Sunset Overdrive: Badge & Weapon Leveling Guide

Insomniac Games & Xbox One’s major new IP, Sunset Overdrive is now in many houses across the nation but sometimes you can get caught up in all the side-quests and main story that you may not find time to just relax and level up your favorite weapon or even your least favorite weapon, or gather enough overdrive badges for your favorite activity like undergrinding. Well we are here to help with a short little guide on how to make the most of your time in Sunset Overdrive and level up what you want to level up.

Overdrive Badges

Overdrive Badges deal with a wide array of gameplay mechanics, enemies and weapon types. They add modifers that you can equip to help your character along. As you play, you will begin to develop a play style, be it bouncing around cars and tents shooting enemies or grinding and undergrinding around the area shooting at your enemies. This is your play style and continuing this is what will garner you more badges to upgrade how effective you are while in combat. Sometimes you will want to switch it up though and may want to focus on a specific style to upgrade it or earn badges for it. Same goes for weapons such as single shot, traps, automatic etc.

The best way to effectively level these up is to enter a highly traversed area (OD are the most common enemy and will likely be your highest enemy badge for the majority of the game) and kill enemies using the play style you are focusing on. This can be undergrinding while simultaneously focusing on single shot weapons such as Flaming Compensator or Dirty Harry or automatic weapons such as High Fidelity or the Roman Candle. This will effectively kill two birds with one stone. Key areas to look for are overturned trucks which usually have an abundance of enemies such as OD or Scabs.

Alternatively you can level up traversal badges (grinding, bouncing, wall running) by simply traversing the area, avoiding enemies and just collecting collectibles (toilet paper, stashes, smelly shoes, Fizzy balloons etc). This can be a less ‘fun’ way but it will also help kill two birds with one stone in a sense, especially if you have unlocked the collectible maps for the area you are traversing.

Leveling Weapons

Just like overdrive badges weapons can be upgraded by consistent use. You can level these up much easier than you can overdrives, however you can actually do them both at the same time if you choose to. Simply either search around the city for OD, Scabs or Fizzco Robots depending on whatever your weapon of choice is strongest against (you can check this in the weapon menu). Then you simply just go after them and kill as many as you can find. Alternatively, you can do side-missions or your best bet, Chaos Mode or Night Defense missions at various bases around Sunset City.

Night Defenses are single player defenses you will unlock as you progress the game and once you beat them within the story can be retired over and over for leaderboards. These are also helpful with ranking up overdrive badges and weapons. These always consist of OD though as your enemy. Chaos Mode is the online cooperative version of this, however if you don’t want other people taking your kills you might want to stick to the Night Defense version.

There you have it, some quick and easy tips for leveling your weapons and overdrive badges in Sunset Overdrive. Be sure to check out our other guides for Sunset Overdrive such as our basic survival tips and more.