Sky: Children of the Light

In Sky: Children of the Light, you can glide through seven realms alone or join friends to free spirits and restore lost light. Since the Steam PC version is free, the buying decision mainly comes down to the offer in front of you: $0.00 at Steam. Multiplayer and co-op let you share the journey, and full controller support is available.

Before buying, make sure the offer’s platform and edition match your plans. For language needs, distinguish interface support from full audio support. The Steam PC version supports Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese-Brazil, Russian, Spanish-Latin America, Vietnamese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai as interface languages and full controller support.

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87%Steam Reviews25.5K reviews82OpenCritic/100

Released: Apr 10, 2024

Multiplayer · Cozy · Open World · Exploration · Adventure

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official priceFreeBuy now

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Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $0.002024-05Current Low Across Stores~ $0.00SteamAt its historical low now

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About Sky: Children of the Light

Sky: Children of the Light is an online adventure about gliding through mystical landscapes, restoring light and freeing trapped spirits. Explore seven realms alone or with friends, uncover memories and decorate a personal Nest. Steam players rate the game 87%% positive across 25,542 reviews. The Steam PC version lists single-player, multiplayer, co-op and full controller support.

Credits

DIRECTOR

Jenova Chen

video game developer, co-founder of Thatgamecompany (born 1981)

NotableFlower · Journey · Sky: Children of the Light

Composer

Vincent Diamante

Developer

thatgamecompany

Publisher

thatgamecompany

Steam player reviews

87%positiveVery Positive25,542 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$0.002024-05-08 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Simplified Chinese	Yes	Yes	—
Traditional Chinese	Yes	Yes	—
English	Yes	Yes	Yes

Show 12 more languages

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
French	Yes	Yes	—
Italian	Yes	Yes	—
German	Yes	Yes	—
Japanese	Yes	Yes	—
Korean	Yes	Yes	—
Portuguese-Brazil	Yes	Yes	—
Russian	Yes	Yes	—
Spanish-Latin America	Yes	Yes	—
Vietnamese	Yes	Yes	—
Spanish	Yes	Yes	—
Portuguese	Yes	Yes	—
Thai	Yes	Yes	—

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-18

02Before you buy

Play modes and controller

The Steam PC version lists single-player, multiplayer and co-op, with full controller support.

Language support

Listed interface languages include English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. English is the only listed language with full audio.

03Frequently asked questions

What do you do in the game?

Explore seven realms, free trapped spirits and return them to the constellations.

Can I play with friends?

Yes. The description says you can explore alone or with friends, and multiplayer and co-op are listed features.

Can I make a home space?

Yes. You can create a personal Nest and decorate it with collectible furniture and objects.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

04/15/2024

free game where i can chase people around with a candle begging to be their friend while they run away from meShow moreShow less

3.3 hours at review503 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

04/11/2024

As someone who's played for hundreds of hours on and off since the original iOS launch 5 years ago I have but one recommendation - this is a great little adventure to play with friends once. ONCE. ONCE. Once you have seen the charm and novelty and there's no more to see you should stop playing, because playing this game daily reveals a miserable, grind-y and expensive experience underneath that runs completely at odds with it's advertised happy, friendly vibes. Instead of making friends and enjoying the vibes, progression in this game is bizarrely tied to you playing it like a mediocre speedrunning platformer for over AN HOUR A DAY in order to keep up with the many limited-time unlocks this game will tease you with, and this turns the initially warm emotional experience of the game into a dry mechanical optimisation exercise. I can't remember a game in recent memory that undermines it's advertised core philosophy of "warm fun with friends" with a game that also offers such little meaningful things to do with each other once you're done with the game's linear quests, quests which are often single-player only and offer very little unique forms of interaction or gameplay - it's mostly walking to a thing, pressing a button and watching a cutscene play. They are very lovely cutscenes but cutscenes are not the foundation for a good multiplayer experience. Like most mobile games it also has terrible microtransactions, something the director in it's iOS release proclaimed to be interested in fixing and designing in a way that maintains the game's "emotional resonance". Yet beyond the fact that "progression" prevents you from experiencing all the good emotionally resonant experiences of Sky, you can also look forward to paying up to $20-$30 for single cosmetic items that lack the production cost of far cheaper skins from AAA games, or interactive props that crucially offer players with additional fun ways to interact with each other and the world, the very thing the game lacks but is willing to sell you. This game asks so much for so little, competing with gacha games for the poor value offered. In addition, the game has many bugs that never get fixed, not even since the game's original iOS release. You will crash, the servers will separate you from your friends constantly, game events will stop working, interactions will become unresponsive. Even when you're immersed in the experience the game's shaky foundations will pull you out of it on a very regular basis. Even if the "Early Access" label eventually gets dropped it's not going to stop feeling like Early Access for however long the game remains alive. The reason this game is popular is because despite all these reasons to be repelled by the game this game at least attempts to offer something unique. It's clear this game has some unique thoughts and ideas and on rare occasions can express them well, and those times are what make longtime players, even myself sometimes, log back in and suffer the consequences in the hope we will see that light once again. This negative sentiment isn't born from hate, it's the result of wasted potential. And that's what the game represents most - wasted potential. A lot of great ideas, thoughts and skill packaged together in the wrong way, and the main hope I have for this is that another team will look at Sky's sins and make something better, because it's clear to me after 5 years that TGC will continue to mismanage this game and squander the obvious talent of the development team that continue to make it. EDIT - I've made a few small edits over the days to better explain my points and to make it sound less angry (we have far enough of that in videogames) especially now it's ending up on the store page, but my core points have never changed. I really just want to coherently and precisely explain the issues with the game as I see and experience in the hopes that others will understand.Show moreShow less

