Sky: Children Of Light throws you right into its colorful world with very little explanation.
The game just came out on Nintendo Switch on July 29th, giving the rest of us a new chance to check out this unique follow-up to Journey. Like that open-world exploration game, you’re sent out with almost no tutorials. You’ll have to use light to recharge your wing energy and fly, and use candles to light fires. There are side-quests like Spirits to find for more customization, and you’ll gain more Wing flaps as you progress. And it’s all free!
If you’re not sure if this is the game for you, we’ve got a few tips to help true beginner’s get started. Like we said before, it’s a F2P game — but it doesn’t require any purchases to complete. The in-game purchases are for cosmetic items only. You’ll be able to reach the end of the game with a little help from friends or solo.
You can download Sky: Children of Light free on Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android devices.
More Sky: Children of Light Guides:
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#1. The Basics | How To Progress
At the beginning of the game, it isn’t exactly clear what you need to do. You’re dropped into a strange, beautiful world with no instruction whatsoever. Here’s the basics.
- You need to light statues — each map has a temple in the far distance with a statue inside. Press [A] to get pointed in the right direction.
- To progress, you need to find Spirits and Light. Interacting with a spirit initiates a small mini-game where you have to follow it. Find all 3/4 memories and the Spirit can be freed from the stone by pressing [Y].
- Candles are your primary tool and currency. You spend Candles to unlock new Emotes from Spirits and make friends. You’ll always have one candle which can burn objects, light other candles for light, or interact with other players.
- To move around, you need to jump [B] and launch yourself to fly. You can fly by press [R] to change flight modes — gliding or hovering.
Those are the extreme basics. By pressing [A] you’ll create a beacon to your next objective. To recharge your wing flaps, you need to stand near creatures, or stand near light sources — it took me way too long to figure that out. Search each environment carefully for hidden Spirits that give you energy. If you collect enough Wing Energy, you can upgrade and get another flap added to your total. The more Cape Flaps you have, the longer you can fly.
At first, you’ll explore areas in the clouds — touching clouds recharges your Cape Flaps, as do flocks of birds and other players. Later, you’ll explore more dangerous zones. Rain will drain your energy and eventually drain your light, too! You need to stay out of the rain, or stay warm near fires or sources of spirit. That’s why it helps to have a friend.
#2. Make Friends To Find Spirits & Recharge
You can play solo and still have plenty of friends. In Sky: Children of Light, the more friends you have, the easier your quest will be. You can watch random players running around the same area as you, but only moths (other players) you’ve met can work together. To “meet” another player, simply hold out your candle [Y] near them. If both players are warmed in the light, they’ll “meet” — you can now interact with the player and friend them.
And now that you’ve met them, they become fully visible. You’ll be able to recharge your energy near each other, and they can call out to signal hidden locations. They can also complete tasks together — if one person you’ve met (or friended!) finds a spirit, they can complete all the spirit memories together with you. You can unlock free spirits without doing any of the work!
Interacting with other players also allows you to become fully-fledged friends. You have to spend a Candle to become friends — if you’re lucky, someone will want to spend a Candle on you instead. After you’ve become friends, you can unlock bonus privileges like full chat. You can also send Hearts to your friends daily to earn special currency used to get costumes, emotes, and other cool stuff from spirits. It isn’t required, but it is nice!
- NOTE: The Guide System can also really help players. By activating a button for new players, you’ll be able to indicate that you want a guide. A guide player can then easily find you and help you progress through a Spirit Quest. Very handy if you’re looking for extra help!
#3. Learn How To Make The Most Of Your Wings
While mid-air, you have two types of flying movement; hovering and flying. Each type of movement changes your controls, and you can freely swap between them mid-air by tapping [R]. The modes both have different benefits and reasons while you’ll want to swap.
- Hovering: In Hover Mode, you jump higher but move slower. If you want to gain more height, you need to stay in Hover Mode when flapping. You’ll also want to use Hover Mode for careful jumps on floating platforms.
- Flying: In Flight Mode, you always move forward. Pushing down tilts you down, and pushing up glides upward. Flapping your wings gives you a boost of speed forward.
To fly longer in Flight Mode, tilt down and then up to gain a burst of gliding speed. Flapping just as you gain a burst of speed from the gliding will give you an additional boost.
#4. Don’t Forget To Switch To 60 FPS
On Nintendo Switch, you can lose a little graphical fidelity for improved performance. Open the pause menu, and select the bottom-left option to instantly switch to 60 FPS mode. This is one game that benefits from smoother playing — the fine details aren’t that important!
This one is all personal preference, but it is exciting to know that Sky: Children of Light can run at 60 FPS on Nintendo Switch. Not a lot of games go to the trouble of adding a performance mode to Nintendo’s scrappy handheld. We greatly appreciate it!
#5. You Can Only Earn Ascended Candles In The Endgame
After “completing” the story, you’ll be able to earn a special Endgame Currency called Ascended Candles. They’re like your normal Candles, but you’ll notice a different icon on the Spirits that give you emotes — to you have to spend Ascended Candles to continue to upgrade their Constellations and get more cool stuff.
You can earn a maximum of 16 Ascended Candles per week, and the weekly counter resets every Saturday at Midnight. Light the Statues on the Eye of Eden. You’ll have more Wing Light depending on how many Ascended Spirits (Emote Spirits) you’ve unlocked — so travel to the early maps and ascend those spirits. At first, you won’t be able to complete the Eye of Eden statue lighting in one run. It’ll probably take multiple runs — but as you build up your Wing Light, you’ll have more energy to finish this quest and you’ll be able to get the max 16 Ascended Candles faster.
That’s just the basics! There’s so much more to discover — there are hidden areas, special doors that require two players to unlock, and lots of hidden Spirits to uncover on your return trips through each realm. Work together and you’ll be able to accomplish anything in this beautiful world.
