Best Early Gun Route in Abyss — What to Buy First

In Abyss, most players can afford one gun before they start running into serious enemies. The difference between buying the right first gun and the wrong one is usually 5 to 10 minutes of grinding time — and in a game where death resets progress, that matters.

The most common mistake new players make is spending their first 1,000 on a gun that looks impressive but does not scale well into the mid-game. A weapon that feels powerful in Forgotten Deep can become nearly useless by the time you reach the second or third zone.

The good news is that Abyss gun progression is fairly linear in the early game. If you know the rough order of purchases, you can avoid most of the common traps without needing to study every weapon in detail.

Start with the free Starter Gun. Do not spend anything until you have confirmed you can reliably earn from the starting area.

Your first purchase should be the Beginners Gun for 350. It is a modest upgrade but it clears the gap between the Starter Gun and the point where you can afford a real weapon. The cost is low enough that you are not committed if you want to reroll your race first.

Once you have around 2,000 currency saved, buy the Air Rifle Gun. It is consistently recommended across every major public guide for good reason — the damage per shot is enough to one-shot most fish in the Forgotten Deep, and it has a long enough range to stay safe while farming. Its main weakness is charge time, but that becomes less of a problem once you have a cooldown reduction artifact.

The Bottle Gun is widely considered not worth buying. The public guides are fairly consistent on this — the price-to-damage ratio is poor compared to the Air Rifle, and the utility it offers does not make up for it in the early game.

For most players, this three-step route — free starter, Beginners Gun at 350, Air Rifle at 2,150 — is the fastest way to build a reliable farming setup without wasting currency on weapons that do not scale.

The second set of upgrades comes after you have reliably cleared Forgotten Deep a few times and have around 10,000 to 15,000 currency. At that point, the guides start diverging based on playstyle.

If you are farming efficiently, the next most recommended upgrade is usually a gun that improves your catch rate rather than raw damage. Speed matters more than power once you have a comfortable baseline.

Public references suggest waiting until you have explored at least two zones before committing to a mid-game weapon. The weapon that feels right in Forgotten Deep may not be the best choice for Ocean or Ancient Sands, and the currency gap between zones is large enough to make a wrong purchase painful to recover from.

The Starter Gun is free and on the default loadout.

The Beginners Gun costs 350 and is available at Henry's Harpoon Shop.

The Air Rifle Gun costs 2,150, is available at the same shop, and appears in every major published guide as a top early recommendation.

The Bottle Gun is considered a low-value purchase by most published guides.

Gun prices and stats can change with game updates. Public guides recommend verifying current shop inventory in-game before committing to a purchase.

Artifact combinations can change which gun feels strongest at a given stage.

New guns may be added in future updates that shift the early progression order.