Duskfade How to Find All Gears — 100% Collectible Guide

What Gears Are and Why Collectors Care

Gears are the clockwork cogs scattered across the five worlds of Duskfade, and tracking down every single one is the game's primary completion-side objective outside of story progression. According to community testing, the counter on the pause-menu Gear Tracker ticks up the instant a cog enters your inventory, which makes it the cleanest signal that a pickup is real and not a visual clone. Players who chase the 100% completion ending need to fill that counter completely, because the final layer of the Clock Tower only opens once every gear has been registered.

For anyone tackling Duskfade how to find all gears for the first time, the most important thing to know is that cogs are split into three pickup categories: route gears, which sit along the main path; off-path gears, hidden behind breakable walls, climb chains, or swim detours; and boss gears, which drop only after a specific encounter has been cleared. The Duskfade all worlds list breakdown explains where each region begins and ends, so cross-referencing that with the gear counter is the fastest way to know whether you're missing a pickup before you leave a world behind.

Because the gear system ties into the broader Secret Layer mechanic, finishing the collection also unlocks bonus dialogue with NPCs and a hidden vendor who sells cosmetic variants. If you're new to the basic loop of dashing, wall-jumping, and parrying, brush up on the movement primer in the Duskfade how to play walkthrough before gear hunting, since most off-path pickups demand precise platforming rather than combat skill.

Gear Locations Across All Five Worlds

The five worlds in Duskfade — Sunken Chapel, Verdant Mile, Crimson Foundry, Glasswind Spires, and The Duskfall Clock — each hide a fixed number of gears, with distribution leaning toward the later worlds because they contain more vertical layers. As reported by players mapping routes on community trackers, the totals shift slightly with patches, but the pattern below holds for the build described on the Duskfade on Steam store page.

Gear Distribution by World

The total is roughly 54 gears across a single playthrough, although community-tested save files have logged counts between 52 and 56 depending on whether secret boss rewards are still active in a given patch. Treat the table as a planning tool rather than a hard truth — the tracker in-game is always the final word.

World-Specific Pickup Notes

Sunken Chapel is the tutorial world and the safest place to learn how the gear counter behaves. One cog sits inside a wall that breaks only after the Crimson Warden boss, and another is awarded by an NPC after you complete their short dialogue chain.

Verdant Mile introduces the first off-path cogs: a hidden vine wall on the right side of the mill, and a sub-boss gear dropped by the Thornjaw Stalker. Players who skip the side route here lose two pickups that the tracker never recovers unless you replay the chapter.

Crimson Foundry and the later worlds layer multiple pickups into single rooms, which is why finishing the Duskfade how to find all gears checklist before entering Glasswind Spires saves real time. The Foundry conveyor belt, in particular, hides a gear beneath a movable crate — you need to parry a flame burst to flip the crate into place, then dash underneath before the timer resets.

How the Gear Counter and Maps Actually Work

The pause-menu Gear Tracker is your single source of truth, and it updates the frame a cog enters your inventory, even if you immediately die and reload the checkpoint. Because cogs never respawn and are never consumed, the tracker only moves upward, which means a missing count is always a missing pickup, not a glitch. This makes the Duskfade how to find all gears checklist feel almost mechanical: open the menu, read the number, compare it to your world-by-world plan, and backtrack.

The in-game map screen marks rooms with a small cog icon once every pickup inside has been collected, but it does not show partial completion, so an unmarked room can still hold one stray gear. That behavior has tripped up a lot of players, especially in Glasswind Spires, where four of the twelve cogs live in rooms the map shows as "cleared" simply because the primary objective is done.

Reading the Tracker and Avoiding Counter Drift

If your reading drifts more than one gear behind the expected total for a cleared world, you're almost certainly standing next to a missed pickup, because nothing in the game can permanently hide a cog once a room has loaded. According to community testing, the most common drift points are Verdant Mile's vine wall and Crimson Foundry's crate flip, both of which require a specific mechanic the on-screen prompt does not flag.

