A Traveling Spirit is a Seasonal Spirit from a past Season who temporarily returns to offer their collectibles, appearing in Home and in Aviary Village for a few days. These visits are the only way for players to purchase Expression upgrades, cosmetics, and a Wing Buff from past-Season Spirits, alongside Returning Spirits. One randomly-selected Traveling Spirit returns every two weeks, arriving on Thursday and departing 96 hours later on Sunday.
TS Teaser | ||
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Date of Appearance | November 7-10 | |
Location Depicted | Coliseum | |
Possible Spirit(s) | Running Wayfarer, Mindful Miner, Warrior of Love, Seed of Hope | |
Season | Season of AURORA |
Overview[]
Traveling Spirits were introduced to provide players with an opportunity to trade with Seasonal Spirits from past Seasons and acquire any Expression upgrades and cosmetics they may have previously missed.[1] Even players who completed the Spirit's Season can benefit from Traveling Spirits, because one Wing Buff is available from each new Traveling Spirit. New items are also occasionally added to a Spirit's offerings; in particular, several new Props for Shared Spaces have been introduced through visiting Spirits.[2]
Traveling Spirits provide an opportunity for new players to (eventually) acquire all of the collectibles offered by Seasonal Spirits. This does not include Seasonal Pendants or Ultimate Gifts from past Seasons (all of which were offered by the Season Guides, not the Seasonal Spirits).[3]
Only players who have completed Valley of Triumph can see the Traveling Spirit at Home. This means you must have been to the Valley Temple and meditated at its altar; you do not have to find any Spirits, unlock any Expressions, or buy any cosmetics. Players will see the Traveling Spirit even if they have never relived the Spirit's memory, however if they try to interact with the Spirit, new players are told "This Traveling Spirit is passing through the Realms of Sky. Find their lost memories and become their friend before they leave!" Meaning that in order to access their Friendship Tree, the player must find and relive the Spirit's memory and collect their Expression.
Similarly, players must have at least started the third Seasonal Quest from Season of Revival in order to see the Traveling Spirit at Aviary Village. This means the player must have unlocked the Map Shrine found there before they are able to interact with a Traveling Spirit in Aviary Village.
Players who have previously purchased items from a Traveling Spirit (either during their Season or a previous visit) will see those as unlocked items in the Spirit's Friendship Tree. This includes cosmetics, higher Level Expressions, Hearts, Wing Buffs, and some Blessings.
Only Seasonal Spirits return as Traveling Spirits, but TGC has mentioned that Season Guides[3], the Shattering Light and Darkness[4], and the Revival Mannequins will return in some form, bringing their cosmetics. Notably, the Shattering Light and Darkness were included in the Steam Wishlist Goal vote for a future visit, although TGC has yet to confirm if they will function as typical Traveling Spirits like all other standard Seasonal Spirits.
Schedule[]
One Traveling Spirit appears every two weeks (even when there is an ongoing Special Visit or no no active Seasonal Event). The Traveling Spirit appears in Home, standing on the small island in the middle of the koi pond (near the closets) and in Aviary Village, standing behind the Friendship Constellation Statue in the village plaza area. They appear at server reset Thursday morning, stay for 96 hours, and leave at Sunday night's reset. More specifically:
- The Spirit appears Thursday at 00:00 PST/UTC-8 (during Standard Time) or at 00:00 PDT/UTC-7 (during Daylight Saving Time).
- The Spirit leaves Sunday at 23:59 PST/UTC-8 (during Standard Time) or at 23:59 PDT/UTC-7 (during Daylight Saving Time).
- The next Traveling Spirit will arrive two weeks later at the same times above. Using a time zone converter is advised to determine the local time when the Spirit appears/leaves based on your local time zone.
During their visit, clicking on the Spirit in Home or Aviary Village will always show a countdown with the remaining time before their departure on the left side of the screen.
The order used for arriving Traveling Spirits is randomized. There is no way to know which Spirit will appear next, nor to know when a specific Spirit will appear. The guidelines provided by thatgamecompany are:
- The same Traveling Spirits can, and will, appear more than once.
- Spirits from the current Season and previous Season are not eligible to be Traveling Spirits: "Spirits are tired after a particular Season has passed, and will not return as Travelers until another Season is over." Therefore, Season of Nesting cosmetics won't be available as Traveling Spirits until Season of Duets concludes.
- Traveling Spirits that appear in the Mainland China server (NetEase) differ from those in the global release.
Inferences based on past visit patterns are detailed below.
Hints[]
TGC starts to release information on their various Social Media platforms about the identity of the next Traveling Spirit shortly before the Spirit arrives. As of February 1, 2024, the following format is used for hints:
- Near the start of the month, a pixelated location image for upcoming Traveling Spirits is released in the #news channel of the official Discord server, Facebook page, Twitter page, and Instagram profile.
