The Sky
Vetex has confirmed that Sky Islands are returning in Arcane Odyssey! A portion of the game’s main storyline takes place in the sky, requiring us to travel between these islands up in the clouds.
Sky Islands
Currently, we only have the name of two Sky Islands:
- Cirrus island, which seems to be the main sky island for our aerial endeavor. It has many NPCs such as a shipwright, tailor, blacksmith and more.
- The Myriad, an ancient library in the sky home to every book ever written.
In addition to these, there are multiple other wilderness islands we don’t yet know the name of.
Sky Island Sneaks
Our first look at sky islands
The Myriad
A sky island with multiple others in the background
Quite the view
The sun setting on a grateful universe
Skyships
That’s right - in the war seas you don’t skate through the skies, you sail! We’ll be taking flight and travelling between islands using sky ships in Arcane Odyssey. And before you get any ideas of using your flying boat in the regular sea to stay out of the reach of an Alpha White Eyes, I’ll explain how they work. Your skyship has an energy bar that drains while you sail and recharges when your skyship hovers over a sky island. There’s a designated altitude for skyships to fly at, and energy drains rapidly while outside of these altitude levels. When out of energy, skyships fall out of the sky and plummet into the ocean! Now you probably want to drop your skyship on an unsuspecting sailor in the blue sea, but it seems like arranging that would be quite the difficult task, and not worth your hard-earned galleons in my opinion.
Sky Boss
The sky island arc climaxes with a clash against a certain enemy. Not much is known about who he is or why we fight him, but this is what we do know:
- The sky boss has 2 phases. Presumably once you defeat his first phase, his health resets and he enters his second phase.
- He wears Ravenna noble armor, Ravena boots and a collared cape (all of which have a chance of dropping once you defeat him). What or where is Ravenna? We don’t know quite yet, but we know Iris failed to send us back there as a pile of ashes.
- He fights with a bow named “Stormcaller”, a “Noble Thunderspear”, and his trusty dual scimitars the “Scimitars of Storm”. Like his armor, these all have a chance of dropping on defeat. When players obtain his bow, they can use a special skill named “Storm of Arrows”. We also fight him around a story part titled “Thunderstorm”… what does all this storm symbolism tell us about this boss?
That about sums up what we know about the sky; here are some videos of Sky Island content.
Cooking
You’ll need survival skills to make it through the War Seas alive, and the most important survival skill is knowing how to fill an empty stomach. In Arcane Odyssey, there’ll be a cooking system to restore your hunger and provide you with useful, long lasting buffs. Players can cook by mixing up to four ingredients into a cooking pot. Players can also cook large meals, which allows party members to also eat the food you cook.
Ingredients
Currently, there are four ingredient types in the game:
- Fruit. Fruit-based meals give the ‘Invigorating’ status effect, which reduces stamina cost.
- Mushroom. Mushroom-based meals give the ‘Energizing’ status effect, which increases stamina regeneration.
- Fish. Fish-based meals give the ‘Recovery’ status effect, which increases health regeneration.
- Seasonings. Seasonings multiply the duration of a meal’s status effect in exchange for restoring less hunger.
There are also certain foods and status effects that not much is known about, such as a certain mushroom that gives insanity. Make sure to keep an eye out for these!
Some cooking-related sneaks
Also, items like fish can now be held since meal ingredients can be placed in your toolbar.
Food Tiers and Cooking Levels
There are 6 levels of cooking. As you cook more and increase your cooking level, your meals increase in quality and the buffs they give you improve and last longer. For example, a “Good” meal gives 10% more hunger than usual, while a “Perfect” meal gives 50% more hunger and greatly improves the meal’s status effect.
This is what the cooking mastery UI looks like
Mistakes
Not everyone will start out as Gordon Ramsay. Sometimes experimenting with different ingredients will lead to an… unpleasant result, to say the least. Mistakes are the result of trying to cook a meal that doesn’t have a valid recipe, or trying to cook a meal that would gives too many status effects. Mistakes give no status effect, but replenish a bit of hunger.
This is what a mistake looks like
Remember to eat healthy, everyone
That covers most of the things we know about cooking as of now. Here’s a video from Selector explaining it and giving us a firsthand look at the system.
