It isn’t an extra biome. It’s a replacement.
The Bank looks like a bonus. It is not — it is a swap, and understanding that before you open the chest is the whole difference between a good Bank and a wasted run.
Motion Twin’s own explanation: if you enter the Bank at the transition after Prisoner’s Quarters, you exit having skipped Toxic Sewers, Promenade of the Condemned and Dilapidated Arboretum. The Bank ate them.
That means the timing of your entry decides what you gave up. Enter at a passage with a rich choice of alternatives and you have traded away your best scroll option. Enter at a passage where you did not want what was coming and you have traded away nothing.
How you get in
A flashy chest is guaranteed to appear once per run, in a transition area between biomes — but never before a boss fight.
Two rules that catch people:
You must open it the first time you see it. Walk past it and it will not reappear for the remainder of that run. There is no second chance and no re-roll.
You have to have unlocked it. The requirement is reaching the Hand of the King or The Queen at least once. Do that and the chest starts appearing from your next run out of Prisoner’s Quarters.
The scroll trade, and why it isn’t a loss
Here is the part every guide gets wrong by omission.
The Bank contains one fewer scroll than the best biome it replaced — “best” meaning the one with the most Scrolls of Power on the ground, not counting cursed-chest scrolls.
But it also always contains a guaranteed Cursed Chest.
So the arithmetic, in Motion Twin’s own example: if the best replaced biome has 4 scrolls, the Bank has 3 scrolls plus a Cursed Chest. You can still reach the same total. What changed is the price — the scroll is no longer free, it is behind ten kills.
You are not losing a scroll. You are converting a free scroll into a cursed one. If you can handle the curse, the Bank costs you nothing in stats.
Here is the count by stage:
| Replaced stage | Scrolls in the Bank | Cursed chest |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 2 (Promenade / Toxic Sewers / Dilapidated Arboretum) | 2 Dual Scrolls | 1 |
| Stage 2.5 (Prison Depths / Corrupted Prison) | — | 1 |
| Stage 3 (Ossuary / Ramparts / Ancient Sewers / Morass) | 2 Scrolls of Power + 2 Dual Scrolls | 1 |
| Stage 4 (Stilt Village / Slumbering Sanctuary / Graveyard / Fractured Shrines) | 2 Scrolls of Power + 1 Dual Scroll | 1 |
| Stage 5 (Clock Tower / Forgotten Sepulcher / Cavern / Undying Shores) | 3 Scrolls of Power + 2 Dual Scrolls | 1 |
Bonus scrolls and scroll fragments still apply on Boss Stem Cell levels as they normally would.
Stage 2.5 is the one to think about. Prison Depths and Corrupted Prison give you their scrolls without the Bank’s shop access being worth a curse, and the entry there contains only a curse chest — so a Bank entered at that depth is a straight downgrade.
The four floors and three passes
The Bank has 4 floors, three of which need a coloured pass.
| Pass | Where you get it | What it opens |
|---|---|---|
| Red Pass | Given to you at the start by the Bank Teller | Access to the Blue Pass |
| Blue Pass | Inside the Red floor | The Green Pass and the biome exit |
| Green Pass | Inside the Blue floor | The platforming puzzle holding the Gentleman’s Outfit blueprint |
| — | — | The bottom floor, behind a gold door |
That last row is the decision. The door opens for a minimum of 2,000 gold, and the price rises with how much gold you are carrying — the richer you are, the more it charges. Alternatively, you can simply break it for 15 curse.
Behind it there is always a food shop.
So the branch is: pay gold you were probably going to spend on a shop anyway, or eat 15 curse — which on a Bank run where you are already carrying 10 from a Cursed Chest is a genuinely dangerous number.
The loan is the trap
The Bank has slot machines that will lend you money.
- You can borrow 2,000 gold per use, up to a maximum of 20,000.
- At the end of the biome you have to pay it all back.
- Any debt you cannot repay costs 10 curse per 2,000 gold.
Borrow 20,000 and spend it, and you are carrying 100 curse — near enough to instant death from a single hit.
The loan exists because the Bank is built to tempt you: gold-scaling doors, gold-scaling weapon crits, and a food shop behind a paywall. The design is “borrow, spend, fail to repay.” Treat the slot machines as a trap unless you have a specific purchase in mind and the discipline to leave the gold alone.
What’s actually in there
Four Bank-only enemies:
| Enemy | What it does |
|---|---|
| Agitated Pickpocket | Wants your gold, and has the claws to take it |
| Gold Gorger | Collects gold as it grows — do not let it reach its final form |
| Golden Kamikaze | The bat you already know, but it drops more money |
| Mimic | Poses as a shopkeeper |
That last one is a specific mechanic: the Bank has fake shops that look exactly like normal shops. Buy something from one and the shopkeeper reveals itself as a Mimic and attacks you.
On top of those four, the Bank spawns enemies from every biome it replaced. Enter after Prisoner’s Quarters and you will face a mix of Promenade, Toxic Sewers and Arboretum enemies in the same rooms — combinations that never occur anywhere else in the game. Its enemy tier also scales one step higher than the biomes it stands in for.
Shops: 2 weapon/skill shops and 1 food shop.
Six exclusive blueprints
| Blueprint | Where |
|---|---|
| Dagger of Profit | Agitated Pickpockets |
| Robber Outfit | Agitated Pickpockets |
| Gold Digger | Gold Gorgers |
| Midas’ Blood | Gold Gorgers |
| Money Shooter | Golden Kamikazes |
| Gold Plating | Mimics |
| Get Rich Quick | Mimics |
| Gentleman’s Outfit | The green-pass platforming puzzle |
Note the naming: the weapon is Dagger of Profit in the patch notes, but the original announcement called it Dagger of Cupidity. Same item, renamed before release.
The three weapons, all of which make gold a combat resource:
- Gold Digger — gives gold on hits, and critical hits if you are carrying a lot.
- Dagger of Profit — critical hits for 3 seconds after you pick up gold.
- Money Shooter — literally fires your gold. When you run out of gold, you run out of shots.
The three mutations:
| Mutation | Effect |
|---|---|
| Midas’ Blood | Gain gold when you lose health |
| Gold Plating | You lose gold instead of health when hit |
| Get Rich Quick | Stack bonus gold by killing enemies while you have a speed boost, then cash it in when the boost ends |
Gold Plating is the one worth thinking about carefully. Turning damage into gold loss is strong right up until you are hit with an empty purse — and it does nothing for the hits that would have killed you outright.
When to go in
Go in when:
- The passage you are at has alternatives you did not want.
- You can handle ten kills under a curse — that is the entire cost of the scroll.
- You want the exclusive blueprints and you are hunting them deliberately.
- You have gold spare and a specific thing to buy behind the door.
Skip it when:
- You are at a stage 2.5 passage — the entry has only a curse chest and nothing to show for it.
- You are already cursed, or you cannot take 10 more.
- You are on a run where the biome you are skipping was going to be your best scroll source and you are not confident clearing a curse.
- You are low on gold and the door will charge you the 2,000 minimum anyway.
And remember: the chest appears once. Skipping it is permanent for that run. If you are not sure, the chest does not expire by standing next to it — take the five seconds to decide.
The whole thing in four lines
The Bank replaces the next biomes rather than adding to them. It costs one scroll and pays it back behind a guaranteed Cursed Chest. Never borrow more than you can repay, at 10 curse per 2,000. And open the chest the first time you see it, because you will not get another.