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Prodeus has just come out of Steam Early Access, and to the Xbox Game Pass. It’s a hardcore ’90s-styled first-person shooter that owes a big stylistic debt to Doom, with bloody action, high-speed combat, and of course, tons of well-hidden, questionably fair secrets.
Prodeus has a big player base, but the developers changed a lot since its time in Early Access, so there’s a lot of outdated information lying around about many of its quirks, mechanics, and hidden areas. This is the first of a series of guides on how to find all the secrets and valuable Ore Fragments in Prodeus‘s first official campaign, “The Kingdom Between.”
How to Find All the Secrets and Ore in Sacrum
Secrets in Prodeus have had some more thought put into them than many “boomer shooters.” You don’t simply get more health/armor/ammo here; secrets frequently give you early access to new weapons, valuable currency like Ore Fragments, or are concealing crucial parts of the stage like the automap. It’s not unusual for the last couple of enemies you need for a 100% kill count to be hidden in a secret area.
After its first stage, Sacrum, the first stretch of Prodeus‘s campaign isn’t entirely linear, so it’s not useful to use designations like “level 1.” Instead, we’ll just refer to each stage by its name.
Sacrum is the first official level of “The Kingdom Between,” and you’re thrown directly into it after the tutorial. When you complete it, you’ll unlock the world map and you’ll have found the first three weapons in Prodeus‘s sizable arsenal.
Secrets: 5
#1: After you pick up the shotgun for the first time, fight through the ensuing zombie ambush, then enter the next room and take out the Fiends. At the far end of this room, there are three observation tables, one of which has a health flask on it.
Interact with the wall next to the table with the flask to find a secret door that leads back outside.
Shoot the barrel on the ledge ahead of you to take out the Fiend that spawns ahead of you, then jump to the narrow platform on the left side of the central column.
Circle around it, killing another Fiend on the way, to find an automatic lift at the top of the column. Ride it down to find an Ore Fragment and three armor shards.
#2: Shortly after the above secret, you’ll find a locked elevator that requires a red key. This is the exit to the level. If you circle the elevator and use the ledge behind it to jump onto its roof, you can hop across the gap to a narrow ledge on the adjacent wall.
From here, drop down onto the armor to get credit for a secret. The glass wall will lower as you touch down, letting you continue with the stage.
#3: Just past the elevator, go outside and collect the automap, then turn left. There’s another armor pickup in a notch on the outside wall, and grabbing it counts as the third secret.
You don’t need the double-jump to get it, although that does make life easier. Instead, if you get onto the nearby ledge, there’s just enough clearance that you can take a flying leap and land on the notch with the armor.
#4: In the ominously red-lit area before the Rune Energy Conduit, drop down to the lowest level and check the walls for a weakly-glowing door switch.
Interact with it to open a secret passage that contains shotgun shells and an Ore Fragment.
It’s worth keeping this secret in particular in mind. There are a fair number of secrets just like it throughout Prodeus, hidden behind low-battery wall switches.
#5: When you get off the elevator in the part of the facility that contains the red key, you may notice an Ore Fragment behind a locked vent. You can’t get it right then, however.
Proceed through the level and drop down to grab the red key. Doing so automatically raises the bridge across the lava. Step out onto it, then immediately turn left.
There’s a hidden ledge with a staircase built into the wall, which leads you to several armor shards and the Ore Fragment you passed earlier.
Since the vent cover opens once you collect the Ore Fragment, this is also an easy way to backtrack into the facility and grab Ore Fragment #6 (below) if you missed it.
Ore Fragments: 7
It takes a couple of levels before you can reach a Shop on Prodeus‘s world map, but once you’re there, you can spend your accumulated Ore Fragments on new weapons and useful upgrades, such as a double-jump and air dash.
Many Ore Fragments simply appear along a level’s critical path. Others are rewards for finding secrets, or are simply hidden somewhere. As such, for a guide like this one, there’s going to be a certain amount of redundant descriptions.
Unlike Runes, collected Ore Fragments permanently despawn.
#1: The first Ore Fragment in the game can be found right out in the open, early on in the critical path through Sacrum.
#2: See Secret #1, above.
#3: After you pick up the automap, turn around and go down the stairs to either side of your point of entry. The third Ore Fragment is barely hidden at their bottom, across from the door.
#4: From #3, reenter the facility and fight through its lowest level. The third area you enter features two Fiends and a shotgun zombie on the other end of a long hall that’s split into two parts by a short wall. The fourth Ore Fragment is in a high alcove above that short wall, where it’s easy to miss.
#5: See Secret #4, above.
#6: This is tricky to explain, but this Ore Fragment is found one floor up from the red key.
When you take the elevator up from the caverns below, you’ll end up on the other side of an unbreakable window from the key. Use the nearby door to go back outside, then fight through the ensuing demonic ambush. Afterward, hop up the cliffs to reenter the facility via an open wall panel.
Immediately afterward, circle around the white force field and take out the shotgun zombie on the other side of the gap. Jump to where that zombie was and go through the doorway with the red light above it to find some bullets and the sixth Ore Fragment. It’s not exactly hidden, but it’s easy to overlook if you’re moving quickly.
#7: See Secret #5, above.
