The areas of the Continent, from Lumière to the Monolith

A journey in three acts

The adventure starts in Lumière and aims at a single point: the Paintress's Monolith, on the other side of the sea. Between the two lies the Continent, which you first cross area by area, then far more freely on Esquie's back. In the game, "The Continent" is also the name of the world map itself. The story is split into a prologue and three acts:

• Prologue: life in Lumière and the preparations for departure.
• Act I: the crossing of the Continent, from the landing to the Stone Wave Cliffs.
• Act II: from the Forgotten Battlefield to Old Lumière, then the hunt for the Axons and the assault on the Monolith.
• Act III: the rest of the journey, which opens up the remainder of the Continent. We will say no more.

The main route

The table below follows the objectives of the game's quest log, in the order they come up, with the official place names in English and French.

Watch out for the translations: several names are anything but literal. Flying Waters becomes Océan suspendu (literally "suspended ocean"), Forgotten Battlefield becomes Terres oubliées ("forgotten lands") and Monoco's Station becomes Gare de Monoco. If you play in French while reading English guides, keep this table handy.

What you come across on the way

Each major area is divided into sub-areas that also have official names. Here are a few that help you find your bearings:

• Spring Meadows: an abandoned expeditioner camp, the Grand Meadow, then the Indigo Tree and its branches.
• Flying Waters: a coral cave, Noco's hut (Noco being the Gestral merchant), and a flower field that serves as Goblu's arena.
• Ancient Sanctuary: Giant Bell Alley, the Sanctuary Maze and a Gestral totem.
• Stone Wave Cliffs: the Basalt Waves, the Tide Caverns, flooded buildings, an old farm and a Paintress shrine.
• Forgotten Battlefield: Vanguard Point, the Fort Ruins, the Main Gate and the Ancient Bridge, the Dualliste boss's arena.
• Old Lumière: ruined train station, then three streets, left, right and middle, leading to the Manor Gardens.
• Visages: three vales, of joy, anger and sadness, before the Peak.
• Sirène: dancing classes, a sewing atelier and a dancing arena.

These names sometimes shed light on the bestiary. The three vales of Visages match the three Masks you meet in Enemy mode: Joy, Anger and Sadness.

Lumière, the starting point

The prologue lets you wander around Lumière before the big departure. The city is split into districts with very Belle Époque names: the Central Plaza, the Opera House, Lumière's Gardens, the Harbour, floating buildings, a shattered alley and the crooked tower walkway. It is also where most of the expedition members first appear, which makes it one of the most common answers to the Zone clue.

The optional areas

Away from the main route, the Continent is packed with optional places. Here are the most notable ones, with their French names:

• Frozen Hearts (Glacier Ardent): reached from Monoco's Station, with an icebound train station and glacial falls.
• Yellow Harvest (Moisson dorée): home to the Harvester's Hollow, among other spots.
• Falling Leaves (Feuilles Ambrées): a forest centred on the Resinveil Grove.
• Crimson Forest (Sylve cramoisie): with the Crimson Perch and a place called The Three Blades.
• Endless Tower (Tour Éternelle): a tower of combat challenges to climb floor by floor.
• Verso's Drafts (Esquisses de Verso): an area added by the free "Thank You" update, with Candy Land, the Gestral Baths and Licornapieds Station.
• Renoir's Drafts (Esquisses de Renoir): a path that leads all the way to a golden tree.
• Sky Island (Île céleste): an island floating above the Continent.
• Flying Manor (Manoir suspendu): a manor that also hangs in the air.
• Dark Gestral Arena (Arène Clandestine des Gestrals): where Gestrals fight away from prying eyes. Another arena, a hidden one this time, lies elsewhere.
• Sinister Cave (Grotte sinistre) and The Crows (Les Corbeaux): two small areas that each shelter a chromatic Nevron.

On top of these come dozens of smaller places: the Flying Casino, the Floating Cemetery, the Carousel, the Fountain, the White Tree, White Sands, the Coastal Cave, the Red Woods and the Sacred River. Several side locations, such as Sky Island or Abbest Cave, shelter a chromatic Nevron.

The Zone clue in the grid

In Classic and Complete modes, the Zone column tells you where a character appears for the first time in the game, cutscenes included. It is a binary clue: the cell turns green if the zone is exactly the same, red otherwise. There is never any orange in that column.

The table below, computed from the site's data, shows how many characters each zone holds in Classic and Complete modes.

Three lessons to take away:

• The Continent and Lumière dominate. The first gathers the characters met on the world map, outside the named areas; the second holds the expedition and the city's residents.
• Complete mode's chromatic variants do not always follow their base form. The Gault first appears in Yellow Harvest, but the Chromatic Gault on the Stone Wave Cliffs. Conversely, the Lancelier and its chromatic version share Spring Meadows. Never infer a variant's zone from its base.
• A rare zone is gold dust. More than a third of the grid's 37 zones hold a single character. A green cell on one of them all but gives you the answer.

Every label uses the game's official names, even for the lesser-known places: the landing beach where Expedition 33 is decimated is called the Dark Shores, and the domain of the Axon Visages simply bears its name.

To combine this clue with the other five, read our guide to reading the clues in Classic mode. The character codex lists everyone's zone, and our overview of the world of the game puts all these places in context.