God of War Ragnarök continues the story of the vengeful and angry god of war Kratos, except he is not as consumed by rage as he once was. After being constantly manipulated by the Greek deities, Kratos finally broke free from their shackles and became his own man. Now a father to his demigod son Atreus, Kratos might be facing his toughest challenges ever since Fimbulwinter has ended.
The battle-hardened Kratos suffered through a lot of misery throughout his time in the Greek lands, going through several harrowing trials before finally attaining peace for a brief period of time. While his powers may have changed over the years, one thing that remained consistent in his life was his signature weapon: The Blades of Chaos.
As powerful as The Blades of Chaos are, you can make them even stronger. Ragnarök allows you to customize your weapons using materials you gain by completing quests or exploring the realms. Each upgrade adds a different effect to the weapon you are upgrading, giving them additional stats or powers they didn’t have before.
The upgrade we will be talking about today will be the Cursed Empress Handles. It is one of The Blades of Chaos upgrades and this is how you can get them.
Where to get the Cursed Empress Handles in God of War Ragnarök
Just like it is with some of the other weapon upgrades in this game, you need to first defeat The Hateful. This unlocks the Cursed Empress Handles which, when activated, give you the ability called “Power of the Empress.” It is a powerful ability that grants you a low chance to get an increase in your Strength and Runic stats on any Blades attack.
Keeping the Cursed Empress Handles relevant throughout the entirety of the game is possible, but you will have to make sure that it is appropriately maintained. This involves periodic upgrades to your weapon that you will have to keep up with as the game progresses because the enemies will scale in difficulty as well.
As far as upgrades go, there are a total of nine upgrade levels for your Cursed Empress Handles. Each tier of upgrade requires a certain amount of resources and some prerequisite stat requirements before you can go about upgrading the weapon itself.
- Level one: Default.
- Level two: Strength – four, Luck – five, no resource requirements.
- Level three: Strength – eight, Luck – nine, Hacksilver – 800, Rawhide – six
- Level four: Strength – 11, Luck – 13, Hacksilver – 2400, Stonewood – two
- Level five: Strength – 15, Luck – 17, Hacksilver – 4000, Stonewood – five
- Level six: Strength – 18, Luck – 22, Hacksilver – 6000, Petrified Bone – one
- Level seven: Strength – 22, Luck – 26, Hacksilver – 9000, Petrified Bone – two
- Level eight: Strength – 25, Luck – 30, Hacksilver – 12000, Sovereign Coals – four
- Level nine: Strength – 29, Luck – 34, Hacksilver – 16000, Whispering Slab – 20, Glowing Embers – three