Sea Activities
Some people have expressed concern about the sea turning out to be nothing more than boring, mundane travel. But have no fear! Taking to the seas in Arcane Odyssey comes with many perilous challenges; from ruthless pirate groups vying for your treasure to giant sea monsters trying to swallow your crew whole to harsh weather conditions that will batter your ship – okay, maybe you should have some fear. The Trello has gone into great detail about most of these features, so I’ll be using those descriptions for the most part.
Sharks and Sea Monsters
Sharks & sea monsters spawn randomly at decent distances away from players, and will target players when they fall in the ocean if they have line of sight to them. Some larger types are classified as Sea Monsters, and some larger types can target ships.
Currently, these are the sea monster types in the game
- Shark - Most common type, drops shark fins and has average speed and bite damage.)
- Tiger Shark - 1 in 6 chance of spawning, drops tiger shark fins and is larger and faster than a regular shark, with more bite damage.
- Great White Shark - 1 in 8 chance of spawning, drops great white shark fins, is much larger than a regular shark but also slower. Deals highest bite damage of the 2 above it and can target Rowboats.
- Megalodon - 1 in 14 chance of spawning, drops megalodon fins, and is much larger than all of the above sharks. It can target Caravels and any ship smaller than them, with a high bite damage and decent speed. Megalodons can also target players at low health from further range than the sharks above.
- Lurker - Has a 33% chance of spawning under a whirlpool, where it will sit and wait until a player falls into it. They are slightly smaller than Great Whites with more speed and slightly more bite damage, and can drop lurker eyes when killed. Lurkers will not target ships or swimming players, only players caught in whirlpools.
- Poison Jaws, Aberrant-Tier Sea Monster - 1 in 18 chance of spawning, a small blue shark with poisonous fangs, a result of magic pollution in the sea affecting a shark’s growth. They are decently fast and deal low bite damage, but poison their prey to make up for it. When killed, they can drop a Poison Tooth Dagger.
- White Eyes, Behemoth-Tier Sea Monster - 1 in 18 chance of spawning, and is a large red shark with glowing white eyes, a result of magic pollution in the sea affecting a shark’s growth. It can target any sized ship and is a decent speed, with a very high bite damage and high health. When killed, they can drop white eyes scales.
Whirlpools
Whirlpools spawn randomly over the ocean with varying sizes, and can suck in players, NPCs, and ships.
Players and NPCs cannot attack while being sucked into a whirlpool, but can struggle. Struggling has a low chance of escaping unless the person has a high Strength stat, in which the chances of escaping increase by up to 4x. Players and NPCs will circle the surface of the whirlpool when first sucked in, and when they near the center they will be forced underwater and eventually drown.
Ships have a chance to escape whirlpools by sailing in the direction of the wind and turning back and forth while more than 75% from the whirlpool’s center. The more towards the center a ship is, the less chance it has of escaping and the higher damage it will take, until it eventually sinks.
Here’s a sneak from a while ago of a ship falling prey to a whirlpool
Rough Seas
Rough seas spawn randomly over deep parts of the ocean and have varying sizes and roughness. They can also spawn underneath harsh weather clouds if there is enough space and depth.
Rough seas deal damage to ships based on the ships’ Stability stat. If the ship has higher Stability than the roughness of the waves, the ship will take no damage and sail through it perfectly fine. If not, the damage taken will be reduced by your ship’s stability stat, and if you have a Co-Captain on your ship, they will warn you about sailing into these waters.
Larger ships or ships with Hull Armor equipped are much less affected by rough seas, but something such as a rowboat with no Hull Armor will sink in about 5 seconds if it enters a high-roughness sea
Large Waves
Large Waves spawn randomly and underneath harsh weather clouds, and can grow to varying sizes and deal heavy damage to boats if they hit them, as well as drag players and NPCs along with them. When they hit land, they temporarily flood the area and raise the water level around it.
