Zombie Assault: Resurgence has more than 60 primary and secondary weapons, spread across ten manufacturers and five inventory categories, and every one of them can be upgraded five times and fitted with five mods. Strength comes from three separate layers — the rarity of the roll, the upgrade steps you put into that specific weapon, and the mods you slot into it — so the best gun in the inventory is usually the one you have invested in, not the one with the biggest number.
The weapons arsenal and its ten manufacturers
Weapons belong to the manufacturers that dominate the USI arms market: HVM, Ronson, Rubicon, Rancor, Morlok, Teknoboom, Smoke Stack, HIKS, RIA and Critical Mass. The inventory categories are Sniper Rifle, Rifle, SMG, Pistol and Shotgun.
Weapons named in official material include the HVM 055 and HVM 082 (the Assault and Heavy starting weapons), the HVM 019 Pistol, the HVM 040 Shotgun, the HVM MPG MK13, the RIA T25 Igniter (a thermal assault rifle), the RIA T35 Scorch, the RIA T71 Strike, the Ronson 77-A (a Physical rifle), the Ronson LBM-15, the HIKS M450, the Voltaic Bolter, the Shotlite Dominator, the Teknoboom Handkanone (an Epic Blueprint-only weapon returning from SAS 4) and the Morlok Frostbite Pistol, a cryo pistol unlocked by the Next Fest community kill-count challenge and not obtainable anywhere else at launch.
New hardware comes out of Strongboxes, mostly, so the Strongbox page is where the rest of the catalogue comes from. No weapon is locked to a class, although a class may grant bonuses for certain weapon types, and there are no Weapon Mastery systems at launch.
How the Morlok Frostbite Pistol is delivered
It does not arrive through your Steam inventory. Delivery runs through the NinjaKiwi account, in this order:
- Link your NinjaKiwi account to Steam. The co-op page has the account route — NinjaKiwi creates the account for you at first launch, and linking it to Steam happens inside the game.
- Join a multiplayer game and accept the in-game prompt when it appears.
- Look at the top-right corner of the lobby for the message that grants the weapon.
- Read the in-game email — the inbox sits next to the chat window — because the grant arrives as mail.
If it never arrives, work through this order: finish the prologue, close the game, reopen it, then check the in-game email again. A simple restart fixed it for some players, and the prologue is the step most people skip, so do it before anything else.
Two things to keep straight. The pistol was a Next Fest community kill-count challenge reward, so it is not in the normal weapon pool and not in Strongboxes — if you did not earn it, you will not find it by opening boxes. And whether the delivery reaches every buyer is unconfirmed: as of 2026-10-30 no developer statement confirming that was found, so check your own account rather than assuming either way.
Delivery status observed 2026-10-30 and due for re-check.
Rarity, damage and the five upgrade steps
Every weapon has a rarity band, and the same gun can be found at more than one rarity with its damage scaled accordingly — an HVM 055, for example, can show up as a Common with 80 damage or as an Uncommon with 120 damage. The ladder runs Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary, and rarity matters twice: it sets the damage of the roll, and it sets how much Mod Power the weapon can support.
Upgrades happen in place, and they are simple:
- Each weapon can be upgraded a maximum of five times.
- Every upgrade adds 5% base damage.
- A fully upgraded weapon sits at the maximum 25% base damage buff.
That is a separate path from crafting, which is how you turn blueprints plus materials into a weapon you do not have yet — the crafting page covers that side.
Five mod slots and how mods roll
On top of the base weapon there are five mod slots, and each one has its own stat ranges:
- Optic — Range, Accuracy, Crit Chance, Movement.
- Barrel — Damage, Range, Crit Chance, Movement.
- Grip — Range, Accuracy, Reload, Movement.
- Clip — Clip Size, Reload, Movement.
- Core — can buff any stat.
Mods are found as loot from Strongboxes and are also stocked by Vendors, and they come in the same rarity ladder. The maximum Mod Power a weapon can support is tied to the weapon's own rarity, so a higher-rarity gun has room for stronger mods, and Elite Augment Cores are the items that raise that ceiling further.
From Rare quality a mod can also roll an Enhancement that changes how the gear behaves rather than just adding a stat:
- Heatsink swaps the magazine for a heat system, so you never reload but you have to manage heat and can overheat.
- Energise trades one mod slot for a flat increase in Mod Power across your whole gear, and can roll on armor as well.
- Hollow Points sacrifices base damage for a crit chance and accuracy increase far beyond a normal mod roll.
Armor rolls the same kind of Enhancements with a different set of effects, and the armor page covers those.
Damage types: match the resistance, not a multiplier
Five damage types are confirmed: Physical, Thermal, Corrosive, Cryo and Energy. The damage type is a property of the weapon, not of the situation, and the developers have stated that enemies use resistances rather than weaknesses, so there is no elemental multiplier synergy to stack. Choosing a type is about matching the resistance profile of what you are facing — the zombie side of that rule is on the enemies page.
One example of what the numbers look like in game: the official loadout screen shows the Ronson 77-A with DPS 395.1, a 36-round clip, a 2.50-second reload, a fire rate of 2.00 shots per second, 2 pierce and an equipped movement penalty of -11.00%.
Balance is deliberately wide, so several guns stay viable: a lower-damage weapon with much higher pierce can be the better choice. The HVM 040 Shotgun and the RIA T35 Scorch have each ranked among both the most and the least loved weapons, and the HVM 019 Pistol is frequently called unsatisfying.