The Eye of Graeae is the exploration tool you pick up when you first reach Snezhnaya in the Version 7.0 update, “Everwinter Without Mercy.” It looks like a floating monocle and takes over as your second companion after Paimon, handling nearly every system unique to the frozen nation. It keeps your team alive in the cold, builds temporary ice structures, summons the region’s trains, and unlocks the new third-person shooter mode.
Quick answer: Equip the Eye of Graeae in your gadget slot and press the gadget interaction button to open its menu. From there you get cold immunity (when charged with Kresnik Energy), Prime Ice Constructs for traversal and puzzles, train fast travel, and the TPS loadout for the Shadow Realm.
How you unlock the Eye of Graeae
You cannot miss the Eye of Graeae if you explore Snezhnaya, so there is no separate collectible hunt to worry about. It is handed to you through the Snezhnaya Archon Quest, which you start from the Events page in your menu.
The quest opens to any player who has finished at least the Mondstadt storyline and defeated Stormterror once. You do not need to complete the Nod-Krai missions first. As soon as you arrive, you get a short intro to the region before you and Paimon are separated. Follow the story beats after hiding from the blizzard, and the Eye of Graeae is granted during an unskippable tutorial that walks you through its main functions.
Once the cutscenes wrap up, you regain control of your party and can use the gadget freely. You can also open its UI at any time to read messages with tips about the environment and its features.
Surviving the sheer cold with Kresnik Energy
Snezhnaya is brutally cold, with blizzards that can run for up to a month. Staying in the sheer cold drains your team’s HP, and some areas will kill you almost instantly, so treat temperature like a resource. If you played Dragonspine, the pressure will feel familiar, but the danger here is more constant.
The Eye of Graeae grants temporary immunity to the cold while it is charged. Its power sits on a blue bar above your health, shown as a percentage, and that bar drains as you stand in the sheer cold. When it empties, your character starts taking heavy tick damage, so keep it topped up.
Refill it with Kresnik Energy in two ways. Break the glowing Kresnik Kristall ore scattered across the region, most often in mountainous areas, or approach the Kresnik’s Torches placed around the map to draw power directly.
Note: A Basic Heat Source built from Prime Ice also keeps the cold off you without spending the gadget’s own energy, which is useful for longer detours away from ore and torches.
Building Prime Ice Constructs
Prime Ice is a new material you melt and harvest all over Snezhnaya. With the Eye of Graeae, you turn that ice into temporary structures for traversal, combat, puzzles, and leaving things for other players. Press the exploration interaction button to open the Prime Ice Construct interface, where you can build, dismantle, and interact with each one. There are nine constructs in total.
| Construct | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ice Cube | Raises or moves objects in the environment, or acts as a climbing surface. |
| Basic Heat Source | Melts nearby Prime Ice and blocks the sheer cold without draining the Eye of Graeae. Carry the flame with you, but the fire returns to its base if you stray too far. |
| Launching Platform | Springs you into the air for faster mountain climbing, and can fling enemies when placed beneath them. |
| Grappling Hook | Creates a hook-shot point for crossing ice and tundra. Chain multiple points together. |
| Link Mechanism | Connects grappling hook points for near-seamless fast travel between several spots at once. |
| Storage Device | Lets you leave items for other players or take what others have left behind. |
| Ambient Bollard | Provides a combat buff of your choice, handy to leave around before a fight. |
| Sign: Icon | Leaves an icon-based message for other explorers. |
| Sign: Text | Leaves a written message for other explorers. |
Calling and driving Snezhnaya’s trains
Snezhnaya’s settlements are linked by a railway that runs to the capital, Snezhnograd. The Eye of Graeae starts with outdated data on this network, so you restore stations as you visit each township to open up more of the line.
To ride, head to a train station and use the Eye of Graeae from the front car to drive the train yourself. You get a list of destinations it can reach, which turns the railway into a scenic form of regional fast travel. You can also summon your own train while standing near a railway.
Setting up the TPS shooter loadout
Equipping the Eye of Graeae unlocks a third-person shooter mode used in the Shadow Realm of Snezhnaya. There are no naturally occurring elements in that space, so the Traveler makes the seven elements through firearms instead. Open the gadget menu to customize your guns and set your loadout before you go in.
| Weapon | Role |
|---|---|
| Assault rifle | Your default workhorse, capable of many attacks including a strong Cryo hit on a charged attack. |
| Grenade launcher | Limited ammo, but fires a range of elemental attacks. |
| Frag Crystals | Elemental throwables that inflict Pyro, Cryo, Electro, or Hydro on enemies. |
Firearms use modifiable attachments, and you can find upgrades for them by exploring. The more you dig into the region, the more effective your Shadow Realm runs become.
Confirming everything works
You will know the gadget is active once the tutorial ends and the blue energy bar appears above your HP. If cold immunity is not kicking in, the bar is empty, so break Kresnik Kristall ore or step up to a Kresnik’s Torch to recharge. If the construct interface will not open, make sure the Eye of Graeae is equipped in your gadget slot first, then press the exploration interaction button.
From that point on, how you lean on the Eye of Graeae is up to you. It is built to carry you through Snezhnaya’s cold, its trains, its ice puzzles, and its shooter challenges, all from a single gadget menu.
