Crowns

Guide to Crowns

Crowns are special modifiers which when taken can change certain aspects of the game. Every crown has an upside that can help the player in some ways (while having its own drawbacks), and a downside that will limit the player in some capacity. In the case of some crowns, the upside and downside are the same thing. Each crown has an in-game sprite that follows the player around the level, but is there just to visually show what is in use.

Crowns are typically found during a run by visiting the Crown Vault secret area. They are only fully unlocked for each specific character by either completing a run via defeating the Nuclear Throne or Captain, or looping past the Nuclear Throne.

There are 6 crowns that appear in preloop vaults and 6 crowns that appear in loop vaults. All vaults will include a 'bare head' option which will run crownless. Any upside/downside is removed upon switching or removing a crown, with the exception of the extra mutation from Crown of Destiny. Only one crown can be run at a time and their modifiers will never stack by taking it twice.

Each crown is listed in the table below with their in-game description. Each links to a page with fully in-depth tech on how each works, as well as a subjective strategy guide for those seeking advice. A summary of advice is within this dropdown;

Crown Strategies (Summary)

This section is a subjective summary of every crown page's viability. There is no right way to play!

Many crowns are generally unbalanced and while some are good on paper, are actually terrible in practice. As such most are only ever taken to unlock once for each character and then are ignored afterwards.

Preloop crowns specifically have the worst bunch, as it's generally better to just play vanilla than run many of these.

Life and Guns are considered to be the worst in the game with very detrimental downsides.
Haste and Risk have upsides that are decent, but the downsides can sometimes come at great expense.
Destiny is a utility crown used for higher modes of play, but is a pretty bad choice for new players.
Curses is easily the best preloop crown for all modes of play, though new players should be particularly aware of its downsides.

Loop crowns are a lot more balanced in general, as the runs will usually benefit much more than be hindered by taking these.

Hatred has a marginal upside and is easily ignored.
Protection's trade-off is very arguable, putting it on the weaker end.
Love is a straight upside if already running preferred weapons, but isn't a game changer.
Death, Luck and Blood all give considerable upsides and downsides that have the biggest impacts on gameplay. Blood is considered the best in meta play (loop 3+), but is particularly dangerous for anyone learning loop.

Preloop Crowns
Crown of Life	Big HP Chests More Common No HP Drops	Crown of Guns	More Weapon Drops No Ammo Drops
Crown of Haste	Pickups Are Worth More Pickups Fade Fast	Crown of Destiny	Free Mutation Narrow Future
Crown of Curses	A Lot More Cursed Chests	Crown of Risk	More Drops At Full HP Less Drops When Not
Loop Crowns
Crown of Death	Bigger Explosions -1 Max HP	Crown of Hatred	Gain Rads Opening Chests Take Damage Opening Chests
Crown of Blood	More Enemies Fewer Rads	Crown of Love	Ammo Chests Only
Crown of Luck	Chance Enemies Have 1 HP Start Areas At 1 HP	Crown of Protection	Weapons Contain HP Weapons Do Not Contain Ammo

Other crown options includes these two which do not have their own pages:

Loadout Options
None	A Bare Head Is A Fair Head Crownless option that appears on character selection and in every Vault.
Random	??? Random crown option that appears on character selection once 2+ crowns are unlocked, available on 2025 openbeta/NTT v100 only.