Unlocking the rest of the game

Characters, stages and relics, and the fastest order to get them.

There are 242 characters, 33 stages, 60 relics and 34 Arcana cards, and almost all of it is gated behind the 459 achievements. Import your save and the Progression page reads them back with their conditions checked, so "what am I nearest to" stops being guesswork.

Relics first, where you have the choice

Relics are the highest-leverage things in the game: they unlock shop items, whole stages, and in the case of the Mindbender, a seventh weapon slot. The Collection page ranks what you are nearest to and weights relics and stages above cosmetics for exactly this reason.

Play the run the game is asking for

Roughly half of what an account has left is bound to a stage rather than to a character. The planner's What to play next panel names both, because "play Antonio" is not a run you can go and start - "play Antonio in Mad Forest, and these four achievements move" is.