0.3 hours at review673 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

RecommendedSteam player

07/05/2024

I am a 52 yo father, probably one of the oldest people playing Sky: Children of the Light. I am a single father to my Son, who is 14 now. My son found this game at Christmas, so we installed it on his computer and he started playing. By the end of the week he had 24 hours on this game. This was horrible for me, as it was already hard for me to find ways to spend time with my son, as he is always out with his friends or just watching YouTube. So I decided to make a Steam account and get this game to see if I could maybe play alongside him. Loaded into the game world and started playing but I was stuck on what you were supposed to do. I asked my Son for help and he helped me. Loved it as it was the best time had spent with my Son since my wife had died. This game has ever since brought me and my son closer again and now we actually spend time together outside the house together as well. This game reminded me that there's fun to be had in everything, and it has brought both me and my Son many happy memories. Thank you <3Show moreShow less

0.2 hours at review499 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

04/10/2024

I truly wish I could give this game a positive or even a ‘mixed feelings’ review, but after almost 400 hours into the beta PC, I feel like it would be wrong, and I just can’t... I'll go through a few important and little detailed topics that people should know. Long story short: This is a peculiar, silent storytelling (very much like Journey), an interesting world pacing, with beautiful graphics. You fly around and it's amazing to explore and discover, a part of the story is saving spirits you find around the world of SKY and our task is to help them return to the stars. It’s very nice, and each one has a cute little story behind it and you can interpret in your own little way. This alone makes the game beautiful and I completely recommend playing this casually, for the main and side story only, if you have friends to try it together, it’ll be even better! However, the breaking truth is: This game was designed or ended up being an ‘’Pacific MMO’’ that benefits from an extreme FOMO (fear of missing out) system that keeps everyone hooked, making it a grind fest with tedious and repetitive farming with not many activities to do. Candles, Cosmetics & What makes it replayable: After you complete the ‘’main story’’ you can stick around to explore and unlock new and unseen areas of the maps you previously played, there are little ‘’side stories’’ attached to these maps and the completionist part can be very fun and honestly, it’s the only thing you can do in this game. There aren't many activities besides that, and of course, farm Candles, which is the main and free currency of this game and what everyone cares about, used mainly to buy cosmetics to customize your character. It might not be very important, but it’s what everybody cares and looks forward to. So, this might be categorized as a dress up game… You get candles by redoing the maps you just played lighting up the little red candles that you find, it's 20 candles max per day, it takes around 2~3 hours (maybe more) to get all 20, but a part of the community just focuses on a short 1h and a half route that gives 12~17 candles. Sadly, cosmetics can be expensive as hell (up to 100 candles for a single piece) and definitely need a lot of day’s work to get a single one of them, always paying attention in the timing and the days of farming, it ends up being very important and making this a super boring and a massive grind every single day. Seasons, Events and the massive FOMO part: The seasons of this game are limited time themed ‘’events’’ that come with a sort of battle pass including a bunch of new cosmetics (free ones too), a brand-new storyline and even new areas to explore. It lasts around 90 days, and it comes with the absurd part of this game: If you decide to buy the battle pass, you’ll most definitely need to log in and do the daily quests every single day for around 70 DAYS in order to complete and get everything out of it... There is NO OTHER WAY of progressing in your ‘’battle pass’’ other than daily quests every single day, for more than two months. I mean, of course there is another way… $$$$ So, if by any chance you decide to buy the pass in the middle of the season or just keep missing dailies or something important comes up and you can't log in for