- Roughly 36 hours before the Spirit arrives (i.e., midday Tuesday server time), a reveal image or video is released on the same platforms listed above.
This format has replaced the previous system that involved text hints. Due to the change in the way Traveling Spirits are revealed, Spirits are no longer expected to receive text hints for the foreseeable future.[5]
- Text hints were released in the #general-sky-discussion channel of the official Discord server by Ash (skyfaring), a TGC Concept Artist. Typically, one hint was released on Monday (three days before the arrival), with several more arriving early on Tuesday.
- A complied list of all the Traveling Spirit hints can be found on the Traveling Spirits/Hints subpage.
- All of the hints provided to date, categorized by Season, have been complied by Koame. (Note: This site can occasionally be out-of-date.)
- Roughly 36 hours before the Spirit arrived (i.e., midday Tuesday server time), a teaser image (silhouette only) was released in the #news channel of the official Discord server, Facebook page, Twitter page, and Instagram profile.
Friendship Tree Information[]
When a Spirit first returns as a Traveling/Returning Spirit they always offer all the same items as they did during the Season. Any previously Season Pass exclusive items become available to all players. Relative to the in-Season Tree, the items are completely reorganized, and their costs are all changed (into more expensive non-Seasonal currencies). In addition, a few new items are added -- a Wing Buff (costing 2 ) is always added, but new cosmetics may also appear (new placeable Props are particularly likely). Anything bought from a Traveling Spirit shop will also reflect on what's sold on a Returning Spirit's shop.
To read more about the Friendship Tree, visit the Seasonal Spirits page.
Historical Appearances[]
See Spirit Visits for all Spirit appearances and statistics based on them.
Visit Randomness[]
Although the "order Traveling Spirits appear in is random," older Spirits tend to visit before newer Spirits, and Spirits that have just visited wait a while before they visit again.
Never in the history of Traveling Spirits has a Spirit from a newer Season visited before at least one Spirit from each of the past Seasons has visited, even with the growing number of new Seasons with Spirits that 'could visit' because "another Season is over," and usually more than one. This means that as Spirits that haven't visited before a certain Season decrease, it becomes more likely for a Spirit from that Season to visit because a Spirit from after it won't until one from that previous Season has. I.E. a Spirit from Remembrance won't visit until one from AURORA has, so as Spirits that haven't visited from before AURORA approach 0 it will become much more likely for one from it to visit, since one from Remembrance won't before then, but a Spirit from AURORA could still visit any time.
Never in the history of Traveling Spirits has a Spirit visited twice in the same Season, and usually not without a whole individual Season between. Also, even though Spirits that have already visited make up a large portion of the total Spirits, a disproportionate number of new Spirits appear. This is seemingly a necessary deviation from randomness to slow the increase in the growing number of new Spirits that haven’t visited in coordination with the addition of Seasons with only 4 Spirits.
Traveling Spirits do appear randomly, but there are limitations and precedents that inform this randomness. It is not 100% random. There are patterns that haven’t been broken for a long time.
Trivia[]
- Traveling Spirits were first introduced with the Season of Rhythm update (Patch 0.8.0) in January 2020.
- The first two Traveling Spirits were from noon on Friday to the end of Sunday and visited for 60 hours. The duration was extended to 96 hours in Patch 0.8.4, starting with the third Traveling Spirit, they visited from Thursday through Sunday.
- Before Season of Sanctuary, Traveling Spirits visit every week when a Seasonal Event is inactive. After the delay of the inter-season weekly Traveling Spirit scheduled on July 9, 2020, in Patch 0.10.3 thatgamecompany announced that at Traveling Spirits will appear every fortnight reguardless if a Season is active or not.
- On May 27, 2020, thatgamecompany announced a change in future pricing for Traveling Spirits' Friendship Trees to balance the pricing of items. All Traveling Spirits affected by this change have since returned at least once.
- The very first Traveling Spirit to receive a hint was Provoking Performer for their second appearance on October 1, 2020.
- Traveling Spirits were removed from Home after Patch 0.24.5 and exclusively appeared at Aviary Village, before being reverted with 0.25.0 so that they once again appear at both Home and Aviary Village.
- Before the switch, some players were able to see Traveling Spirits in both Home & Aviary Village due to special A/B group testing.[6]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ thatgamecompany official Support website: “What is a Traveling Spirit?”
- ↑ Sky News - System Update: Traveling Spirits (July 9 2021)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 thatgamecompany has mentioned future plans to bring back Ultimate Gifts using some other mechanism, but details have not been announced.
- ↑ Sky News - Shards of the Past Arrive in Season of Shattering (July 5, 2022)
- ↑ TGC Concept Artist Ash announced on the official Discord server that they have retired from providing text hints with the introduction of the new photo hints.
- ↑ In-game Announcement: Inbox:12-21-2023