Hidden Routes and Off-Path Gear Pickups

Off-path pickups are the reason a casual run collects around 40 gears while a dedicated completion run collects the full 54. The difference is almost entirely about knowing which walls break, which NPCs trade, and which sub-bosses drop extras. If you're searching for a Duskfade how to find all gears route that doesn't waste hours, focus on three pickup families: breakable walls, NPC trades, and sub-boss drops.

Pickup Family Breakdown

Breakable walls respond to either a charged dash-attack or a perfectly timed parry, which is why practicing the parry window pays off long before you reach the harder worlds. NPC trades require you to have picked up a secondary token earlier in the chapter, so backtracking right after the trade is sometimes faster than carrying it across multiple rooms. Sub-boss drops are guaranteed once you defeat the optional encounter, so they make good checkpoint markers during a clean sweep.

For the trickier Duskfade how to find all gears pickups in the Spires, the floating-platform chain is gated behind the wind-glide upgrade that drops from a mid-world boss — check the Duskfade all bosses list for the upgrade order so you don't arrive at the platforms too early. The same principle applies to The Duskfall Clock, where the ending-branch gears only register after the final choice has been confirmed, not when the choice prompt appears.

Gear Completion Rewards and Set Bonuses

Reaching the full counter isn't just a number — it unlocks a real layer of content. Once the tracker hits 54/54, the top floor of the Clock Tower opens, granting access to a hidden NPC who sells the Brass Echo costume set, three lore entries tied to the pre-Duskfall era, and a short bonus cutscene that bridges into one of the alternate endings. Players who care about the story side of the gear hunt can read about the timeline in the PlayStation Blog feature on Duskfade's nostalgic take on action platforming, which describes how the gear system ties into the world's frozen-clock motif.

The set bonuses are smaller but useful: collecting every gear in a single world grants a permanent parry-window expansion for that world's chapter, which makes subsequent replays smoother and is especially handy for the Wrath boss fight — the Duskfade how to beat Wrath guide leans heavily on that wider window during phase two. Because the bonus resets when you start a new save file, completionists tend to plan their New Game+ route around which world they want the parry bonus active in first.

Gear Data Tables for Fast Reference

Below are the dense reference tables most players keep open in a second tab while running a clean sweep. The numbers are drawn from community trackers and may shift by one or two per patch, so always cross-check with the in-game counter before assuming a pickup is missing.

Full Gear List by Pickup Type

World Completion Checkpoints

If you're using a Duskfade how to find all gears checklist alongside these tables, sort by pickup type first and then by world — that's the fastest order because it groups similar platforming tricks together rather than scattering them across regions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many gears are there in Duskfade in total?

Do gears carry over to New Game+ in Duskfade?

No — the tracker resets at the start of every new save file, although world completion set bonuses can be re-earned in any order you prefer, which lets you pick a comfortable starting route.

What happens when you collect every gear in Duskfade?

Hitting 54/54 opens the upper layer of the Clock Tower, unlocks the Brass Echo costume set, three lore entries, and a bonus cutscene that bridges into one of the alternate endings described in the Duskfade on Steam store listing.

Which world has the most missable gears in Duskfade?

The Duskfall Clock holds the record with 6 missable pickups, four of which are tied to the ending choice branch and two to final-layer puzzles — check the tracker right before the ending prompt so you don't lock yourself out.

Is there a gear pickup trick that works in every world?

Yes — practicing the parry-into-dash chain opens every breakable wall across all five regions, and it's the single most efficient mechanic for a Duskfade how to find all gears speedrun route because it removes the need to switch loadouts.

If you've finished a clean sweep and want to push your completion further, the natural next step is the Guayota optional boss, whose arena hides one of the trickier sub-boss drops — the Duskfade how to beat Guayota guide walks through the timing windows you'll need to land it. What was the last gear you tracked down on your run, and which world's hidden pickup tripped you up the most?