PEAK: How to Get the Ritual Dagger and Last Resort Badge

The Final Ascent adds PEAK’s Gloom and The Citadel biome variants, new badges, and the Ritual Dagger: a rare co-op item built around a deliberately brutal trade. To earn the Last Resort Badge, find the dagger during a multiplayer run, lower the dagger holder’s health to below roughly 25%, then use its right-mouse sacrifice action from behind a teammate. The resulting heal must restore more than 75% of your health in one go.

The trap is trying to force this in solo or using the dagger immediately after finding it. The Ritual Dagger is a co-op-only random spawn, and a healthy player can complete the sacrifice without meeting the badge’s large-heal requirement. Treat the run as a relic hunt first, then set up the sacrifice only when the team has a safe recovery plan.

Last Resort Badge Requirements

The badge checks three separate things: the run type, the size of your heal, and the dagger interaction itself. Missing any one of them wastes a rare dagger spawn.

• Play in co-op. The Ritual Dagger does not spawn in solo runs, so the badge cannot be completed there.
• Find a Ritual Dagger. It is a random special-item spawn rather than a pickup at one permanent map location.
• Make the dagger holder critically injured. Aim for a red health bar at 25% health or lower; slightly below one quarter gives the safest margin for a heal greater than 75%.
• Stand behind a teammate. The target must be a living co-op partner with enough room for you to line up the interaction.
• Use right mouse button. The sacrifice activates, the teammate is sacrificed or petrified by the effect, and the dagger holder receives the huge heal that unlocks Last Resort.

Important: the teammate is the cost of the heal. Do not spring this on a random teammate while climbing a dangerous wall or standing over a fatal drop. Stop on stable ground and make sure the group understands who is carrying the dagger, who is taking the sacrifice, and how the run continues afterward.

How to Find the Ritual Dagger

The Ritual Dagger has no guaranteed chest, tomb, or fixed landmark. The practical route is to search every ancient-themed interaction point while moving toward the late-run biomes introduced in The Final Ascent. Ancient Luggage, Ancient Idols, and Ancient Statues are the places that matter.

Start a Co-op Search Run

Launch a multiplayer run before doing anything else. A two-player group is enough, although three or four players can make the later sacrifice and recovery less disruptive. Keep the party reasonably close while looting: if one player finds the dagger far ahead, the team still needs to regroup, injure the holder safely, and position a target behind them.

Once the climb begins, prioritize every Ancient Luggage container and every Ancient Idol or Ancient Statue you reach. The dagger can appear across multiple biomes, so a missed ancient container is more costly than skipping ordinary loot when Last Resort is the goal.

Prioritize Gloom and The Citadel

Gloom and The Citadel are the best biomes to push toward when the dagger has not appeared early. They are variant biomes that can replace Caldera and The Kiln on some maps, so neither is guaranteed on every run. When one does appear, slow the route down long enough to inspect its ancient loot points instead of treating the biome as a pure traversal check.

Run stage	Best decision	Why it saves time
Early biomes	Open every Ancient Luggage and inspect every Idol or Statue.	The dagger can spawn before the late game, but there is no fixed opening-area location worth resetting for.
Gloom	Search carefully before rushing through the foggy terrain.	Gloom is one of the strongest practical targets for a Ritual Dagger route.
The Citadel	Keep the run alive and fully search ancient points.	The Citadel is another high-priority biome and can reward teams that did not find the dagger earlier.

A badge-focused run should preserve movement resources rather than burn every useful item for speed. Reaching more biomes gives you more chances to find the random spawn. If the dagger has not appeared by the time the party reaches Gloom or The Citadel, continuing the climb is usually more efficient than immediately abandoning the run.

What to Do When the Dagger Appears

Assign the Ritual Dagger to the player who wants the badge and stop treating it as general combat loot. The important effect is the full or near-full heal granted to the user after sacrificing a teammate. That means the holder, rather than the target, must take the damage beforehand.

• Dagger holder: carries the item, lowers their own health, then performs the sacrifice.
• Sacrifice target: stands still with clear space behind them and accepts the immediate consequence of the ritual.
• Remaining teammate, if present: watches the surrounding terrain and helps the group recover after the badge unlocks.

Ancient Idols and Statues are most useful to this specific route as potential dagger spawn points. Do not wait to find one as though it were a required Last Resort revival station. Secure the dagger, choose stable ground, and plan the team’s recovery with the resources already available in the run.

Set Up the 75% Heal Correctly

The wording sounds simple — heal more than 75% damage at once — but the threshold makes half-health attempts unreliable. If you are sitting at 40% health, even a powerful heal may fail the requirement depending on the amount restored. Put the dagger holder at 25% health or lower, preferably visibly below the quarter mark, before using the item.

Use Controlled Fall Damage

Fall damage is the cleanest setup because you can take it in small pieces. Choose a manageable ledge near safe ground, take one drop, check the health bar, and repeat only if necessary. Environmental damage can also work, but avoid hazards that can chain into an instant knockout or separate the party.

If controlling a jump is awkward, remove heavy equipment or your backpack first so your movement is easier to manage. The aim is to end in a low red-health state while still standing. Going down ruins the setup: the dagger holder must be alive to use the Ritual Dagger and receive the badge heal.

Best health target: somewhere below one quarter of the bar. The badge requires a heal that exceeds 75%, so leaving a small amount of extra missing health is safer than trying to stop at an exact visual line.

Use the Ritual Dagger From Behind

Once the holder is badly injured, have the chosen teammate stand still on level terrain. Walk directly behind them with the Ritual Dagger equipped, line up the backstab-style position, and press the right mouse button.

The ritual sacrifices the teammate and converts that sacrifice into a massive heal for the dagger holder. When the holder was below the 25% range, that single burst should clear the Last Resort requirement and unlock the badge immediately.

Do not use the normal attack input, and do not approach face-to-face. The special ritual depends on the correct right-mouse input and being behind the teammate. If the positioning is off, adjust before committing; the dagger is too valuable to spend on an uncertain attempt.

Last Resort Badge Failures and Fixes

• The dagger never appeared: Confirm the run is co-op, keep opening Ancient Luggage, Idols, and Statues, and continue toward Gloom or The Citadel rather than resetting solely because the opening biome was empty.
• The sacrifice worked but no badge unlocked: The dagger holder was probably too healthy. On the next dagger attempt, drop below 25% health instead of attempting it from a merely damaged state.
• The interaction will not trigger: Reposition directly behind the teammate, make sure they are alive, and use the right mouse button rather than a standard attack.
• The dagger holder was knocked out while setting up: Use shorter falls and stop as soon as the health bar is deep red. The goal is critical health, not incapacitation.
• The team lost its route after the sacrifice: Set up on stable terrain, avoid narrow ledges, and keep at least one teammate free to manage the run’s recovery.

Why the Badge Is Easier in a Planned Run

Last Resort looks like an item-collection badge, but it is really a coordination check layered over random loot. The spawn is unpredictable, the health requirement is strict, and the final action removes a teammate from play in the moment. A party that decides the roles before finding the dagger can complete the badge in one clean interaction; a party that discovers it mid-climb often wastes the item through panic, bad positioning, or insufficient damage.

The Final Ascent’s broader additions make that planning more valuable. Gloom and The Citadel give a Ritual Dagger hunt meaningful late-run destinations, while PEAK’s traversal tools still matter because the group needs to reach those biomes intact. Save the reckless damage play for the final setup, after the dagger is secure and the ground is safe.