NPC Pirate Ships
NPC pirate crews spawn on ships, between level 20 and 120. The captain’s level is the full level of the ship, and the crew levels are the full level of the ship divided by the number of crew members. Level 25+ ships also have a co-captain NPC which is half the level of the captain. That’s quite the mouthful, but here’s an example; if a pirate ship is level 100, the captain would be level 100, the co-captain would be level 50, and if there were 5 other crewmates their total level would add up to 100, I believe. When you attack an NPC ship, a bell is rung on their ship and the crew aggros and attacks your ship. NPC ships can ram your ship, fire cannons at you, and each crew member has a random stat build. If an NPC falls into the sea, they can be targeted by sharks and sea monsters. When the entire crew is defeated, treasure chests and sealed chests spawn.
Ships
But of course, you can’t experience the sea without having a ship yourself! In Arcane Odyssey, players will have many types of ships available to obtain and upgrade, each of them having in-depth customization. The current ships in the game right now are the Rowboat, Sailboat and Caravel. A few other boats are planned to be available at public release, which are the Ketch and Frigate. In addition to this, there are also different crews and co-captain npcs that will help reload our cannons and affect your ship’s stats.
Ship Parts
Ships have many attachments to them that can be obtained through various activities. These ship parts can give stats to your ship, be enchanted, and make your ship look as awesome as you want.
These are the different types of ship parts that can be obtained, and what they do
- Sail Materials and Sail patterns - Sail material affects stats such as speed in the wind or resilience against the wind
- Hull Armor - Hull armours can have one of three enchants to enhance your ship;
- Hard - Increases durability and ram defense
- Nimble - Increases speed and turning
- Strong - Increases stability and ram power
- Blueprints can be obtained through sealed chests and built by Builder NPCs
- Ram
- Various rams can be found as blueprints, including the arcanium ram that attuned itself to your magic. Arcanium rams are made of a magic-conducting metal, giving it the properties of the magic it’s attuned to.
- Rams have 2 stats, ram strength and ram defense
- Rams can have one of 2 enchants;
- Hard (increases durability and ram defense)
- Strong (increases ram strength)
- When facing another ship, pressing F increases your ship’s speed by 50% until you ram into a ship or pass it
- Cannons
- Various cannons that can be found in blueprints, including arcanium cannons.
- Various types of cannonballs can be found from sealed chests
- There are also figureheads you can attach to your ship for further customization, including skulls, cats, dragons, and others.
Story
Much progress has been made in regards to the story of Arcane Odyssey this year; there are many new islands to explore, characters to meet, and secrets to uncover. Majority of the story’s plot isn’t known to the public, but many of us are trying to put the pieces of this large puzzle together.
Islands
We know the names of at least four islands that have been made this year:
- Thorin’s Refuge - not much is known about this island, but we know that it features an underwater maze. I wonder what secrets lay at the other side?
- Forest of Cernunno - this island holds a questline that climaxes with a fight against a boss. Not much is known about this boss, but we know he can drop his Sleeveless Robe, his Boots, his Faulds, and an Archon Quartz Amulet once we defeat him.
- Sailor’s Lodge - all we know about this island is that part of the main storyline takes place here, and on this island we can recruit our second ship crew. The name gives me the vibe of it being some sort of ‘hub’, but that’s just an assumption; I personally am excited to visit this island and see what it’s really like.
- Fort Talos - Another story-related island, Fort Talos is armed with cannons that fire at approaching ships. It seems to house guards and centurions and is likely led by General Argos, a boss we search for and fight. Based on current story progress, we can infer that Fort Talos is strongly related to The Order - an organization that we oppose in the story.
- There are probably many other wilderness islands for us to explore, but I don’t believe we have the names of any others.
Some recent island sneaks
Thorin’s Refuge
A stormy island
This banner is a recurring symbol - what could it represent?
A foggy island
There are probably many other wilderness islands for us to explore, but I don’t believe we have the names of any others.
The Order
The Order is an antagonist group in the story of Arcane Odyssey. As we explore the world, we’ll hunt for clues about members of this organization to find their identities and bring them down one by one. Currently we know about two members; a Baron, whose identity we recently fully uncovered, and a High Lord, who we’ve only collected some hints about. There are many questions about The Order that are currently unanswered, but we’ll likely find the answers ourselves as we progress through the story.
