Sunless Skies Beginner's Guide

First time in the High Wilderness? Watch where you step, mind the Blemmigan. If you’re just starting out in Sunless Skies for the first time and feeling a little lost, you’re in the right place. It can be confusing for newcomers to the Fallen London universe, so here are 12 of our best beginner tips to help you get your wings and avoid being eaten by.

Meanwhile, delicious friends, if you're enjoying our Sunless Skies coverage, you can check out our advanced tips guide as well, or maybe you'd prefer to take a look at our feature celebrating the game's first anniversary. 

Sunless Skies Beginner's Guide

General Tips

1. Stay in the Reach while you’re still getting a feel for the game. Albion, and especially Eleutheria and the Blue Kingdom are more difficult. There’s stronger enemies, terror usually rises quicker and upgrades are more expensive. The story doesn’t force you go to the other regions at any particular point, so wait until you feel you’ve got a good handle on the mechanics, as well as plenty of crew and sovereigns in the bank.

2. Explore the inner rings of the regions (as marked on the maps) before heading out to the edges. Edges contain more dangerous enemies and the ports are spaced farther apart so if you run into trouble it’s more difficult.

3. Picked up a Bargain but you can't find a Prospect for it? Not to worry. If you need quick sovereigns, you can sell it for regular price at one of the main ports. It won't make you as much of a profit as selling it for a Prospect, but you will still make some money. Alternately, you could stuff it in you Bank account and wait for an enterprising Prospect to come along for it.

4. If a particular quest or storyline seems too challenging to complete right away, wait and come back to it after you have more experience or once you’ve raised your Veils/Mirrors/Irons/Hearts. None of them (thus far) will disappear if you depart port.

5. If you’re looking for an easy to defeat enemy, Chorister Bees are abundant. They grant a decent amount of experience or, for the poor, their honey can be sold at quite a tidy profit. Cantankeri are even easier to defeat, but they don’t grant as much experience, nor do they tend to hang around honey hives.

Being Prepared

6. Take onboard every Officer that you find. Having them all doesn’t mean you kick any of the others off, and you can assign who you want for a specific position from the Officers menu. You can also then work on everyone’s stories as you play through.

7. Keep a supply of tea on hand at all times. It smooths over dealings in a variety of ports and situations. This is England in the High Wilderness after all.

8. Try and keep one or two spaces in your hold open so you can scavenge from wrecks, mine for hours or loot locomotives you’ve destroyed. It’s an easy way to pick up some extra supplies or goods to sell for 100% profit.

9. Stock up on fuel and supplies in the bank. No matter what happens to your money or your locomotive along the way, you’ll always have an accessible backstock.

When Things Go Wrong

10. If you lose a significant portion of your crew, through accidents or failed expeditions, make replacing them your priority. Things can and will go wrong very quickly when you’re the only person operating your locomotive.

11. Don’t let your Terror get too high. Terror and nightmares can accelerate quickly and will eat up your supplies, crew and sanity. If you don’t take care of it quickly, it can spiral out of hand very easily and lead to a speedy and unpleasant death. Magdalene's in the Reach is good for de-escalating Terror and can also take care of Nightmares. If you're in Albion, mosey on over to the Most Serene Mausoleum instead.

12. You will die.You will die many, many times in this game. Accept it, and move on. Don’t get too attached to your Captain, your crew or your locomotive. If part of your quest warns that you will die or that a proposition in particularly risky - you will die. Some games insist on you surviving and enduring circumstances, saving you from near death or giving you multiple lives to complete your noble quest. This isn’t one of them.

Now that you've got your skywings, you're ready to blaze a trail across the Reach, bright enough to outshine the Clockwork Sun! (THESUN THE SUN THE SUN THE-) Still struggling? No worries, check out our tips for advanced players and our guide to Eleutheria and the Blue Kingdom.