Brighter Shores rewards a little planning more than speed. Your first week decides two things you cannot undo, your faction and your trade mode, and sets up the habits that make the game’s long levelling curve bearable. This guide covers what holds for every new character, with the Brighter Shores Wiki article behind each part.
What is free and what needs the Premium Pass
The game is free to play on Steam for Windows and macOS. Hopeport and Hopeforest, the first two episodes, are open to everyone. The Mine of Mantuban, Crenopolis and every later episode need the Premium Pass, which also unlocks trading with other players and a unique character name. If the pass runs out, your progress in premium episodes is kept and your character is moved back to Hopeport (wiki, Premium Pass and Episodes).
Levels, milestones and knowledge
Every profession starts at level 0 and stops at 500. The game shows levels in milestones of 50, so 2.34 means milestone 2, level 34, and the cap reads 10.0. New milestones bring new variants of activities, and sometimes whole new ones (wiki, Experience). Once any profession reaches level 20 you start earning knowledge points as you train. Each one can unlock a passive activity, be turned into coins or be spent as experience (wiki, Knowledge).
Train while you are away
Passive activities, also from level 20, keep a profession training while the game is closed. Each costs one knowledge point to unlock, gives less than active play and stops after 24 hours offline, so logging in once a day keeps them running (wiki, Passive activities). Start one before you log off every evening from the first day you can.
Bounties are the extra income
Bounty boards post new tasks every hour for each profession. You can carry up to six at a time, and each pays extra experience, knowledge and coins on top of the normal reward for the work (wiki, Bounties). Pick bounties that match what you were going to train anyway.
Two choices you cannot undo
- Your faction. During the main story in Hopeforest you become a Cryoknight, Guardian or Hammermage, and the choice is permanent. The three form a combat triangle, each strong against one and weak against the other, and the Mine of Mantuban’s crafting professions make gear for one faction each. Combat cannot pass milestone 2 until you have chosen (wiki, Factions).
- Your trade mode. After the Merchants’ Guild challenge in episode 4 you choose to be a Guild Member or a Lone Wolf. Talk it over with friends first: the wiki’s record of firsts even lists the two modes separately (wiki, Guild Member, Lone Wolf and our leaderboard firsts).
World events
Fen Research now runs world events anyone can join. The first, Shipwreck, opened on 21 September 2026 and runs every three hours from 10:00 UTC, with no limit on players, according to Fen Research’s announcement on Steam. Patch notes for each event appear on the news page.
Sources: the Brighter Shores Wiki articles linked above, as they stood on 7 November 2026 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), and Fen Research’s Steam announcement of 21 September 2026.