several days, you’ll be in big trouble to complete it, might not even be possible to finish. The season’s cosmetics always return for free at some point as traveling spirits, which is another major thing for the players, they (one different spirit per time) come twice a month and stay in the game for about a weekend, also putting a lot of pressure on players as It will take years for them to make a comeback and if you miss the current returning spirit, you’ll also have to wait years for another chance of buying your long desired cosmetics… However, the main and ‘’ultimate’’ season spirit with the best cosmetics will NEVER return. As mentioned before, there are tons of little events, always once a year events like Halloween, Winter, Pride, Spring and the game’s own thematic events every now and then. Usually with very nice free and paid cosmetics, but the huge flow of events and mini events happening in the game in such little time puts a lot of players under pressure for farming the short and never enough number of candles per day. Considering the tedious farm, it just makes this a grind fest just for a few and little pieces of cosmetics. Players, making friends, Social part and some problems: You will encounter players, experienced and beginners through your journey in the game. They appear as‘’invisible’’ characters, and it’s not possible to directly interact or look at their true appearance and cosmetics at first. You both gotta get close and light each other’s candle (it’s a little interaction by just pressing F near a player) then you will be able to start a friendship and level your ‘’friendship tree’’ by offering candles (yes, the main currency that everybody struggles to farm) and you’ll have to spend a lot of candles to even be able to talk to one another and do other social interactions. Chatting is very private in this game, you will not see other people’s words unless you are friends with them and have that thing leveled. Ends up being very hard to make friends >inside< the game, people don't really accept random ''friend requests'' as they worry for the candles spent. There are other ways of talking to players (in social areas around the map) and even adding friends without spending candles via outside ways (codes and phone links) but it’s still very inaccessible to make friends properly inside the game. When you have or just made a friend, you guys can hold hands and fly around together (it’s very cute) and explore, farm candles and etc. Definitely better with friends and there is a constant feeling that players and the community are always helping each other in one way or another, considering we can't talk and only use gestures and other ways of communicating, it adds a feeling of solidarity in the overall community and experience of this game. Inside and outside (discord & social media) the people always seem very kind, helpful and patient, and they often discuss, recognize and critique the problems this game has. You truly feel welcome, and this is a huge positive point for me. Another Major issue for me is that we work SO HARD to farm candles and get beautiful cosmetics to make your character look cute, people even spend a whole lot of money in this game, and in the end, very few people will even see your whole character, you’ll just be invisible to everyone… Future & Final Thoughts I wrote much more detailed stuff but the review was way too long T . T ended up leaving the important part only (the complete one is in the comments) Again, i recommend you giving this a try, but not past the main and side story... I play this a lot listening to audiobooks and while watching short tv shows, it works very well with multi-tasking as you don't really need to pay much attention and it's all about farming and redoing stuff you know. Can’t ignore the fact that with this pc release the team behind this game is aiming very high. The last few seasons had some pretty significant changes in the game environment and in the upcoming one it’ll be added a little home of your own and furniture sets for players to decor (The in-game cost will be insane but hope not too harsh) and the collabs this game has like with the singer AURORA, The Little Prince, and the upcoming Cinnamoroll truly makes everything a little special. I honestly feel the game and the team wants to expand and improve and therefore change for the better, might be naive of me but I truly hope they recognize the problems, adapt and don’t be too scared of changing.Show moreShow less

