Weapon and armor modifications are a huge crafting component in Horizon Zero Dawn. Lots of enemies and chests will drop modifications of all sorts, which you can use to augment your dangerous arsenal.
But the best mods you’ll find in the game are (of course) the rarest of them all — those sweet, sweet purple mods. These are the rarest of the rare, and supposedly they’re hard to find…unless you know a few tricks for farming them.
It’s totally possible to grind high-end, triple-stat purple mods once you’ve traveled to the Meridian. You can even sort of do it before then, if you have a little patience. We’ll break it down for you.
How to Farm Purple Mods in Horizon Zero Dawn
It’s super easy to farm top-tier mods by killing Thunderjaws. Each time you kill one of these hulking machines, you’re guaranteed to get a three-stat purple mod.
But first, you have to find a Thunderjaw — preferably one near a fire. If you take the main road to Meridian City, you’ll pass one such bonfire with a Thunderjaw less than 50 feet away. How convenient!
Now all you have to do is take it down. Use Tearblast Arrows to rip off its two hip cannons. If you’re feeling sadistic, you can use those cannons as heavy disc launchers and shoot the Thunderjaw to death.
Should you run into trouble killing it, you can also use the Rope Caster to immobilize it, then freeze it. This will slow the Thunderjaw and increase all damage it takes. Then you do the same as before — hack off the cannons, then use them as disc launchers and go haywire.
After you’ve made that machine power down permanently, here’s what you do:
- Loot all mods.
- Head back to the bonfire and quick save.
- Hit the pause menu and choose “Reload Last Save”
Upon reloading, you’ll be dropped in front of the bonfire with a freshly respawned Thunderjaw waiting for you.
There are lots of other bonfires that are in close proximity to multiple Thunderjaws if you’re feeling brave and want to farm mods even faster. To handle the larger group, it helps if you Corrupt one of them so that it’s distracted while you tear off its cannons. Or the Rope Caster can come in handy, too.
What If You’re Not Far Enough to Fight Thunderjaws?
Maybe you’re still early on in the game and haven’t yet faced the intimidating Thunderjaw. If that’s the case, there’s a decent enough farming spot that you can access from the start of the game.
Head to the Scrapper site at the far west end of the Embrace. In this grove, you’ll find two Scrapper piles. At least one of them will contain a purple mod — and sometimes both of them do. You can use the quicksave/reload trick to get these Scrappers to respawn quickly.
It’s not as reliable as the Thunderjaw method, and you’re not guaranteed to get a triple-stat mod. But for being available at the very beginning of the game, it’s a hard trick to beat.
That wraps up our guide to farming very rare purple mods in Horizon Zero Dawn. If you want some other tips and tricks to give you an edge in the wilds, check out our other guides:
- Horizon Zero Dawn Beginner’s Guide
- Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Guide to Resources, Components, & Crafting
- Horizon Zero Dawn: Handling and Other Weapon Stats Explained
- Horizon Zero Dawn: Armor Stats and What They Mean
- How to Upgrade Your Spear in Horizon Zero Dawn
- Horizon Zero Dawn: How to Farm 10,000 Shards Per Hour
