Cuphead Divine Relic: How to get the charm

Cuphead Divine Relic boss fight — (Image credit: Studio MDHR)

The Cuphead Divine Relic is the strongest charm in the game, letting you switch weapons by dashing, and granting you the benefits of multiple charms at once. However, it comes with a high price. First, you'll have to solve a puzzle, and then defeat a number of tough bosses with a pretty significant debuff.

But if you're up for the challenge, this charm can completely transform the game, and it even plays some nice music when you equip it. In this guide, I'll explain what you need to do to get your hands on the Divine Relic.

Cuphead Divine Relic: How to get it

Cuphead Divine Relic in the charm menu — (Image credit: Studio MDHR)

The first step in getting the Divine Relic is unlocking the Cursed Relic. I explain how to do this in our Broken Relic guide (if you haven't picked up on it yet: there are several relics to keep track of here). Here's the short version of what you have to do:

Buy the Broken Relic
Solve the puzzle at the graveyard
Defeat the secret Angel and Demon boss with the Broken Relic equipped

This will turn the Broken Relic into the Cursed Relic.

Now, the Cursed Relic is kind of horrific as a charm; it limits your HP to 1, and randomly swaps between weapons and charms when you dash, making already hard bosses even harder. To upgrade this into the Divine Relic, you're going to have to beat a lot of regular difficulty bosses with it equipped.

It was initially thought that these had to be the 6 bosses from the DLC, but some people online report doing five bosses from the base game, and two DLC bosses, so it seems like the number you have to complete varies depending on whether you fight the DLC bosses, base game ones, or whether you mix both together.

Either way, you'll know you're progressing as the image of the eye on the charm will begin to change as you defeat bosses. Being able to fight both DLC and base game bosses also makes things a lot easier, as you can pick and choose the ones you're good at. Once you defeat the required bosses, the Cursed Relic will transform into the Divine Relic, granting you access to the powerful charm and the secret Paladin achievement.

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.