Levels, ranks and prestige

Every match earns you player XP. It raises your level (1 to 55), which unlocks loadout weapons, equipment, gumballs and features, and your rank, the insignia shown next to your name. At level 55, prestige starts you over with a new emblem, ten times, before you become Master of Ys. The end-of-match screen breaks down the XP you earned line by line; the Barracks track your rank and prestige (see Leaderboards, Barracks and Archives).

Earning XP#

XP is awarded live during the match, based on what you do:

On top of that:

• Realistic difficulty: all XP in the match is multiplied by 1.25.
• Challenges: each challenge tier you clear awards its XP (see Challenges).
• An active Double XP token: match XP (excluding challenges) is doubled for the share of the match the token covers (see below).
• Squad bonus: +5% match XP per ANKOU friend in the match, up to +15% (a full squad of four friends).

For reference: a good 30-round match earns around 60,000 to 90,000 XP, and a first match that ends around round 10 gives you several levels at once.

Levels#

Each level takes a little more XP than the one before: 3,000 XP from level 1 to level 2, about 7,850 XP at level 10, 14,100 at level 20, 21,300 at level 30, 38,300 at level 50. In total:

Level 55 therefore takes some fifteen to twenty good matches. Each level gained also brings a vial of Moon Nectar.

Ranks#

Levels are grouped into 11 tiers of 5 levels, each with its own insignia: from Recruit (levels 1 to 5) to Admiral (51 to 55). The insignia’s metal goes from bronze to silver, gold, platinum and then obsidian; within a tier, each level adds a mark, from I to V (“Sergeant III”). Your insignia is visible to everyone, in the lobby and on the leaderboards.

Prestige#

Once you reach level 55, XP no longer raises your level: the Barracks offer Enter prestige.

• Your level goes back to 1 and your level XP starts over from zero.
• You keep everything: weapons, loadout unlocks, attachments and Gunsmith builds; weapon levels, camos and mastery; achievements, titles, emblems, stats, Archives, Battle Pass and Mega gumballs.
• Everything you unlocked by level stays unlocked: only your level and insignia change.
• You get a new prestige emblem, more ornate each time, 250 Ankou Coins and 5 vials of Moon Nectar.
• Prestige I awards the “Ferryman of Souls” title, Prestige V “Tomb Watcher,” Prestige X “The Ankou.”

There are 10 prestiges, each with its own name (from “Shore Watcher” to “The Ankou”). Prestiging is final: the Barracks ask you to confirm it.

Master of Ys#

After your 10th prestige, one last step at level 55 makes you a Master of Ys: you carry on from level 56 to level 1000, at 40,000 XP per level (about half a match). Your emblem evolves every hundred levels, and you earn the “Master of Ys” title. Master of Ys levels also bring their vial of Moon Nectar.

What levels unlock#

Almost every level unlocks a loadout weapon: the required level is shown in the Challenges › Unlocks tab and in the starting-weapon picker of your Loadouts (“Unlocks at level…”). The other unlocks:

The weapons, equipment and gumballs of levels 1 to 5 aren’t announced one by one: they all arrive together with Loadouts, at level 5 (see below). Mega gumballs don’t unlock by level: they’re made at the Korrigan’s Workshop. Your next unlocks are shown in the Barracks, along with the XP you still need. The end-of-match screen and your player card show the next menu to unlock while there are any left, then your next unlock.

Menus that unlock#

When you start out, the main menu doesn’t show everything at once: its entries open one by one. Play (solo games, games with friends, lobbies), Discord, Patch notes, Settings and Quit are always available. An entry that isn’t unlocked yet is greyed out, with a padlock and the level it needs. The path is the same in the Discord Activity and in the web game.

Before level 7, the games and lobbies you start are played on Ker-Ys; before level 10, on Normal, the ranked difficulty (with the newcomer boost, then Easy as long as you haven’t picked a difficulty, see Rounds and difficulty); Easy unlocks with the difficulty choice. In a friend’s lobby, or when you join a public match as reinforcement, the host’s settings apply.

Each unlock is announced: a banner during the match as soon as you reach it, then a full-screen reveal at the start of the end-of-match screen. Back in the menu, the entry glows with Ready to unlock: click it to open it. It then carries a New badge, and a bubble points you to it (one at a time; Later hides it until you next return to the menu). The first time you open it, a guided tour introduces the screen: Skip the tour closes it, the screen’s ? button starts it again. Its reward is only given once.

After a prestige, everything is open. Accounts created before this path follow the same levels: whatever they had already opened stays open, with no automatic tour (its reward can still be claimed once, with ?). A player who has already bought Ankou Coins keeps the Shop and the Battle Pass open.

Double XP tokens#

Tokens are earned on both tracks of the Battle Pass:

• Double XP (30 min or 1h): doubles match XP, and therefore pass XP;
• Double Weapon XP (30 min or 1h): doubles weapon XP (see Armory, Gunsmith and loadouts).

You activate them in the Tokens tab of the pass screen. Their time only runs during matches, never in menus: activating several tokens of the same kind adds up their durations, up to 12 hours of bonus in reserve. If a token only covers part of a match, only that share is doubled.

Checked against the game on November 8, 2026