Overworld Guide

When you jump into the overworld, the area may seem daunting to explore. What does Sanctum Mesa hold in store for you?

Sanctum Mesa is the crashing site of the spaceship with which the rangers traveled to Illuvium. Luckily, this area is safe for the rangers and doesn’t house any Leviathans or other dangers. Noticing this lack of hostility, the Rangers quickly colonized the beaches and created a general hub they could fall back on. The spaceship was laid to rest, and an arena was built at the very back of ship. Here, only the very best can show off their skills in battle.

The focal area of Sanctum Mesa is called the Zero-point Forge where you can forge equipment and shards, organize your inventory and check the leaderboards of other rangers who go on expeditions. The rangers also created a training facility to get used to the harrowing battles they may have to overcome when going on expeditions outside of sanctum Mesa. This survival Arena teaches you the basics and allows you to test your mettle against an AI called Ga4di that sends wave after wave of increasingly powerful opponents at you.

After becoming more accustomed to the battles a ranger will have to undertake, they quickly found the entire thing entertaining and decided to create an Ascendent Arena. Here, the rangers can battle in a controlled environment and gain a ranking according to their skills.

After some more exploration of the beaches, they stumbled upon the first Obelisk, an enormous structure that looks not unlike a tuning fork. Through this alien technology, they became able to transport themselves across vast distances on the planet and explore the inhospitable regions of Illuvium.

For you rangers out there, when your inventory is setup correctly, move to the obelisk and press E to open the area overview. From there you can choose a region to explore in any of the four difficulties. The easiest; Stage 0, and the more difficult Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 levels.

After interacting with the Obelisk, you will see the interface depicted below. This image highlights the three regions one can teleport to: Brightland Steppes, Crimson Waste and Abyssal Basin. Furthermore, each region has its own Stage of travel: Stage 0, 1, 2 and 3. The stages determine the difficulty of an expedition and the rewards you can get. Stage 0 is free to enter, is easy to complete but gives you very little rewards, whereas stage 3 costs money and requires significant preparation but has the potential to give you significantly more rare assets.

The currency to move to a location is Crypton. This is a green type of fuel that can be bought on the Illuvidex. At a later date, players who own land can obtain Crypton while playing Illuvium Zero. During the current testnet version, fuel is priced at around 0.4 cents per unit. Stage 0 costs nothing, Stage 1 would cost roughly 1.8$ and stage 3 costs ~10$ per expedition.

After you choose your preferred region and stage of difficulty, you will be warped into the region. The first thing you may notice is the UI in the bottom right corner of the screen. You will see the total amount of items in your storage, your total amount of Illuvials, your Hit points and your Ergon energy.

Of these four icons, the Hit points and Ergon energy should be the most relevant to you when you are on an expedition. Hit points currently are a redundant feature that determines when your ranger faints and teleports back to your last teleportation point. You will not lose any progress, but it may cost some time to move back to where you were before.

Moving is easy to become comfortable with, but there are a lot of ways to increase your travel speed. The most used form of movement consists of walking with (WASD) and sprinting with (Shift). Next up, Jumping with (Space) allows you to maneuver obstacles and pressing (Shift) mid-air fires up your jetpack and allows you to fly forward. When you have sufficient height, you can even use (Ctrl) to activate a wingsuit to glide down.

While gliding and flying, you may reach speeds much higher than you would get through sprinting. You can make use of that speed when you hit the ground and press (Ctrl) again to enter a sliding stance. You can use this while sliding down a mountain, but also to scale slight hills if you enter the slide with enough speed. While aerial movement is the quickest way to move, it also has its limitations. Whenever you hold down (Space), fly with your jetpack (shift) or glide with your wingsuit (Ctrl), you use Kinetic energy. This energy purely limits your time in the air and refills whenever you hit the ground. This makes flying a bit more complicated and forces you to become better at using the kinetic energy as effectively as possible.

While moving through the overworld, you will find a number of assets scattered across the region. They range from rocks and plants, to firefly-like creatures called Morphopods and the planet’s mega fauna: Illuvials.

Finding these resources can be a challenge when you start off. The region is vast and some players end up looking around in a small part of the map. So, before you set out on your hunt for resources, take a moment to press M to go to the map. Here, you can see just how large the region you are exploring is. Scroll around the map by clicking and dragging the mouse, or zoom out with the scroll wheel. When you have done that, try moving around the map and towards any harvestable you see. In Brightland Steppes you should be able to spot some of them if you go to an elevated position. In Crimson Waste or Abyssal Basin, you may have to use your Nether Sight (Q) to scan for any points of extraction nearby.