150 hours at review576 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

04/16/2024

As a gamer who loved TGC since the birth of Journey, I feel a conflicted love-hate relationship about Sky:COTL. I have been playing Sky for a while from the early seasons and watched it grow into what it is today. I have genuine love for the game, but as a long time player, I also have long time complaints, all that are often unheard and ignored by TGC. And for this reason I advise people to wait until they are fixed, because it will save you from frustration if you stick around for the long run. It's a beautiful game, but it has a lot to work on to feel like the safe and friendly community that they claim to be. Unfortunately, I cannot post a full review due to space issues so I will only be addressing ugly negatives. YOU CANNOT REPORT PLAYERS UNLESS YOU'RE THEIR FRIEND This is my HUGEST complaint I've had in any game. I have met some really inappropriate players, some of them are even child predators. This is dangerous. If you want to keep your community safe and friendly, give us the option to report ANY PLAYER you've played with. I can't think of a single game that doesn't let you report players unless they're your friend. Enter, Sky COTL! Supposedly one of the most friendliest games doesn't even give you the option to report harassment, and bullying from anonymous players. And believe me, if you talk to people you will come across them in this "friendly" game. Give us the option to BLOCK ANY PLAYER. NOT JUST OUR FRIENDS. I don't want a chance to encounter the same toxic player AGAIN. And somehow, I kept connecting servers with a player who harassed and followed me and I wasn't even friends with them! Naturally this is the point where you simply BLOCK PLAYERS. But nope. Not in Sky COTL. You're only allowed to block and report friends! Another issue with blocking friends is that, they can still VIEW YOUR CREATIONS. You wrote a message? That blocked friend can see it. You made a share space? They can see it! There is no actual privacy from people you block, people you don't even want in your friends list to begin with. And a message will pop up saying, "a friend has liked your creation". That's the person you blocked. The block function is so weak, and needs to be improved on. Make an option to block ANYONE not just your friends!! It's to the point where I just want to delete my account because I cannot block toxic players. YOU CANNOT DELETE FRIENDS This was close to being number one, but it's not as bad as the first, because Sky lets you block friends. however,Blocked players can, and WILL show up in your server, especially if you share a mutual friend. This is ridiculous. By having no delete friends option, TGC does NOT allow the player to move on, and forces players to hold onto inactive friends, friends that are no longer your friend, "friends" that bully you after accepting their friendship, etc. The list can go on. Allow players to move on if they don't want a friend in their list, and keep us safe from players that never meant to be our friend in the first place. I have asked for this MULTIPLE TIMES to TGC on their socials they continue to ignore it for YEARS. And this has been asked by players for a VERY LONG TIME. END-GAME: DRESS UP CONTEST When you beat Sky and complete Eden, it feels like an emotional heartfelt experience. The message is clear, and it was played out beautifully by the time you leave Eden. It's something that, you want to experience and savor once. It's sad and bittersweet. But once you've completed Eden, you HAVE TO GO BACK if you want to unlock anything and level up. This is Sky's HUGEST mistake for long-term MMO gameplay. It absolutely CHEAPENS the experience you had when beating the base game. You replay Eden OVER AND OVER again just to unlock in game items, and wing levels. Now the sad, beautiful, bittersweet ending is just an annoying nightmare. You've