Quick summary
- Best first upgrade: the permanent layer that fixes the recurring reason your run fails.
- Army problem: prioritize a visible permanent soldier skill before adding another unrelated system.
- Access problem: settlement expansion is the official route to new shops and permanent upgrades.
- Unlock problem: special objectives can reveal Heroes, artifacts, cosmetics, upgrades and Combos.
- Current economy baseline: version 0.11 guarantees Region Currency in every act and increases it in Acts 2 and 3.
- Future status: Paper Cult plans to reduce metaprogression grind, but has not shipped or dated that rework.
Tears of Metal Village upgrade priority
| What ends or limits the run | First layer to inspect | Why this is the safer priority | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soldiers disappear before they contribute | Permanent soldier skills | Paper Cult explicitly describes permanent soldier growth between campaigns. | Official system; exact skill and cost order still need a current UI capture |
| The Village offers too few long-term options | Settlement expansion and shop access | The official store says expansion opens new shops and permanent upgrades. | Official system; no universal named building order published |
| A Hero, artifact or Combo path is still unavailable | The matching special objective | Official materials place these unlocks behind special objectives, not only purchases. | Official reward categories; inspect the live objective for its exact condition |
| Permanent currency arrives too slowly | Consistent act completion before a speculative purchase | Region Currency is guaranteed in every act, with larger rewards in Acts 2 and 3. | Version 0.11 rule; exact reward amounts are not claimed |
| The Hero is strong but one campaign build failed | Review in-run choices before buying blindly | Emblems, shops, fountains and campaign rewards belong to the run-facing economy. | Official patch categories; persistence should be confirmed in the live UI |
This is a decision order, not a hidden numerical tier list. The first four rows map a visible problem to a progression layer confirmed by current official sources. They do not claim that every save exposes the same named purchase at the same time.
Keep campaign routing separate from permanent spending: use the map-symbol guide to judge the next run's nodes, then return here only when a persistent bottleneck is clear. If you are deciding whether the current progression pace is acceptable at all, the Early Access review weighs that friction against the rest of the live game.
A repeatable four-step spending loop
- 1
Write down the last run's failure
Choose one cause: Hero survival, soldier survival, blocked shop access, an incomplete objective or an in-run build that never came together. - 2
Separate permanent and campaign-only choices
Use the Village and its menus for permanent growth. Treat campaign shops, fountains and offered Emblems as run-facing until the current UI explicitly says otherwise. - 3
Buy one upgrade that targets the cause
Prefer the smallest visible permanent improvement that directly addresses the recorded bottleneck. Do not spread currency across unrelated layers just because each option is available. - 4
Test the same failure condition again
Run far enough to see whether the army survives longer, the needed shop appears or the objective becomes reachable. Keep the priority only if the result changes.
What is permanent and what is run-facing?
| Layer | What official sources confirm | What is not claimed |
|---|---|---|
| Soldiers | They gain permanent skills between campaigns. | No complete current skill tree, level cap or cost table is published here. |
| Settlement | Expansion gives access to new shops and permanent upgrades. | No fixed first-building recommendation is presented as official. |
| Special objectives | They can unlock artifacts, playable Heroes, cosmetics, upgrades and Combos. | Each exact trigger must be read from the current objective or a dated patch note. |
| Campaign economy | Patch notes separately change shops, fountains, chests, Charms and act rewards. | A run-facing purchase is not labeled permanent without live UI evidence. |
Region Currency and the current patch baseline
Version 0.11.57863 remains the latest official update that specifically details the metaprogression economy:
- Region Currency is guaranteed in every act;
- Acts 2 and 3 give more Region Currency than before;
- Scroll Region Currency rewards can appear in Acts 2 and 3 after completing Act 2;
- reward amounts were rebalanced without a complete public amount table.
The August 13 update later fixed an issue that could produce +0 Coins Region Rewards in Act 3. Version 0.14.58630 is the latest numbered normal-branch patch verified for this page, but it does not publish another Village purchase order or metaprogression economy table.
This makes deeper, consistent runs a verified source of permanent currency. It does not prove that saving for one unnamed late Village building is always better than fixing an immediate army or access problem.
Should you wait for the metaprogression rework?
Paper Cult's August 21 roadmap says phase two will improve and rebalance the metaprogression to reduce grindiness. The post gives no release date, patch number, final costs or conversion rules. It is a plan, not a live economy change.
Continue using the current visible prices and requirements. Avoid building a spreadsheet around today's exact costs unless it records version and date, because this is one of the systems the developer has explicitly said it plans to revisit. The current roadmap separates planned phase-two changes from shipped content.
What should I upgrade first in the Tears of Metal Village?
What are the best Tears of Metal Village upgrades?
Do soldiers keep upgrades between runs?
Is Region Currency guaranteed?
Should I save everything for the next metaprogression patch?
Sources
- Tears of Metal official Steam store page
- Paper Cult's Early Access launch announcement
- Paper Cult's version 0.11.57863 announcement
- Paper Cult's August 13 update
- Paper Cult's August 21 metaprogression roadmap