Sword of the Sea Beginner Guide: 9 Tips to Start Strong

Your Hoversword turns rolling dunes into ramps, but learning to carry momentum makes the whole adventure feel smoother. This Sword of the Sea beginner guide covers movement, water restoration, vendor upgrades, and the collectibles worth watching for. Start with clean jumps and exploration, then tackle longer combos once you have the tricks to sustain them.

Get Comfortable With Hoversword Movement

1. Practice a short route before attempting difficult jumps

Sword of the Sea puts you in control of the Wraith, exploring a deserted world and restoring its buried ocean. Your Hoversword handles like a blend of a snowboard, skateboard, and surfboard, with terrain that supplies waves, ramps, halfpipes, and wall rides.

Pick a short route with a slope and a ramp. Practice building speed, launching, and steering toward your next landing before adding tricks. This gives you a repeatable approach when a rooftop or distant platform catches your attention.

Look at the terrain leading toward a destination. A nearby slope or curved wall can provide a more useful approach than repeatedly jumping from directly underneath it.

2. Learn landings before stacking aerial tricks

Flips, spins, and grabs give you plenty to experiment with, but keep your early jumps simple. Line up the landing and the next stretch of your route before adding more inputs.

Once that feels comfortable, connect movement features: jump toward a wall ride, grind a chain, or bounce onto a jellyfish. These features also matter for scoring because they can extend a combo without ending it on the ground.

You can explore without chasing trick records. Use ordinary travel to practice movement, then take those skills into timed challenges.

Official page: Sword of the Sea (swordoftheseagame.com)

Restore Water and Revisit Changed Areas

Image: Steam / Giant Squid

3. Check what each water point changes

Water restoration brings back marine life and changes the routes available around you. Lanterns, switches, jellyfish, kelp, and chains all play a part in reaching new spaces.

After activating a water point, pause to look around. Follow newly opened passages and inspect the vertical routes that appear.

In the Veiled Sea, for example:

• Activating lanterns around a tall rock pillar summons jellyfish you can use to reach its water point.
• A cave opening behind a sand waterfall leads to another water point.
• Restoring water near a green doorway brings up kelp that helps you reach the entrance.

The Veiled Sea contains 10 water points, including optional ones away from the main route. Opening the exit and fully restoring the region are separate goals. Activate every water point there to earn Cleanse the Veiled Sea.

Watch the returning animals, too. Orcas appear after you restore the water associated with the left chain of the large golden exit door. Jump onto an orca’s back, then jump off to earn Orca Rider.

Gather Tetra and Work Through Vendor Rewards

Image: Steam / Giant Squid

4. Collect chests and blue fish tiles along your route

Tetra is the gold triangular currency used for vendor rewards. Pick it up while exploring, open treasure chests, and check elevated places for glowing blue fish tiles.

Fish tiles often sit on rooftops or statues. Land on one to collect its Tetra; the glow disappears afterward.

Your main Tetra sources include:

• Loose Tetra throughout the environment.
• Gold treasure chests.
• Glowing blue fish tiles.
• Trick Attack high-score rewards.

Open 10 treasure chests for Treasure Tracker, and activate 10 fish tiles for Tile Finder. There are more than 10 of each, and these Tetra sources return during Chapter Select replays and New Game+.

Collect what you pass naturally before committing to a dedicated currency grind.

5. Budget for the vendor’s full reward sequence

The mysterious vendor appears along the main path in multiple locations. You can continue trading when you encounter them again, so there is no need to return to an earlier meeting spot every time you collect more Tetra.

The five rewards require 8,550 Tetra altogether:

Reward	Individual cost	Total Tetra spent
Tricks	50	50
Spin Tricks	500	550
Drop	1,000	1,550
Super Jump	2,000	3,550
Secret Shell	5,000	8,550

Work toward Spin Tricks if you want to build longer aerial combos. Its price is 500 Tetra, following the initial 50-Tetra Tricks reward.

The final vendor reward matters for collectible completion: its Secret Shell is part of the total needed for Water Whisperer. Vendor progress carries into Chapter Select and New Game+, so you can finish the sequence after your initial adventure.