long forgotten the beauty and the meaning it ever had to begin with. Since, there is an IGC only found by playing Eden. (Yes, IK, recently, with the Shattered Season, you can get this currency from timed events but it's not nearly as much as you receive from playing Eden once a week. And some people don't have the time for it.) Sky has also made playing Eden so detestable with the changes they made NOT A SINGLE SOUL asked for. Playing this as a solo player in its current state is extremely ABHORRENT, VEXING and completely detestable. There was no need to change it, when it wasn't even broken! A common grievance Sky does... A LOT. When you finally succeed in *dying* in Eden, the new animation at the end is just so pitiful and dark and does not offer hope or meaning (the whole message of the game) as the previous one reaching out to the sky (SYMBOLISM), for one last attempt to live. Now, instead, your skykid crumples over like a wetnapkin and curls into the ground like he was just kicked in the groin. This left a bad taste in my mouth. And had zero reason to exist. In terms of gameplay, Eden has turned into a laborious nightmare. It was already unpleasant and difficult to begin with, but TGC for some reason decided it was a good idea to make it more unpleasant by forcing you to crawl on your knees (with massive UGLY crystals sticking out of your skykid's head and form? Who added this?) They just don't like us solo players. You have to rely on that other dying skykid to come rescue you (if there is one with you). But he won't, because he's definitely crawling next to you in the new and exasperated Eden. Cosmetic farming: End-game This is fine if you have something TO DO in an MMO. There's NOTHING to do in SKY after beating base game (EDEN). It boils down to collecting cosmetics, and emotes. There is NO real gameplay after base game. If you like playing an expensive glorified dress up game, get Sky COTL. You're just farming for the next cosmetic. If it was actually fun to save up and farm for them, I would have something good to say. It's not. It feels like your old hack and slash JRPG grinding but with IGC, and no real enjoyment or fun out of it. You collect light until you get a candle (the main currency of the game). And nothing else. And they added another IGC called tickets, that are again, not fun to collect and are time limited. Where is the gameplay? It's like one of those chill room games you do nothing but sit in, but with expensive cosmetics. And a lot of the cool ones are expensive IAPs. I feel like a story feat (RP) would do this game justice in terms of something to do, but I don't see that happening. Despite how amazing Sky's cinematic trailers look and the stories they promise, lower your expectations. This isn't an MMORPG. It just looks like one. NPCs recycle emotes in replace of what could be animation scenes, they don't talk, wear reused or tweaked old designs from your wardrobe, and offer nothing interesting other than cosmetics. Collect IGC, buy cosmetics. Looking for an MMO? This isn't it. The server capacity is 8 players. This is a ridiculously small number for an "MMO". You have to rush to join your friend's server, because it gets full fast. And count on constant disconnection at every turn. The amount of times you are unable to join your friend is so high, and it's not even because server capacity at times. And if you don't want to make friends, don't even pick up Sky. This is NOT a solo-player experience. The game forces you to NEED players to help you with opening doors, doing some seasonal quests, doing some DAILY quests, collecting heart currency, restoring your light when you're depleted of it, (this change was DISGUSTINGLY unnecessary--you are crippled, crawling on your knees until someone helps you, or you crawl to the nearest light. And sometimes players wont help you. They just fly right over your crippled skykid.)Show moreShow less

