Annihilated Curses Guide: How to Earn and Spend Them

Shatter items to earn Curses: every item you break in Annihilated leaves a Curse behind, and you spend those Curses to erase bad rolls, forge the gear you need, or bank the remainder as experience. That is the whole loop the developer describes, and this guide walks through how each part of it fits together.

What Curses are

Annihilated is a story-driven roguelite RPG from developer Death Kumiai in which you fight through a cursed dungeon in turn-based card battles. Every item you carry becomes a card with a limited number of uses, and the game's economy is built around that limit: gear is meant to break. Per the official Steam page, the game features more than 100 weapons and items to "steal, break, and turn into Curses," so a steady supply of Curses is a normal part of a run rather than a rare bonus.

A Curse is therefore not a punishment. It is a currency generated by the same event that makes your strongest weapons strong — the moment an item shatters.

How to earn Curses

The developer states the rule plainly: every shattered item leaves behind a Curse. That gives you two practical ways to stockpile them:

• Break gear deliberately. Every weapon is at its strongest on its final use, so the store page notes it often pays to shatter items on purpose, even when supplies run thin. Pushing a weapon to its last use gives you its best attack and the Curse it leaves behind.
• Collect new gear to break. You get equipment by taking it from enemies, so each stolen weapon is one more item that will eventually convert into a Curse when its uses run out.

The exact Curse value of each item is not stated in the material. Do not assume all items yield the same amount; check the in-game description when the game launches.

Spending Curses: the three uses

The material describes three destinations for your stored Curses.

1. Defy fate

Curses let you Defy fate. If you roll the worst possible result, spend a Curse and it never happened. This is the advertised use: an insurance policy against the game's probability layer. It matters most if you choose the probability-based battle style, since that style leans on rolls by design — the game offers a timing-based and a probability-based battle style, and either one can carry you to the end.

2. Forge items

Stored Curses can be forged into the items you need. The material does not name the forge's menu location or list forge recipes, so treat the specific forging interface as a detail to confirm in game. What is confirmed is the direction of the exchange: Curses in, needed items out.

3. Convert to experience

Whatever Curses you do not spend becomes experience. Because Annihilated is a roguelite, this is the permanent-growth sink: the store page states that every death makes the next run stronger. Leftover Curses from a failed run are not wasted — they feed your progression between runs.

Death and retry behavior

Death is not a run-ender in the punishing sense. If you die, you retry from the floor where you fell. Combined with the experience conversion, the loop is: die, keep the Curses you banked, grow stronger, and continue from the same floor.

How the Curse loop connects to Fatal Strikes

The fastest Curse engine is tied to another headline mechanic: the Fatal Strike. Stagger a foe, then land a weapon's final use to trigger a Fatal Strike, which kills the enemy instantly and steals its equipment. Since a weapon's final use is also its strongest, a Fatal Strike chain looks like this in practice:

1. Stagger the enemy

   Enemies show you their next move before they act, so watch for the opening to stagger.

2. Land the weapon's final use

   The last use is the weapon's strongest, and it triggers the Fatal Strike: instant kill, enemy equipment stolen.

3. Convert the spoils

   The stolen gear extends your pool of items, each of which will eventually shatter into a Curse when its uses run out.

This is why the developer encourages shattering weapons on purpose. The item's death is not a loss — it is simultaneously your best attack, an instant-kill finisher when timed on a staggered foe, and a Curse added to your stock.

A practical priority order

Since Defy fate, forging, and experience all draw from the same pool, a reasonable way to think about spending is:

1. Keep a reserve for Defy fate if you are running the probability-based battle style, where a bad roll can decide a fight.
2. Forge only for items you genuinely need — the material confirms forging exists but not its exchange rates.
3. Let the remainder convert to experience, which compounds across deaths and floors.

Your choice of partner also shapes how safe it is to lean on rolls: the Hero shrugs off death, while the Priest heals like no one else.

Next steps

• Our Fatal Strike guide covers the stagger-and-final-use kill that feeds stolen equipment into your Curse supply.
• If you are torn between the two combat modes, see battle styles — the probability-based style changes how often you will want Curses saved for Defy fate.
• The Freeze status effect interacts with the Fatal Blow gauge, which matters when setting up finishes that shatter your gear.

FAQ

How do I earn Annihilated curses?

Every shattered item leaves behind a Curse. Because every weapon is at its strongest on its last use, the developer notes it often pays to shatter items on purpose — and over 100 weapons and items in the game can be stolen, broken, and turned into Curses.

What does spending a Curse on Defy fate do?

If you rolled the worst possible result, you spend a Curse and it never happened. It is the game's way of rewriting a bad outcome after the fact.

What happens to Curses I don't spend?

Stored Curses can be forged into the items you need, and the rest becomes experience. Every death makes the next run stronger.

Do I lose progress when I die?

No — if you die, you retry from the floor where you fell, and your accumulated Curses feed into forging and experience between runs.

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Check note: all mechanics on this page come from the official Steam store page for Annihilated, checked 2026-11-04; the launch date of November 10, 2026 also appears in the publisher's press materials. The material describes the Curse system only at a summary level, so exact Curse values per item, forging costs and recipes, and the Defy fate interface remain unconfirmed until the game is playable.