It takes a few hours to access some of the top-tier chips and boost your combat abilities, but once you have them, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them. With plenty to choose from, here are the best upgrade chips to get in Ghostrunner 2.
What are the Best Upgrade Chips in Ghostrunner 2?
You can equip many of the best upgrade chips in Ghostrunner 2 very early in a new playthrough. By the time you reach the game’s later stages, you have access to even more. Indeed, there are dozens to choose from.
While some of the most powerful are, well, the most powerful, you need to be on the road to mastering the game to use them properly. The ones I’ve picked as the best meet that criterion for one reason. There’s no situation where they aren’t immediately useful. Neither do they demand anything additional from you. They work, make the game more fun, and cost you nothing to use.
Stamina and Energy Reducing Chips
I’m cheating a little here because there are actually four different upgrade chips that reduce stamina or energy costs. Energy in Ghostrunner 2 refills instantly out of combat but recovers at a snail’s pace while you’re fighting. The following four choices are top-tier because they reduce an ability’s cost by a flat value. If you have the Motherboard space, there’s almost no reason not to use them.
- Artificial Senses: Sensory Boost costs 25% less Stamina. Sensory Boost is a crucial part of Ghostrunner 2‘s gameplay loops, and now it costs less to use.
- Hydraulics Adjustment: Dashing costs 15% less Stamina. This chip is invaluable because you’ll be dodging a lot in Ghostrunner 2.
- Oiled Machinery: Shuriken skill costs 20% less energy. Of all the special abilities, I always found Shurikens to be the most useful.
- Advanced Hologram Projector: Shadow skill costs 20% less energy. Shadow creates a holographic doppelganger of you, and while I didn’t use it as much, it can be a great get-out-of-jail-free card.
- Custom Pressure Chamber: Tempest skill costs 20% less energy. Tempest had a better use case for me, as its push affects every human-sized enemy and gives you breathing room.
Smart Deflect
One of the earliest available and best upgrade chips in Ghostrunner 2, Smart Deflect allows you to deflect enemy projectiles back at them, usually killing them instantly. Remember that you’ll need excellent timing, and you can only deflect a single projectile back, not an entire volley. Mistime your perfect parry or fail to see another shooter behind you, and you’ll still die. However, if you’re playing smartly, most fights in Ghostrunner 2 should be one-on-one.
Smooth Moves
Another early upgrade chip, Smooth Moves’ effect is as powerful as it is simple: it makes perfect parry easier. That’s it. That’s the chip. You’ll still need to get the timing of each attack down, as I find that even with Smooth Moves equipped, there’s a brief delay between parrying and having the parry hitbox appear. Regardless, that window grows quite a bit with this chip.
While you can technically deal with every enemy in Ghostrunner 2 by outspacing them, getting a perfect parry can save you in a tough situation. Smooth Moves also makes deflecting projectiles easier, so it pairs well with Smart Deflect.
Flow Extension
This chip is more for later-game play, as combo modifiers require lots of enemies to activate properly. But Flow Extension increases the combo timer’s decay by 50%. If you manage to surround it with chips on the Motherboard, that bonus doubles to a 100% increase in combo timer drain. Having a longer combo also ensures you have the skill points to spend on additional upgrade chips, should you wish to.
Rooting
You don’t get access to this upgrade chip until later in Ghostrunner 2, and it’s expensive to equip. Its effects, however, are massive. Without it, you must pick and choose which chips go where, and once you put a chip from a particular category in a slot, that whole row now belongs to that chip type. Rooting removes that limitation, letting you place any type of chip in any slot and in any configuration — as long as you have the motherboard space. It’s a game-changer on every level, and I love it.
Those are the best upgrade chips to get in Ghostrunner 2. You could use more than a dozen other amazing upgrade chips, from Flow Shield for extra survivability at high combo multipliers to Gap-Blinker for even more maneuverability against larger enemies. Try swapping them in and out to see which others you might like. For more tips and tricks, as well as our guides on the best Ultimates to use and how to complete Roguerunner Simulations, click the links or visit our guides hub.