90.3 hours at review304 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

05/06/2024

coming from someone who has played since launch of the game on the app store i will be as honest as i possibly can and not sugar coat things. (Edited) Pro's: The game itself a great experience ONCE. If you are reading this and plan on playing or giving it a try i recommend to do it only ONCE. It has pretty graphics and a simple style. The lore can be pretty deep too if ya dig hard enough. Controls wise it is pretty manageable and nothing too difficult to understand. The community in general is pretty kind too. The story is pretty easy to follow and you'll get a lot of hours worth of game play. Con's: I do not know how a company can Update a game and somehow cause more problems than actually fix ♥♥♥♥. This company is not small anymore and NO you should NOT pity them. They make a lot of money and the IAP's cost so much it is ridiculous. YES i know the game is free but to PUSH players into buying candles(the game currency) and cosmetics is absolute scum. Players are unable to properly collect enough candles for any of the next spirits or events due to there being only mere days worth of collecting time/The break period is too short. You are limited on how many candles you get per day and getting hearts(another currency) is extremely difficult. Solo players barely have a chance in this game unless they make alt accounts. They continue to make updates that only negatively effect candle running(collecting the game currency) making it harder on the players. It takes way too long to collect candles, expect it to take you max 2-3 hours including if you make it to the events which add even more time. THEY ADD UPDATES WE NEVER ASKED FOR. They rarely acknowledge the negative reviews and extremely highlight good comments. They love to scoot stuff like this under the rug and it is disgustingly obvious. The overall player to Company relationship is absurdly nonexistent. Heres what i find rediculus: Global servers hardly get actual good content. You see Chinese and other non global servers get concerts,cosmetic items and whole events including collabs THAT THE GLOBAL SERVERS HAVE BEEN BEGGING FOR. Not to mention there are servers that got the candle cap increased. Does the global server get that? nope. The Chat censor. OHHH BOYYY HERE WE GOOO. It's horrible. I cannot type anything in my native language without it being considered "offensive" but ahh yes i can say the word ♥♥♥♥. Yes mute me for trying to explain how the spirit system works but not the Chinese players who fully cuss out others in their native language. If i could count the amount of times i have been called curse words from Chinese and Russians i'd buy myself out of this misery that is sky. (mb bit of a rant that one) The Moderation for this game is 0 to nonexistent. I have seen racism,Sexsim, any form of ism and phobia in one day. Chatting with strangers is not recommended especially in "lobbies". For priding themselves as a "wholesome" game it sure as ♥♥♥♥ is not. Save yourself and just do your own thing for the best experience. General/Overall: Sky Cotl is a rinse and repeat game. If you decide to sit down and actively play you'd have to play every day at least 1-3 hours collecting the max capacity which is 21 candles. You will have to memorize spirit locations you will have to go to in order to collect special candles (another currency). Burnout is bound to happen if you decide to solo this game. I recommend you play this with friends and socialize. Play this game once and do not touch it again type of experience. Treat it like journey OR BETTER YET- Play journey instead. The events as an f2p player are not rewarding at all especially if it is a collab (example: COUGH COUGH the cinnamoroll event). The seasons. Let's be honest. We can very much tell when they put love into a season or not. There are a handful of season that have quests that make you do THE EXACT SAME ♥♥♥♥. Season drops. You wait DAYS just for the next quest and oh what's this? BOOM same ♥♥♥♥. I also feel really bad for people trying to catch up. They have 0 guidance and the one we have is very confusing still. PLUS the amount of areas that are locked for new players is just sad imo. It Overheats Phones easily even on low graphics so be mindful of that. IF you purely plan to play on PC make sure to check your fans and the heating. Prepare for: Devs who do not communicate properly with their community, A LOT of bugs, Server splits that tear you and your friends apart a LOT, Heavy grinding and burnout, spending a LOT of hours. Never truly knowing if something will return/re run. YEARS of waiting for one specific spirit to return. tips: save your candles and do not waste them on strangers, check into the discord for updates and upcoming events and spirits, check out sky bots and make a lil server(there are good helpful bots that track your progress, show spirit locations and candle locations) or join a community, don't be scared to ask for an uber in the sky discord ! if you feel the burnout there are people that will uber you (be careful tho. Strangers can be fkn weirdos.) (personal experience.) and lastly do not buy anything even if it seems tempting. My personal hot take: And before you say anything, this whole game is about dressing up and buying things with your candles. How am i supposed to socialize if it is made so DIFFICULT? 9/10 times people already have a good friend/friend group and it makes it even harder to connect to others. Finding people to befriend in game is HARD. As an old player who has been gifted many season passes and has regretfully bought items i cannot turn this game away. Let this be a fair warning of what you might get yourself into. The choice is yours to make and remember, YOU are supposed to spend time on games WHENEVER YOU WANT TO not the other way around. What i wish we had: - the ability to get candles back that we spent on player/ Candle returns - Custom hair color/ trail color/ Honk color - A door in our nest and an expansion to our nest - a knock system for our nest that lets you decide whether or not you want the person outside the door in - Map friend tracker (lets you know where on the map your friend is) - Collector for WL and Wax (a vacuum of sorts) - larger candle cap - a sign feature/Bio in the friend cons where players can type in something (example: "currently AFK" etc) - a general tracker of how much wax is left in each realm (like a percentage number or sumn) - ability so change the weather and time of day AT WILL - Ability to mute honks and other players instruments accept my own - a "call for help" button that alerts players for opening two or more player doors - ability to try out spirit items (spirits/spirit groups that are visiting) - Spells for all IAP items (max x3 spells) to try out - ability to turn off joins - remove all friends button - Better Dyeing optionsShow moreShow less

