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Carried Items: Equipping and Enhancing Gear
Held items are the equipment slot that lets an Aniimo's stats go past its potential ceiling. Here is what they grant, how you enhance them, and what the beta's runes left behind.
The short version
- Held items, called carried items during the beta, grant passive bonuses: increased HP, stat boosts, buffs and damage amplification.
- Their stat bonuses sit on top of an Aniimo's potential-derived baseline, so effective stats go past the standard 20-point per-stat potential ceiling.
- Some held items already grant a stat bonus at their tier one effect, so an unenhanced item is not a dead slot.
- Enhancement runs on Held Item Cores, which come in Basic, Common and Advanced grades.
- The rune system was removed completely before the 16 September 2026 launch, and carried items no longer roll random rune slots.
- Accessories are a separate, cosmetic layer. Backpacks are accessories and carry rarity tiers, including Epic.
Held items are the equipment slot on an Aniimo. The beta called them carried items, and plenty of players still do, so you will see both names. Whatever you call them, they are the part of a build you bolt on rather than grow.
That matters because growth has a ceiling. Potential gives an Aniimo its baseline, and the standard per-stat potential ceiling is 20 points. A held item grants stat bonuses on top of that baseline, which pushes effective stats past what potential alone allows. If you have been searching for how Aniimo stats work and kept landing on potential, this is the other half of the answer.
The rest is the passive bonuses themselves, how you enhance an item, and what the beta's rune system left behind.
What the slot actually adds
Carried items are equippable gear that grant an Aniimo passive bonuses. The list covers increased HP, stat boosts, buffs and damage amplification, so the slot is not specialised into one role. It can be defence, it can be offence, it can be raw numbers.
The important part is where those numbers land. An Aniimo's baseline comes from potential, and potential tops out at 20 points per stat. Held item stat bonuses are added on top of that baseline. Two Aniimo maxed to the same potential are not equal if one of them is holding something.
You do not need a finished item to see the effect either. Some held items grant stat bonuses as early as their tier one effect. An item you picked up and slotted this morning is already doing work.
20
Standard per stat potential ceiling
Three items and the jobs they do
Ambusher's Cloak increases the damage dealt by attacks made from behind an enemy or from stealth. It is conditional by design. If your Aniimo opens from behind or out of stealth, the Cloak pays; if it trades blows face to face, it does nothing for you.
The Experimental Unit provides increased defense against enemies. That is the survivability pick, and it is the one to reach for when the problem is that something keeps dying rather than that something is killing too slowly.
The Experimental Amplifier grants a substantial damage boost against enemies on Normal difficulty. Note the qualifier. The boost is stated for Normal, so treat it as a Normal-difficulty item rather than a universal damage stick.
Enhancing with Held Item Cores
Held items are enhanced by consuming Held Item Cores. Cores come in three grades: Basic, Common and Advanced. That grade ladder is the whole progression path for an item now, so Cores are worth holding rather than spending on the first thing you equip.
Management lives in the training menu, alongside rank ups, skill customization and Capability Awakening. Another guide on this site covers that menu properly. For held items, it is simply where you go.
- BasicThe entry grade of core consumed to enhance a held item.
- CommonThe middle grade in the core progression.
- AdvancedThe top grade named for enhancing held items.
The rune layer is beta history
During the beta, carried items could be slotted with runes, which amplified their effects and made them stronger. Exceptionally rare Legendary Runes could be socketed into the carried item an Aniimo was holding to grant superior stats, including large damage increases. The Holo-Battle Sim, which offers several difficulty levels, handed out weekly rewards of runes for upgrading carried items.
None of that survived. The rune system was removed completely before the 16 September 2026 launch, and random rune slots went with it, so carried items no longer roll them. The system is simpler for it: an item's strength comes from the item and its Cores, not from what you happened to socket into it.
Our guide on what carried over from the beta goes into the removal in full. The practical point here is that build advice written around Legendary Runes is describing a game that no longer exists.
Beta carried items
- Could be slotted with runes that amplified their effects and made them stronger.
- Rolled random rune slots.
- Exceptionally rare Legendary Runes granted superior stats, including large damage increases.
- Holo Battle Sim granted weekly rune rewards used to upgrade carried items.
Launch held items
- The rune system was removed completely before the 16 September 2026 launch.
- Random rune slots are gone and carried items no longer roll them.
- Enhancement runs on Held Item Cores instead.
- Some held items grant stat bonuses as early as their tier one effect.
Accessories are the cosmetic layer
Accessories can be equipped onto an Aniimo for customization, and they are a separate thing from the held item slot. Backpacks are the clearest example: they are cosmetic accessories, and they are assigned rarity tiers, including Epic.
Worth knowing because rarity reads like power everywhere else in the game. An Epic backpack is an Epic-rarity cosmetic. It is not a stat upgrade, and it is not competing with your held item for the bonuses described above.
Where to start
Put something in the slot early, because tier one effects already pay. Save your Advanced Cores for an item whose condition your Aniimo actually meets, and ignore any build guide still socketing runes.
Most of this page was re-checked against the released game on 18 September 2026. The rest has not been re-confirmed since release.