Chocobos
Side Quests

Arriving in the Archylte Steppe after working your way through Chapters 1 to 10 provides a refreshing reprieve from the linearity and is the first section of the game where the feeling is a bit more open world.

Entering the Archylte Steppe for the first time

It’s a fantastic place to explore, but you’re going to find that traveling from one section of the Archylte Steppe to another, or even between the offshoot areas like the Vallis Media, Yaschas Massif and the Haerii Archaeopolis, can be quite a chore.

Thankfully, by completing just a few of the Missions, you can gain access to Chocobos as a form of travel. You will have to complete the following Missions at a minimum:

Following the completion of Mission 14, Chocobos will be accessible and rideable through various areas of the Archylte Steppe. Just approach a Chocobo and press the XButton to ride it. Note that in addition to being able to travel faster, you can still open up Treasure Spheres and activate Save Stations while riding.

Chocobo Morale

The game provides a brief explanation of how morale works. In summary, three feather icons will appear in the bottom left side of the screen while you’re riding a Chocobo. Hitting an enemy will cause the Chocobo to lose one morale (which will slowly regenerate after enough time). Losing all of its Morale will cause the Chocobo to flee.

Travelling through the Font of Namva on a Chocobo with the Morale meter showing

Note that hitting some enemies, like the giant Oretoises wandering around, will cause the Chocobo to lose all of its morale instantly.

Chocobo Treasure Hunting

While traveling through the Archylte Steppe, an exclamation point icon may appear above your Chocobo’s head indicating that it senses there is some treasure nearby. Each time you leave and re-enter the Archylte Steppe (or if you save your game and reload it) the treasure spots may be reactivated with more treasure!

Exclamation point indicating nearby treasure while riding a Chocobo

There are two hints that the bird will give you to help you locate the treasure. The first is that it will face its head in the direction of the treasure if you stop moving. The second is that the exclamation icon will bounce faster as you get closer and closer to the treasure. Note that the treasure is always located in a spot with brown grass that can be dug up as shown in the screenshot below:

Treasure spot on the ground

Each treasure you dig up will be a random item out of the following chart:

Treasure Odds
Millerite 12.84%
Rhodochrosite 12.84%
Cobaltite 12.65%
Chocobo Plume 10.19%
Chocobo Tail Feather 9.94%
Gold Dust 9.52%
Dawnlight Dew 8.40%
Dusklight Dew 7.55%
Gold Nugget 6.32%
Moogle Puppet 5.00%
Plush Puppet 4.75%

More importantly though is that there is certain guaranteed treasure that you can obtain once you have successfully dug up enough treasure. One of these treasures, the Ribbon, is incredibly valuable and obtaining it by spending some time digging in the Archylte Steppe is definitely worth it:

Treasure Number of Digs
Gold Nugget 1
Tetradic Crown 5
Tetradic Tiara 10
Tetradic Crown 10
Entite Ring 15
Ribbon 20
Obtaining a Ribbon while hunting treasure on a Chocobo