1,087.7 hours at review290 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

07/14/2024

I want to love the game, I was so excited to finally play it, and I wanted to love it and gush about it to friends the way I gush about Journey. Unfortunately I just can't - I can't even in good conscience recommend it to anyone. Am I having fun with it? Yeah, but not for the reasons the developers obviously wanted. I like grinding in-game currencies and using MMORPGs as glorified paper doll games. But this is obviously meant to be a leisurely social game, with lots of big, open, beautiful spaces for you to casually and leisurely explore once you've made the full circuit the first time, same as Journey. Instead, it's mostly grinding for currency. You can get a hard limit of twenty (20) candles a day by gathering candle flames, and an extra four doing daily quests if there isn't an event going on. Which, it's meant to be a slow game, so it sounds reasonable on the surface. Except for the factor of traveling spirits - NPCs from past events who show up generally once every two weeks, stay for a weekend so you can buy their cosmetics, Sounds fun! Except those cosmetics cost upwards of thirty (30) candles for the hair or hats, with wings and capes costing into the seventies (70s), and to unlock all of the spirit's cosmetics and emotes, it can and seems to generally cost around a hundred and fifty (150) candles. More than you can get in a single weekend without buying extra from the cash shop, which sells packs of fifteen (15) candles for $5 usd as the lowest priced pack. And if you can't get enough candles? You're out of luck - there are already around eighty (80) traveling spirits from past events to cycle through, and only fifty-two (52) weeks in a year. You're statistically not going to see that spirit again for years, especially as new one-time events are added each year, with their own spirits to add to the roster. But that's without even touching on the secret most difficult currency to attain in the game: hearts. Candles, and even the end-game currency, ascended candles, are all slow to get, but you can do it. Hearts, on the other hand, have to be bought from spirits or gifted by other players, for three (3) candles a piece. Which is already expensive when you can only collect an absolute max of twenty-four (24) candles a day. But it gets worse, because while you can send one heart a day to each of the people you have unlocked the friendship tree for to a certain level (cost to do this: two (2) candles)), you can only buy one (1) heart from each NPC as a one-time purchase. There are thirty-seven (37) hearts available in the base-game spirits, with an extra eighty (80) that have been added with still-available event quests at the time of this review. That's one hundred and twenty-seven (127) hearts, which sounds like a lot! Except you need them to use nearly all the base-game cosmetics, which start out reasonably enough in their costs three to four (3-4) hearts each, but then arbitrarily get more and more expensive as you get items from spirits in later and later areas. A yellow cape? Three (3) hearts. The exact same cape in black? Fifty (50) hearts. There literally aren't enough hearts in the base game to unlock all the outfits, hairs, masks, capes, and props it contains, and past seasonal event areas and traveling spirits generally have items that cost upwards of thirty hearts for you to grab as well. Now, obviously this is meant to encourage socialization and generosity between players. But this comes back to the problem of the hard limit of a max of twenty-four (24) candles a day during non-event times (twenty (20) candles a day during events, because the rest turn into event-specific currency). That means you can send a maximum of six (6) hearts to other people a day if you're willing to use all your currency. Which, by the way, takes hours to get maxed out, because the world is huge, so you can explore and find fun places and areas, with a travel speed meant for that gentle, leisurely exploration speed. And no one is required or - in my experience - even inclined to send you a heart back because, again, it's expensive! Now, for one candle, you can make another person a 'friend,' which puts them in a cute little 'friend constellation' in one of the hub areas. Each friend can be sent 'light' once a day, and enough light gives you a free heart! So that side-steps the expense of needing to buy each other hearts! Except it takes light from sixty (60) people to make one heart, and, reminder, it takes a minimum of one (1) candle to make a friend (and not everyone wants to accept said candle and be your friend). I've played one hundred and forty (140) hours at the time of writing this, and I've gotten two free hearts so far, and had two people send me hearts after I sent them hearts. And these are all the ways to get hearts for a new player when an event isn't going on (you can get a few free hearts during that event, but, once it's over? Sorry, gotta buy them now)! So if you're a new player who wants a simple, black cape? Be prepared to grind a hundred and fifty (150) candles to buy those fifty (50) hearts you need, and cross your fingers you didn't spend too many hearts on earlier cosmetics to afford it now. You want the ascended/fancy version of that same black cape? Well that's going to cost you one hundred and fifty (150) hearts, or four hundred and fifty (450) candles, so hopefully you have time and friends who are willing to spend their precious candles on gifting you hearts, because you flat-out can't get it yourself in the base game, no matter how much money you spend, even if you're buying candle packs in the cash shop hand over fist. Now, can you play this game without unlocking a single cosmetic and still have a decent time? Yeah, probably. But given the main game loops, next to exploring and gathering light to strengthen your cape, are collecting currency and customizing your character, why would you want to? Especially when the majority of the marketing shows the sky kids in colourful capes (the starter one is a nice brown, which is legit cute, but feels drab next to everyone else's colourful finery), exciting outfits, and cool hairstyles. The community for this game is great, because it forces you to think about whether you really want to talk to someone or not (cost to unlock a friendship tree to the point of being able to text/chat with another player: five (5) candles). But it also means that the generosity the developers presumably envisioned is nowhere to be seen at this point in the game's run time, and the community is extremely hard to join in-game because everyone's busy collecting currency and, due to the size of the game, literally don't have enough time or resources to spend much (if any) of it helping new players. I want to love this game, I really do, and I'll probably keep playing it for quite awhile, because, as said, I do like grinding for currency. But enjoyment isn't love, and due to the way resources and items are handled in it, it ends up feeling like nothing more than Journey's skeezy, scammy cousin, and I can't truly love it and I certainly can't recommend it.Show moreShow less

141.5 hours at review269 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.