You’ve no doubt noticed the abundance of flora and fauna on various islands you’re visiting as you explore the skies inAloft, but with the Field Guide in hand, it’s up to your adventurer to tend to the ecological balance of the islands you encounter. No pressure, right?

There’s a lot that goes into an island’s biodiversity and ecosystem health in Aloft, such as the number of trees and mushrooms there, the animals that call it home, the diversity of the plants, and so much more. Using the Field Guide, you can keep the ecological harmony in Aloft with ease.

An overview of the Field Guide in Aloft while checking the ecosystem health on an island.

Restore Ecosystems To Bring Life Back To Planets Big And Small

As you explore each sectorin Aloft, you’ll explore the ups and downs of plenty of different islands all around the skies! As you do, though, be sure tocheck an island’s ecosystem when you visit, since it’ll be up to you to fix it! There are plenty of factors that go into an island’s ecosystem score, all of which arelisted in your Field Guidewhen you’re analyzing an island. These factors contributing to an island’s ecological health include:

Once an island is free of corruption (if it was when you arrived - more on that below), you’ll see a more vibrant color palette on an island, meaning you’re at least close to a perfect ecosystem score! To make sure you’ve hit every benchmark there is as you work toward improving an island’s ecosystem in Aloft, though, be sure tocheck the Field Guide to see what needs doingbefore the island you’re on is at a perfect ecosystem score before you take off toward someplace new.

A character standing in the greenery on an island near a lake with the Field Guide in Aloft.

In the Field Guide, you may see all the above-mentioned details at a glance for each island, along with an overall ecosystem score on the top of the page, as well as which area you’re in at any given time. Feel free to flip between the pages of your Field Guide to see different information about each island, which expands as you venture into new biomes and find new islands in Aloft. Healthy biomeshave the most vibrant color paletteof all, making it easy to see when an island is flourishing.

Corrupted Islands Require Cleansing First

You’ll have found your first one as part of the Forgotten Legacy quest, but as you explore the skies in Aloft, you’ll occasionally come across anisland overtaken by corruption.This corruption is apparentas soon as you land on an island overrun with it: you’ll see a hazy and yellowish atmosphere on an island with red and purple mushroom plants, all of which surround alarge central structure- a yellow tree with nodes on its tendrils, sometimes several on one corrupted planet.

What’s worse, you’ll also findseveral monstersguarding this fungus-like corruption, as well as the occasional large tree limb swinging about to protect the spores on the tree as you approach. They appear withyellow spores on their headsand each one functions differently. You’ll need to get used to defending yourself in combat if you hope to cleanse the corruption on these islands!

A knowledge stone covered with Corruption in Aloft.

Before you may work on improving the planet in any way or gathering its resources, you’ll first need tocleanse the corruption before you can repair the ecosystem. To do this, you’ll need todestroy every corruption node on the islandwith a weapon of sorts, all before youhack at the center of the corruptionwhile it’s exposed. You’ll need to do this twice over on the same plant to cure the island of its corruption.

Once the corruption has been cleared from an island, you can begin revitalizing the ecosystem as normal. As the island returns to normal, you’ll begin finding the usual spread of collectible resources there, as well as several animals that you can take home with you after taming them to begin your work on raising livestock.

That said, you’ll also findleftover corruption-covered podsaround the ground, calledFungi Barriers. These are pretty radiantpurple blobson the ground once you’ve healed the corruption on an island, and a good many of them containsick animalsthat you can cure once you’ve found the recipe required to do so. If you don’t have any cures on you when you find a sick animal after clearing an island of its corruption, you can still bring them home and keep them nearby until you’re able to cure them.