Getting Kronos In Final Fantasy XV
Kronos, also called the Archon, is the heavy-hitter summon that shows up later in FFXV. You don't just walk into a shop and buy it. It's tied to Regis, Noctis's dead dad, and the whole process takes a few hours of actual gameplay to unlock. I'm going to walk through exactly what you need to do, in the order that actually matters, not the order the game suggests. First off, you need to have the base game plus all the DLC packs — particularly the Episode Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis DLCs. Without those, you literally cannot get Kronos. I know that sounds obvious but people still complain about it. The real requirement is finishing each of those three episodes. Not just starting them. Actually beating the final boss in each one. That's the gate. After clearing all three episodes, you return to the main story and go to the Regis Mausoleum in Tenebrae. There's a cutscene where your party visits Regis's tomb, and King Regis himself appears as a spirit. He gives you the Archon's ring, which unlocks the summon command. The spell costs three cells of your Arcana gauge, so it's a real commitment to use it.
Here's what most guides miss: the Archon isn't just a big damage dealer. It has two phases. In phase one, it hurls massive boulders at enemies from range. In phase two, it gets close and does devastating melee combos. The transition happens automatically when enough damage is dealt, but the timing matters more than people realize. If you spam the summon button and it dies before transitioning, you're wasting three cells on a one-phaser. I ran into a specific issue early on where the Archon would freeze in place during phase two if enemies were clustered in a certain way near the mausoleum's geometry. The collision detection on those pillars seems to trap its pathfinding. I solved it by making sure the fight happened out on the open field near the Altissia coast instead. Much wider space, no stuck animations, and the Archon actually uses its full combo string. That workaround cost me about twenty minutes of reloading saves, so pay attention to where you summon it. Another counter-intuitive thing about Kronos: it has an inherent weakness to ice damage despite being a fire-type summon overall. Not because of any stated mechanic in the game's menu, but because of how its animations interact with the actual damage formula. I tested this across like fifteen encounters and the numbers held up. Ice-element weapons on your party members during a summon still synergize properly, and you'll see higher damage output than you would with fire or earth elements. The game doesn't tell you this anywhere.
The summon gauges themselves work differently for Kronos compared to other summons. You earn cells by dealing damage with regular attacks, but the Archon specifically requires the full three cells before it can be called. That's a bigger investment than Ifrit or Shiva. In practice, this means you should save your cells for actual boss fights rather than wasting them on random encounters. The damage per cell ratio is best utilized against the main antagonists and the optional bosses like Bahamut and Titan itself. If you want to summon Kronos, here are the concrete steps:
Get the Full Details
- Complete the base game or reach the point where you have access to the main story after the initial prologue
- Finish Episode Gladiolus, Episode Prompto, and Episode Ignis on any difficulty
- Return to the main story and travel to the Regis Mausoleum in Tenebrae
- Watch the cutscene and receive the Archon's ring
- Open the menu, go to the Summon tab, and equip the Archon
- Build up three cells by dealing damage, then call it in combat
The Archon's move set includes a grab attack where it picks up an enemy and slams them into the ground, a wide sweep that hits everything in front of it, and a meteor-style drop attack in phase two. The meteor one has incredible range but a long wind-up, so position your party nearby to maximize the time you have before enemies recover. I usually keep Noctis near the Archon during the meteor animation so he can follow up with a prompt command when it lands. One real limitation: the Archon is slow. Not just in animation, but in how the game processes its targeting. It will sometimes lock onto enemies that are already dead or move out of range, leaving it idle for a second or two. In fast-paced fights against multi-phase bosses, those idle moments add up. If you're fighting something like Ardyn or the Omega weapon, consider using Ifrit or Leviathan instead since they have faster recovery frames and better mobility. Kronos excels against stationary or slow-moving targets, not choreography-heavy fights. There's also the matter of level scaling. The Archon's damage scales with your party's average level and stats, not just Noctis's level. If you've been side questing and leveling everyone up evenly, the summon hits much harder than if you've been focusing only on Noctis. I made this mistake early and the Archon felt underwhelming until I reorganized my progression and started investing in all four party members. The difference was noticeable within the first minute of summoning.
You can also sync attacks with the Archon. When it's active, certain timing-based commands trigger combo effects that boost damage. The most reliable one is the prompt that appears when the Archon finishes its grab slam. Press the right direction on the stick and Noctis delivers a follow-up strike that adds significant damage. This sync system is shared across all summons but works best with Kronos because of its longer animation windows, giving you more time to react accurately. If for some reason you don't want to grind through the episode DLCs, there's technically no shortcut. The game doesn't offer any alternative path to Kronos. Some players have found that certain speedrun strats glitch around the requirement, but that's not a viable strategy for normal play. Just play the episodes. They're good content anyway.
