Returnal Proficiency Explained: How to Increase and What It Does

Returnal can be a pretty brutal experience at first, with multiple new systems to learn as you fight. Proficiency is an important one, relating directly to the level of weapons you'll come across for each loop. To help make sure you're making the most of your Proficiency in Returnal we've put together this Returnal Proficiency guide. We'll take a look at what it does, and how to increase it.

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Returnal Proficiency Explained

Proficiency is shown in the bottom left of the screen, indicated by a star icon. It is described as follows:

• Proficiency measures your combat ability per cycle. You get Proficiency from each hostile that you dispatch, but there are also items that can grant you Proficiency or affect your Proficiency Rate i.e. how much Proficiency you gain from dispatching hostiles and items.

Essentially, Proficiency level determines the level of weapons that you'll have access to while playing. As you kill enemies, this level will increase, allowing you to pick up higher level guns. It's important to keep this as high as possible.

How to Increase Proficiency

The ways to increase Proficiency in Returnal are as follows:

1. Kill hostiles
2. Pick up Calibrator items, these vary in how much they will add to your Proficiency bar.
3. Collect Artefacts that boost either Proficiency or Proficiency Rate

Proficiency Tips

Here are some tips for keeping your Proficiency high:

• When entering a new biome you will get a Proficiency upgrade to match the level of that area.
• Use Ether to unlock new artifacts, giving you more options for boosting your Proficiency
• Seek out Calibrators
• Kill every enemy you come across

That's all you need to know about Proficiency in Returnal. For more help with the game be sure to check out our guide on Adrenaline. Elsewhere there's our page on getting into the 20th Century House.