How Runs, Loadouts & Gear Actually Work — Official Clarifications
The developer's own explanation of why the Loadout Station locks mid-run and why purified gear comes back at Common quality. Two systems most often reported as bugs.
How Runs, Loadouts & Gear Actually Work
On September 2, 2026, ProbablyMonsters published Helpful Resources: Runs, Loadouts & Gear — a post written specifically because two of the game's systems were being reported as bugs when they are working as designed. Team Metal's own words: "some things being reported as bugs are actually game systems that we recognise aren't currently explained clearly enough in-game. That's on us to communicate better."
This page collects those clarifications in one place, with the mechanics stated plainly.
Why the Loadout Station is locked between missions
The confusion: you finish a mission, return to Sanctus Clypeus, and the Loadout Station is unavailable — or appears floating above you where you cannot reach it. It looks broken.
What is actually happening: you are still inside an active run.
A full run is:
- Mission 1
- Mission 2
- Mission 3
- World Boss
Returning to Sanctus Clypeus between those missions does not end your run. The Loadout Station stays locked until you either complete the entire run through the World Boss, or die.
So the rule is: your loadout is chosen once, at the start of a run, and you live with it for all three missions plus the World Boss. You can still swap gear you find during the run — see below — but the Loadout Station itself is a pre-run decision.
This is a deliberate roguelite constraint, not a UI failure. Plan the loadout before you leave. See How Runs Work for the full run structure.
Why your purified gear came back at Common
The confusion: you find a Rare item, survive the run, purify it — and the version in your Collection is Common. It reads like the game stripped your loot.
What is actually happening — the key rule:
Purifying an item permanently unlocks that item at Common quality, regardless of the quality you found it at.
Purification unlocks the item, not the roll. Finding a Rare sword and purifying it does not put a permanently-unlocked Rare sword in your Collection. It puts that sword into your permanent arsenal, starting at Common.
Raising the floor with Gajov
To make a permanently-unlocked item better, you upgrade it through Gajov, the vampire blacksmith at Sanctus Clypeus. Upgrading does something more useful than it first appears:
Upgrading an item through Gajov permanently increases its minimum quality everywhere.
If you upgrade a weapon to Uncommon, that weapon will only ever appear at Uncommon or higher from then on — whether you pick it from your Loadout at the start of a run, or find another copy as loot from an enemy or a chest.
So Gajov upgrades are not per-item enhancements. They are floor raises on your entire loot pool. Every upgrade permanently improves what the world can roll for you.
Putting it together
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Find gear in a run | Usable immediately at the quality you found it |
| Purify after a successful run | Permanently unlocks the item, at **Common** |
| Upgrade at Gajov | Raises that item's **minimum quality everywhere**, forever |
Read as a system: runs discover what exists, purification banks it, and Gajov raises the floor of the whole pool. See Loot & Progression and How Builds Work.
Why this trips people up
This is the number one expectation mismatch in launch-week reviews, and understanding it up front changes how the game reads. From our review theme breakdown:
"All that gear we 'purify' and get to keep? Only VERY FEW actually have built in powers, otherwise they are just flat stat sticks."
If you expected purified gear to keep its found rarity and Boons, the meta-progression looks thinner than promised. If you understand it as unlock the item, then raise its floor at Gajov, the progression is real but slower and broader than a Diablo-style keep-your-drop loop.
Team Metal has said the in-game explanation of these systems is being improved in future updates.
Official sources
Both clarifications come from the developer directly:
- Helpful Resources: Runs, Loadouts & Gear — September 2, 2026, the post this page documents
- How Runs Work in Crimson Moon — the original gameplay explainer
- Gameplay Explained: Loot & Progression — purification and gear basics
- Gameplay Explained: Welcome to Sanctus Clypeus — the hub, War Table, Loadout Station, and Gajov
- Gajov — the blacksmith who raises quality floors
The official post also links two pages on the community-run crimsonmoon.wiki.gg ↗ wiki: How Do Runs Work and How Gear & Purification Work.
Mechanics on this page are quoted from ProbablyMonsters' September 2, 2026 Steam announcement. This is an unofficial fan wiki.
Published: 2026-09-04