasis. The best way I believe is the Joyrun Dragon augmentation. You could also use the Stasis Drone tactical tool, Stasis Stomp aug, or anything else - but I think Joyrun lasts the longest and is the easiest to control. Once you have that, you need two more things: a large enemy with a lot of health, and a strong weapon you can dish damage out with quickly.

Your best bet for this would be against a boss that can be affected by stasis, a large mech, Heavy Monobot, etc. Clear out every other enemy and avoid damaging the one you want to try this on, then use your stasis ability to freeze the large enemy, and unload on them quickly. If you can dish out 4k damage before the stasis expires, the achievement will unlock.
Opportunist

20
Kill 10 enemies using exploding barrels
Exploding barrels are nearly everywhere in the game, and naturally are red in color. Shoot them whenever enemies are near (even if you are near yourself, you should survive) and you'll have this achievement in no time.
Overkill

30
Kill another enemy by overcharging an enemy while it's in stasis
Methods to put enemies into stasis are mentioned in Extreme Overcharge (30G). However, for this achievement you want to use it on a smaller enemy such as a Feral. Once one feral is in stasis, do enough damage that it explodes and it should kill one of the other ferals quite easily.
Hygiene

15
Use the sink after flushing a toilet
In any bathroom, go into a stall and interact with the toilet, then go interact with one of the sinks to unlock this achievement.
Explorer

40
Discover all locations
There are a total of 39 locations to visit for this achievement. You should go to most of these automatically during the story. Two of them (Golden Satori and Scrapland) are only visited during side missions and one (Outskirts) doesn't need to be visited for any reason, but is still required for the achievement. The full list of locations is (courtesy of F77Bloky on TA):
1. Ascent Group HQ
2. Black Lake
3. Blossom Hills
4. Cluster 13
5. Coder's Cove
6. corpZone
7. deepStink
8. dNexus
9. Gemini Stacks
10. Gratitude
11. Grinder
12. highStreet
13. MenShen
14. Nitroad
15. No Man's Land
16. Onyx Void HQ
17. Outskirts
18. Pod Lot
19. RBM-5
20. RezDev
21. Rooftops
22. Scrapland
23. Serenity Plus
24. Stimtown
25. Sub-Sector 41A
26. Tham's Gate
27. The Common
28. The Cosmodrome
29. The Dusk
30. The Edge
31. The Glut
32. The Golden Satori
33. The Node
34. The Pinnacle
35. The Shaft
36. The Umbilical
37. The Warrens
38. Veles
39. Waste Recycling Network
Tourist

20
Ride the Interlink Express
The Interlink Express is a train system marked by a red "M" on the map. This serves as a free fast travel system in case you don't have money for a cab. Use it at least once to unlock the achievement. If there is no train when you arrive, just wait a bit and another will pull up.
Comprehensive

50
Fill the Codex
The Codex in The Ascent is split into eight different categories, and all of them are supposed to be filled in to unlock this achievement. I personally unlocked this before completing the main mission "Foreign Code" and was well off from completing it, so I'm not sure if after Patch 3 (which fixed this achievement as it was originally glitched) possibly changed the requirements completely without it being noted anywhere. Anyway, I'll list below all the required sections just in case I got lucky and the full list should still be required.
1. Tutorials - automatically filled in when the game starts
2. Factions - automatically filled in when the game starts
3. Species - automatically filled in when the game starts
4. Locations - see Explorer (40G)
5. Lore - complete all main and side missions
6. Bios - complete all main and side missions
7. Enemies - see Flatliner (50G)
8. Manufacturers - purchase or find a weapon/armor from each type
Curious consumer

15
Read 10 datapads
(1)
For this achievement, you only need to read ANY datapad ten times. Can be the same one. You will these sitting all over the game world, and they have a slight red glow so you can easily spot them.
Flatliner

50
Unlock all enemy Codex entries
There are a total of 32 enemies to defeat for this achievement. They are as follows, with locations (courtesy of F77Bloky on TA):
1. 438 Hung: story related
2. Ascender Combatants: Silo 86
3. Automated Defences: dNexus, Silo 86
4. Barrager: On the bridge between corpZone and the Umbilical
5. Black Hacker: Silo 86
6. Celine: story related
7. Combat Hacker: corpZone, RezDev, the Umbilical
8. Corporate Grab Teams: the Edge
9. Dozer: corpZone, RezDev, the Umbilical
10. Ferals: Black Lake Towers
11. Fullchrome: On the bridge between corpZone and the Umbilical
12. Hammerhand: Warrens and highStreet
13. Havoc: Scrapland
14. Heavy Monobot: dNexus, Silo 86
15. Interdimensional Calamity: story related
16. Jogger: Warrens
17. Light Monobot: dNexus, Silo 86
18. Logbot: dNexus, Silo 86
19. Megarachnoid: dNexus, Silo 86
20. MG Operative: the Edge
21. Nug Engineers: highStreet
22. Nug Gadgeteer: Warrens
23. Onyx Void Operative: story related
24. Papa Feral: Black Lake Towers
25. Rojins: highStreet
26. Scatters: corpZone, RezDev, the Umbilical
27. Scientists: BioChoice Pharma facility in Nitroad
28. Siege Mech: The Edge, corpZone, RezDev, prison in the Glut, Silo 86
29. Turbo Keesh: highStreet
30. Turbo Thugs: Warrens
31. Ungrateful Merc: corpZone, RezDev, the Umbilical
32. Ungratefuls: corpZone, RezDev, the Umbilical

What just happened?

15
Complete Arcology Blues
Story related and can not be missed.
Party crashed

15
Complete Mutual Dependencies
Story related and can not be missed.
A new friend

15
Complete Trading Places
Story related and can not be missed.
Power Hungry

15
Complete Empowerment
Story related and can not be missed.
Data Digging

15
Complete Data Miner
Story related and can not be missed.
Mnemonic Hunt

15
Complete Foreign Code
Story related and can not be missed.
Everyone's a smuggler

15
Complete Trace Protocol
Story related and can not be missed.
Magenta Power

15
Complete Syntax Error
Story related and can not be missed.
Nothing personal

15
Complete Recompile
Story related and can not be missed.
Severed Board

15
Complete Board Meeting
Story related and can not be missed.
Protocol 61A

15
Complete Project MenShen#1
Story related and can not be missed.
Something out there

50
Complete Project MenShen#2
Story related and can not be missed.
Win

100
Complete all Main Missions
Story related and can not be missed.
Next level AI

20
Upgrade your IMP
Story related and can not be missed.
Appreciation

20
Get praise from Kira
Story related and can not be missed.