If you can’t find anything in your area, open your map once more. Now rather than just looking at the regular image, press (H) to overlay the map with a Heat map. The hotter areas have more goodies. In the two map images presented here, you see just how significant the difference is. If you go to the blue areas, you will likely find nothing, whereas the red areas are practically littered with loot!

If you have run around and have gotten tired of teleporting back to the obelisk every time you faint, you could press (T) to open the interface to place down a teleporter. Whenever you faint, you will move to the closest teleportation point. Teleports allow you to save some of your progress! Do note that you can only place down three per expedition. So use them wisely!

After you have gotten a feel for moving around, you are ready to obtain some resources! To do so, you will need to rely on your companion drone, while guiding him with your gun. Your gun has two modes. One sniper mode shoots tracking darts across any distance but requires you to charge the shot. The other mode where it acts as a stun gun has the ability to shoot two bullets at a rapid pace. For rocks, plants and Morphopods the sniper mode acts as a guide for your drone so that it knows what you want to extract. After you find a small geode, Morphopod or plant, you can tag it with one of your charged beams. If you hit the target, your companion drone will quickly move towards it and extract any materials for you.

The stun gun mode is mainly used against aggressive Morphopods and for chasing Illuvials. This mode allows you to paralyze a Morphopod that may otherwise damage your health. After stunning the Morphopod, you can more easily shoot a tracker dart at it to guide your Companion drone towards it.

Illuvials are not so easily neutralized. Illuvials do not hesitate to run away from you when they catch sight of you. Their aim is to move through a rift in space to a different dimension so they can escape your grasp. To keep them from leaving, you will have to repeatedly shoot them with your stun gun!

We introduce each of the nodes you can find in the overworld. They range from Plants and rocks, to Morphopods and Illuvials.

Plants come in a number of different forms. There are ringnuts, dragon eggs and seven other types. Each plant gives you a unique consumable material, ranging from ring-like nuts, or small jellybean like items as well as Essences.

The materials can be used as a consumable for your Illuvial when you enter a fight. The image grants you a quick overview of their uses. Consumables will become very important when you try to beat more difficult battles, so stacking up on these can be incredibly beneficial in the long run.

Aside from consumables, each plant can drop essences that are used in various crafting recipes. You will need them for all of your equipment, but also for armaments and even drone chips, so it’s not a bad idea to stack up on some essences early on.

Rocks come in two forms, large and small geodes, as well as three unique colors: Orange, Green and White. Just like plants, the small geodes are extracted by your companion drone once you hit them with your sniper-gun (2). In the process, your drone will use some Ergon Energy to extract minerals from the geode.

The larger type of rock requires you to move close to it and interact with it by pressing (E). You are then given the choice to scan or extract the items inside. Scanning (F) costs a small amount of Ergon energy but gives you information on what is inside the rock. If you choose to extract the materials, you hold (E) and once more spend Ergon energy to obtain materials.

Items in rocks include Ores to upgrade your Equipment, Armaments or Drone Chips, Shards to capture Illuvials, or Gems that have various crafting purposes related to affinities.

Morphopods are small critters that have certain effects on your ranger in the overworld. They do not necessarily pose a threat, but can hamper your movement or even damage your ranger when they get close. When you collect them for free with your companion drone, you will be able to craft dyes. Those Dyes can be used to create skins alongside their specific blueprint and other materials.

When you find an Illuvial in the overworld, you may be wondering how you can ensure that you get it. Running after it while sprinting and then shooting while you get close may seem like a viable option in a stage 0 run, but you will quickly realize that sprinting will not get you far. Your jetpack is the key to keeping up. After you hit the ground and shoot an Illuvial while it runs away, you can jump into the air and use your jetpack to catch back up.

While you are chasing it, you need to shoot it enough times so that the bar at the top of your screens tops off. You do this by consistently shooting it and keeping close. You can also use the skill of your companion drone by pressing F to have it help you in the hunt. The skill of your drone is specific to which one you choose, so make sure you check its ability when you make your choice.

To add another ability to your arsenal that may be useful when you go to higher stage regions, you could equip a weapon and use its ability in the overworld. Don’t sleep on this ability as it makes the hunt that much easier!

Whenever you are unable to fill the bar up enough and the illuvial gets away, they will warp through a portal and appear on another spot in the overworld. Do not worry as you will not lose the illuvial if you have it run away from you! You will just have to look around the map to find it again.

When you do manage to weaken it enough and metaphorically have a tracking dart on its tail, you will be able to follow it through a wormhole to a new dimension. The Illuvial will transform in an orb, or Singularity, that you can interact with. From here, it is up to you to win a strategic game by autobattling to have a chance to capture it.

Check the autobattler guide for more information! And a big thanks to Garf for this Guide.