LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is finally here, and as you dive into its many offerings, it won’t take you long to realize there’s a surprising amount going on here. With just as much to do as in this game, to help streamline your experience and ensure you get the most out of it right from the start, we’ve compiled some beginner tips and tricks here that you should keep in mind. when you play the game.

BREAK THINGS

If you played a Lego game before, you already know this, but given how central it tends to be to the core gameplay loop, it’s still worth mentioning. Environments in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga are full of items that can be smashed into pieces to collect studs, and our advice is to do so every chance you get. Of course, smashing everything you see could quickly get boring, so don’t do it, but if, say, you walk into a room that has a lot of furniture just waiting to be smashed, smash it all. You’ll earn a lot of studs, and those are always valuable.

TO EXPLORE

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga puts a surprising emphasis on exploration, with story missions separated by large sandbox maps that you can roam freely. Exploration is completely optional, and you can go through story missions without ever straying off the critical path, but you’ll miss out on a lot of fun stuff if you do. The Skywalker Saga Sandbox maps are full of well-designed and enjoyable activities that reward you with Kyber Bricks for progress, collectibles, characters, and more. All of this side content is some of the most fun you’ll have in the game.

REVISIT THE PLACES

Once you have unlocked a location in The Skywalker Saga, you can come back to it whenever you want – and you should definitely do it regularly. Why? Well, because you’ll be unlocking new characters at a fairly rapid rate as you progress through the game, many of which come with abilities that can help you reach previously inaccessible areas. Access older maps with these newly acquired characters to collect more Bricks, Studs, and Kyber collectibles.

IMPROVEMENT FOR STUDS

Studs are a central currency in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, much like its predecessors, and given the abundance of these in every nook and cranny throughout the game, it’s not like you’re ever going to fall short. However, you can never have too many, so in your base upgrades menu, be sure to use your Kyber Bricks and Studs to prioritize the upgrade that attracts studs from the environment to you from further away. This, of course, has obvious advantages, and this specific unlock can then be upgraded twice more, making it even more effective.

UPGRADE FOR COLLECTIBLES

Most upgrades in The Skywalker Saga tend to feel rather pointless, but there are a few, like attracting stallions from further away, that are really useful. Another useful upgrade will highlight Kyber Bricks in your environment with pale blue outlines, while another will do the same for other collectibles like minikits. Like the upgrade for studs, these two aren’t available from the start in the base skill tree, so make sure you aim to unlock them as soon as possible.

FORCED LIFTING

You will often find areas in The Skywalker Saga cards you can’t reach, and while many, as mentioned, are only accessible with certain character classes, playing as a Jedi or Sith also opens up some workarounds. By using Force lift, for example, you can not only stack crates to give you access to higher places, but you can also lift characters themselves and send them floating to distant ledges or catwalks.

COMBINED

Combat has seen various improvements and overhauls in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and when it comes to melee combat, that largely comes in the form of combos. While you can, for the most part, fight your way through fights, if you keep things varied and string together combos of many different types of attacks, defeating enemies will reward you with more studs. It’s also really fun to do and simple to make, so there’s that too.

THE MAP

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Sandbox maps can be surprisingly large and dense at times, and they’re absolutely littered with optional activities and collectibles, to the point that it can be hard to keep track of them at times. Our advice? Easy – just keep an eye on your map. It marks Kyber Bricks, characters that have something to say, and most other interesting things, and is especially handy in some of the bigger locations.

KYBER COMETS

There are well over a thousand Kyber Bricks in all The Skywalker Saga, so there is no shortage of places where you can pick them up. There are, however, ways to speed up this process. One way is to head into space with a ship and search for Kyber comets. Destroying one of these will net you five Kyber Bricks, and these Comets aren’t too hard to find, making them a pretty good source for collecting these Bricks.

PURCHASING RUMORS

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga doesn’t necessarily require you to trigger a side activity by talking to characters first – you can just randomly grab it and engage in it as you please. If you get wind of activities this way, you can track them in your log and set them as active for waypoint markers and so on, which can reduce some of the busy work and downtime to try to figure out where to go. Another way to do this besides talking to characters is to directly buy rumors with a stud sum from the quest log itself. This sum is still quite small, so if you are looking to save time, do not hesitate to buy these rumors.