Build Combos With Jellyfish

Image: Steam / Giant Squid

6. Alternate between jellyfish to keep a combo going

A combo ends when you touch the ground. Wall riding, grinding, and jellyfish bounces let you extend it while performing aerial tricks.

For a straightforward route to the combo trophies, find neighboring jellyfish and alternate between them:

1. Unlock Spin Tricks from the vendor.
2. Bounce from one jellyfish toward another.
3. Perform tricks while airborne.
4. Keep switching jellyfish instead of repeatedly using the same one.
5. Land after reaching the multiplier you need.

With PlayStation button prompts, hold L1 while pressing trick buttons during the jumps. Vary the tricks as you move between bounces.

The combo trophies require landing these multipliers:

• Nice Combo! — 5x.
• Cool Combo! — 10x.
• Awesome Combo! — 20x.

Use Trick Attack to practice with a visible score

There are four Trick Attack areas, located in the Veiled Sea, Lost Grotto, Shadow Tundra, and Sacred River. Interact with the area’s stone pillar to reveal the hourglass, then activate the hourglass to begin.

These challenges last 40–60 seconds. The first high-score target is 8,000 points; the other three require 10,000 points each. Beating each target for the first time awards a substantial Tetra reward.

During your initial playthrough, score and combo displays appear in Trick Attack areas rather than throughout normal exploration. You can still check your game-wide score in the upper-right corner of the pause menu.

Use the Sacred River challenge’s neighboring jellyfish to practice longer chains once you reach it. Keep moving between bounces; staying on one jellyfish will stall your progress.

Track Secrets Without Interrupting Every Journey

7. Watch for shells, stele, and hidden frogs

Secret Shells glow white and tend to occupy hidden or difficult-to-reach locations. There are 50 Secret Shells in total, including the vendor’s final reward. Collecting all of them unlocks Water Whisperer and lets you use water rails throughout the game, beyond Sacred River.

Check caves, high ledges, rooftops, and side paths while exploring. After restoring water, inspect the new routes for places you could not previously reach.

Other discoveries worth watching for include:

• 23 stele messages: Interact with these stone pillars to read their lore and work toward Wisdom of the Ancients.
• Hidden frogs: Approach the stone stacks where they sit to register the discovery.
• Rideable marine animals: Restoration can bring back animals with their own riding trophies.

Use the collectible tracker on the Chapter Select screen when returning for missed items. New Game+ also has a collectible tracker in the pause screen, added in the September 19, 2025 update.

You unlock Chapter Select after finishing the story, and collectible progress carries over. Finish an area when you are ready, then return for a focused search later.

Leave Speedruns and No-Damage Attempts for Later

8. Finish the adventure before combining completion goals

Use your initial playthrough to learn the routes, collect abilities, and experience each region. Completing the game unlocks New Game+, where you can work toward another completion and a faster run.

Speed Surfer requires finishing the adventure in under two hours. Completing it within that time also grants a 2x completion score bonus, which helps with Great Score, the trophy for a game-wide score of 1,000,000 points.

For that scoring route, build at least 500,000 points during the run before the completion bonus. Jellyfish combos give you a repeatable way to add score.

Start New Game+ through its menu option and play the adventure in sequence. Using Chapter Select resets progress for that playthrough, so reserve chapter replays for separate cleanup sessions.

Save Untouchable, the final boss’s no-damage trophy, for after you have learned the entire encounter. Taking damage means restarting the final level for another attempt.

Set Up Your Controls and PC Version

9. Update the game before adjusting performance settings

Install the current update before troubleshooting performance or following older achievement advice. Patch 1.6, released October 29, 2026, added several useful PC improvements:

• Steam Deck Verified status.
• DLSS support.
• Performance improvements and optimizations.
• Additional graphics presets and broader effects from graphics settings.
• Haptics improvements.

A gamepad is recommended, and the game supports full controller input. For full DualSense controller support on PC, disable Steam Input for the game.

If a trophy fails during a final-level replay, check that your installation includes the September 23, 2025 fix. That update addressed an achievement-awarding issue when the final level was launched through Chapter Select.