Annihilated Fatal Strike and Curses are two mechanics worth learning early, because breaking a weapon can actually work in your favour. Every piece of equipment becomes a card with limited uses, and weapons are strongest on their final use. Get the timing right against a staggered enemy and you can finish them instantly while taking their gear.
Breaking equipment also gives you Curses, a resource used to undo a bad roll, forge items or gain experience. If you’re tempted to keep every weapon intact for as long as possible, here’s why Annihilated asks you to think differently.
How Annihilated Fatal Strike and Curses work
Every item you carry can become a battle card, but you cannot use it forever. A weapon has a limited number of attacks, and its last one delivers its strongest hit. That turns durability into a decision you make during a fight: hold on to a useful card, or use it up when the opportunity is worth it.
To trigger a Fatal Strike, first stagger your enemy. Then finish them with the final use of a weapon. The attack kills the target instantly and steals its equipment. It is not enough to land an ordinary finishing blow with a weapon that has plenty of uses left.
Why breaking weapons is sometimes the right move
That is the attraction of Annihilated Fatal Strike and Curses. The weapon you break may help replace itself with the equipment you take from your opponent. A low-use card isn’t necessarily dead weight; it can be exactly what you want when an enemy is already close to defeat.
Enemies show their next action before taking it, which gives you time to plan. Watch for a stagger opportunity and consider whether your weapon has one use left. You still need to survive the incoming turn, so don’t spend every card simply hoping a Fatal Strike will happen.
What does a Curse do in Annihilated?
Every item that shatters leaves behind a Curse. The name sounds like a negative status effect, but here Curses are useful resources. If a bad roll threatens your run, you can spend a Curse to Defy it, effectively rewinding that outcome. The developers have not published a universal cost for every use.
You can also forge stored Curses into equipment, with whatever is left becoming experience. This gives Annihilated Fatal Strike and Curses a nice loop: break gear, collect a resource, and put it back into your next decision. You don’t need to treat every shattered weapon as a loss.
A practical way to approach early fights
A good early habit is to check the remaining uses on the cards in your hand. If a weapon is about to break, look for a staggered enemy you can finish. If the target has useful equipment, a Fatal Strike becomes even more attractive. If not, saving the attack for a safer turn may be smarter.
This isn’t an instant-win move you can spam without thinking. A Fatal Strike needs the right setup, and you still have to manage what is left in your hand. The advantage comes from choosing when to spend your resources rather than trying to keep every item forever.
Do Curses and Fatal Strikes work in both combat styles?
Annihilated supports timing-based and probability-based battle styles. The developer says either style can reach the ending, so you are not choosing between separate stories. The limited-use equipment and Curse economy are central to combat; exact button prompts and roll calculations can differ and are best checked in the game itself.
If you die, you retry from the floor where you fell instead of being sent back to the opening of the entire game. That makes experimenting with Annihilated Fatal Strike and Curses less daunting, though it doesn’t guarantee that every item or choice is preserved after a defeat.
What has not been confirmed yet
For Annihilated Fatal Strike and Curses, the sequence to remember is: stagger the enemy, finish with a weapon’s final use, then take the equipment from the Fatal Strike. A broken item leaves a Curse, which can help reverse a bad roll or create replacement gear. Exact stagger thresholds and crafting recipes depend on in-game details, not a fixed list in the developer’s store description.
Related Guides
Official source: Death Kumiai and Flashlight Games on Steam.
