The first 20 hours at a glance

Neon Abyss 2 spreads its meta progression across four tracks: Agent unlocks, the Evolve Tree, Fate Cards, and the weapon compendium. The core principle for a fresh save is simple: get yourself to the point where you can reliably reach floor 5, then plan your runs backwards from the unlock tasks you still owe.

Chasing unlocks before you can survive is the single most common way new players stall out. Every task below is cumulative across runs, so normal play advances several of them at once.

Stage	Goal	Prerequisite	Time
0–2 h	Learn the controls and the resource economy; clear the first three floors	None	~2 h
2–5 h	Reach floor 5 consistently; unlock Saya	Comfortable with basic enemy patterns	~3 h
5–8 h	Unlock the key Evolve Tree nodes; unlock a second Agent	Talent points from Saya-era runs	~3 h
8–12 h	Start committing to Hatchmon and a Faith line	A working coin/crystal economy	~4 h
12–20 h	Push higher difficulties and farm Fate Cards	Beat Hyperion on the "Wild" difficulty tier	~8 h

Difficulty does not change your loot

You can swap difficulty at the bar at any time. Difficulty does not affect item drops — it affects the Fate system. Pick the tier where you are comfortable. Grinding a harder tier specifically to "get better drops" is not a thing.

Agent unlock order

All Agents except Nik are unlocked by completing a task, and every task is cumulative across runs. Chase them in this order:

Order	Agent	Unlock condition	Why first
1	Saya	Reach floor 5	Purely a progression milestone; happens naturally within a few runs
2	Elise	Hatch 8 eggs successfully	Overlaps with the Hatchmon track, so you get it while doing something you want anyway
3	James	Use 30 different weapons	Buy junk weapons from shops (the 10-coin pistol is ideal) and swap immediately
4	Lúcia	Use 30 different Curios	Needs a crystal economy, which mid-game provides on its own
5	Xuan	Hold 10 purple Wisps in a single run	Requires a run built entirely around Wisps — leave it for later

Don't force Xuan early

"10 purple Wisps in one run" means committing an entire run to a Wisp build. With a shallow item pool that is a waste of time. Treat Xuan as a post-20-hour side goal, ideally once you own a Wisp-type weapon.

Weapon-based unlocks can be farmed alongside Agent tasks. The jumping counter rewards the ranged weapons Cooler and Stuka; holding 4 Hatchmon in one run rewards the weapon Whisper; hatching 10 eggs total rewards the melee weapon Shout. You do not need to grind for these deliberately — two normal runs will complete most of the counter.

Evolve Tree and Fate Cards: what to take first

Evolve Tree points come from run settlements. Early points are scarce, and the order you spend them in noticeably changes how the first ten hours feel.

• Resource nodes first. Starting coins, keys and crystals, or bonus drop rates. The first four floors are resource-starved; a little extra starting currency means opening one or two more chests per run, every run.
• Functional nodes second. Nodes that unlock new room types and new shop variants. More room variety per floor means more to do per run, which compounds faster than a flat stat bonus.
• Raw stat nodes last. Health and damage are linear, and with few points to spend they return less than the two categories above.

Fate Cards are tied to difficulty. Clearing higher tiers unlocks higher-tier cards, and each card carries a condition plus a payoff. Beating Hyperion on the "Wild" tier unlocks the "Grim" tier and its card pool.

For a fresh save:

1. Spend the first 10 hours on a lower difficulty, banking talent points and compendium entries.
2. On your first "Wild" attempt, take cards with loose conditions and immediate payouts — anything that only asks you to accumulate coins or keys.
3. Once a card setup is stable, take cards that demand specific behaviour (for example, using N bombs in a run). Taking those early means playing around the card instead of around the Abyss.

Hatchmon and Faith: when to commit

Hatchmon

Hatchmon (called 哈基宝 in Chinese) hatch from eggs, follow you into rooms and fight on their own. When an enemy knocks one out it falls over and you revive it by walking across it. Collecting enough of the same colour lets them fuse into a Super Hatchmon, whose output can exceed the weapon in your hands.

• Start around hour 3–5. You do not need a finished build first — Hatchmon add damage on their own.
• Fuse same-tier Hatchmon. Combining two tier-1 Hatchmon produces an egg with a 100% hatch rate and advances the hatcher task line. With the Incubation Accelerator Curio you can fuse four times in one run.
• Direct the colours. Some rooms contain a Hatchmon colour converter that trades coins to turn one colour into another — that is how you fill specific compendium slots instead of waiting on luck.
• Task overlap. Holding 4 Hatchmon in a run unlocks the weapon Whisper; holding 12 unlocks the ranged weapon Ballad; total hatches unlock Elise outright.

Faith

Faith replaces the first game's angel/demon gauges. Each floor's starting room has a pillar where you pick that floor's Faith; filling the meter opens a Faith temple with a reward.

From floor 2 onward, switching Faith costs you one hit. Do not reroll Faith while you are low on health.

Phase	Recommended Faith	Why
Early	The low-threshold starter Faith, Artisanism, Fortunism	Cheap to fill; Artisanism runs on Soul Shards and weapon growth, so it lines up with the vaporize-and-upgrade loop
Once your economy works	Consumerism, Agapeism, the key-focused Faith	Each maps to one economy line — coins, eggs, keys. Pick the one you actually have a source for
Once a build is online	The late-game Faith unlocked by defeating Eris	Unlocks late; treat it as a second-playthrough option

Don't spend a Faith temple the moment it opens

Resource Faiths such as Consumerism and the key-focused one reward banking. Go in, build the meter, keep exploring the floor to accumulate resources, then cash out in one visit instead of trickling it away.

Per-floor priority order

Highest priority first:

1. Hit the starting room's pillar and lock in this floor's Faith route.
2. Scout before you shop. Find the shop, the gambling machine and any converter on the floor first, so you don't spend on something you'll regret two rooms later.
3. Spend crystals on the gambling machine first. Long-run value beats buying a low-tier weapon.
4. Buy cheap weapons with coins to fill the compendium, then vaporize the ones you dislike into Soul Shards and feed your main weapon.
5. Save bombs for rocks and hidden rooms. Do not bomb enemies.
6. Check your hearts plus shields before the boss door (12 is the combined cap). Floors 1–4 charge half a heart per hit; from floor 5 every hit costs a full heart. Top your shields up before entering that boss room.

What to fix first when you're stuck

Work down this list:

• Dying on floors 4–5 constantly → fix survivability first. Take health nodes in the Evolve Tree, prioritise shield Curios during runs, and drop one difficulty tier to rebuild your fundamentals.
• Boss damage too low → fix weapon growth. Sweep shops for cheap weapons, vaporize them into Shards, and max your main weapon. Take the damage option on every level-up choice.
• Never enough resources → fix your route. Run the per-floor priority list above, feed crystals to the gambling machine, and swap resource Fate Cards for looser ones.
• Hatchmon doing nothing → check your fusion route. Fuse same-tier Hatchmon into a Super Hatchmon and use the converter to target colours.
• Hard-walled on a floor → change difficulty and Agent at the bar, or play online: your first online session and your first online win each award a Flash Rabbit coin, which you can bring back to solo play.

Sources

• Veewo Games press kit — Neon Abyss 2: official description of the Faith system, Hatchmon and the game's core pitch.
• Sohu Games — Neon Abyss 2 beginner progression guide: difficulty behaviour, health rules, resource planning and Faith selection.
• DownKuai — Neon Abyss 2 task guide: the full list of Agent and weapon unlock tasks.
• TapTap — Neon Abyss 2 launch gameplay overview: weapons, Hatchmon and co-op details.