The Order tab's placement in the character menu
We haven’t gotten a direct look at the order tab or its UI, but we know it can be found in the upper left corner of the character menu
Bosses
I’ve mentioned a few bosses, but haven’t explained what we know about some of them. Apart from the Sky Boss, we know of two other bosses; the Forest of Cernunno boss and General Argos. Based on the Forest boss’ drops, he doesn’t seem to use any weapons; perhaps he’s a magic user, or he fights in a way we haven’t seen yet. The questline for his island was also introduced after the Sky Island arc, so I believe the most appropriate time to fight him would be around the time we return from the clouds.
We’ve recently gotten a look at General Argos, as well as confirmation that he uses Strength Weapons. Along with his devourer Cursebane, which is an unobtainable weapon due to its story significance, he fights with a Halberd and Lance. Strength weapons scale with both the strength and weapon stat, meaning Argos is likely a Warlord and we may see him using fighting styles in his fight. Based off the names of General Argos’ drops, his nickname seems to be "The Lion of Ravenna’. His drops include his halberd, lance, helmet, armor, cape, leggings, and chainmail.
General Argos and his weapons
Cursebane, a devourer modelled by Coldshockzz
“how the balancing is going” - Vetex
Powers
Second Magic Revamp
Currently, magic is in the process of getting a second revamp. Not only is each magic getting significant visual improvements, but some spells will work slightly differently than they currently do.
Here’s a rundown of what’s been changed so far:
- Spells now have tiers; all current spells are called “Basic Spells”
- Mode spell was renamed to “Aura”
- Magic attacks have a significantly shorter maximum charge time
- Magic blasts with high amounts shoot out faster and arc slightly towards their target
- Placed explosions can be aimed if their duration is higher than 1
- Magic hazards and status effects now count as your damage, so if you kill an NPC with a magma puddle it will say “Enemy was killed by (player name)” instead of “Enemy has died”
- Beams with their amount set to 2 now fire 2 beams at the same time
- Beams over 2 fire faster than they used to
- Aura spells are no longer toggled nor drain energy passively; when activated, they last for 30 seconds and have a 15 second cooldown
Some revamped spells and magics
A plasma multi-blast
An acid blast
Water beams
Fire charging and explosions
Fighting Style Evolution
Vetex has reconsidered how to go about late-game fighting styles; instead of having base, lost and ancient fighting styles remain unchanging, he’s instead opted to remove the concept of ancient fighting styles and instead give each existing base and lost fighting style the ability to be upgraded by 1 tier in some way (as in, base fighting styles can be evolved into a lost version and losts can be involved into ancients). This fixes the issue of not being able to think of many ancient fighting styles, and makes each fighting style more unique. Since Fighting Style development hasn’t yet begun and rare fighting styles are still very far away, the details of this concept haven’t been set in stone yet.
Information on Stat builds
New information was recently released on the Trello about the game’s stat builds, giving us clearer insight into what we can expect from each build in the future.
Each build now has a build-specific weapon type
- Vitality ⇒ Spirit Weapons
- Weapons that scale with vitality, allowing them to use unique abilities involving spirits and souls.
- Magic ⇒ Arcanium Weapons
- Weapons forged out of Arcanium metal which allows them to conduct magic.
- Strength ⇒ Strength Weapons
- Weapons that are large and require a minimum strength stat to equip, but scale with strength and weapons
- Weapons ⇒ Artisan Weapons
- Weapons that are only usable by Warrior builds, granting some kind of unique use
- Spells, Fighting techniques, and weapons now have titled tiers; Rare, Lost, and Ancient (or legendary for weapons). We’re yet to receive any information about what kind of power lies within these tiers.
Gameplay Features
Many miscellaneous features have been developed and completed this year as well, most of which add new, fun things to do while playing Arcane Odyssey.
Cargo Trading
Players are able to buy crates of cargo, which they can sell at other islands. These contain that island’s exports and can be found near Shipwright NPCs.
When bought, it will be placed into your character’s hands, and can be placed down on your ship to be transported.
They can be sold to Shipwright NPCs at any island other than the one they were bought from, and the further you sell cargo from the place you bought it, the more they sell for. While carrying cargo and going near a Shipwright, the sell price is displayed so that you know how much it will sell for there.
Salvageable Cargo
Chests
There are multiple new chests types that can be obtained as rewards from sea activities or found while exploring. Each chest type has 3 tiers, with the highest tier being the rarest with the best loot.
These are the current types of chests in the game
- Treasure Chests, Silver Chests & Golden Chests
- Give galleons, treasure items, and random items
- Food Crates, Uncommon Food Crates & Rare Food Crates
- Give mushrooms, fruits, and seasonings
- Weapon Chests, Great Weapon Chests, Elite Weapon Chests
- Give weapons, bullets, and arrows
- Armor Chests, Great Armor Chests & Elite Armor Chests
- Give chest pieces and leggings
- Scroll Chests, Uncommon Scroll Chests, & Rare Scroll Chests
- Give galleons, enchantment scrolls, and Treasure Charts
- Sailor Chests, Great Sailor Chests, Elite Sailor Chests
- Give cannonballs, sail patterns and tools
- Ingredient Bags, Uncommon Ingredient Bags, & Rare Ingredient Bags
- Give potion ingredients
- Bronze Sealed Chests
- Give ship parts & blueprints, galleons, cannonballs, enchantment scrolls, and more
Treasure Charts
Treasure charts can be obtained from Scroll Chests, and depending on the Treasure Chart’s rarity, will contain directions to up to 5 different treasure spots. These are temporary items and are lost when you die or leave the game, and cannot be traded or sold.
Treasure spots are generated when a scroll is found, on any valid surface and on any island that isn’t in the sky. Charts only show the text leading to their first treasure spot, and in order to obtain directions to the next (if there is one), you must reach the first treasure spot and uncover all of its chests.
The text inside treasure charts are randomly generated just like the treasure spot locations, and use key information and cardinal directions to best explain how to reach the treasure.
The chests at these spots can be dug up using shovels, a type of tool that can be found in chests. Shovels can also be used to dig up galleons sometimes, but it isn’t really an efficient way of earning them.
After completing each treasure spot of a chart, you are given XP. If the chart has more than one treasure chart, most of its treasure will be at the final spot, as a reward for surviving and solving the entire chart. Treasure spots usually have tier 2 or 3 chests, as well as a few Sealed Chests, but cannot contain Scroll Chests.
Notes
The notebook feature is an Elden Ring-inspired messaging system that allows players to create notes that can be seen across servers. With over 400 words to choose from, there’s a plethora of possible messages you can leave for other players to find. Whether it be a funny message telling them to “seek job” or a helpful riddle about hidden treasure, this tool definitely seems like one the community will enjoy using. You may worry about notes flooding the map, but conveniently some features have been put into place to keep this feature from getting annoying. Notes have default despawn time of 30 minutes, which can either be raised or lowered depending on the amount of positive or negative appraisals the note gets. With the “Durable Notes” gamepass that will cost 25 robux, the default despawn time becomes one hour and appraisal time effects are doubled as well. There’s a limit to how many can be placed on each island, and they can’t be placed too close to each other or too close to NPCs. They also can only be placed on solid ground. However if you find yourself to not be a fan of notes overall, there’s a feature that allows you to turn them off completely.
And with that, I believe I’ve covered every one of Arcane Odyssey’s new features. However I didn’t go into too much depth about them, and more features will definitely be arriving in the near future. There are countless topics that provide in-depth updates, coverages, discussions and speculation about current and future features, so I encourage you to check any of those out when you can. I’m looking forward to waiting out the rest of TGR with you all!
Credits and Directory
Arcane Odyssey’s Trello, where majority of this post’s information and descriptions came from
Vetex’s Twitter and Development Updates discord channel, where all official sneak peeks come from
The Odyssey Feed series by Cryonical, which has many tester leaks or sneaks not posted officially
Alv’s Teaser series, who dates all new teasers
7grandnec and Flare’s Arcane Odyssey media google drives, which contain nearly all AO sneaks since the start of TGR
Polar’s Skyship youtube video
Selector’s Cooking Update video
Noober’s Mistake
Joseph6971’s Reminders for AO Part 1 and Part 2, where constant discussion about current features takes place
Special thanks to every tester whose leaks are in this topic, and everyone who contributed to piecing together obscure leaks and slivers of information.
Update Log
Updates coming soon (Edit: This was a lie)
