Ecos: La Brea hides 100 Direwolf skulls across the Santa Monica Basin map. Each skull is a small, whitish cranium lying on the ground, and a quest only completes once you have picked up all of them. The map is large and the skulls are small, so a random search can take hours. A location map and a sensible route cut that time down considerably.
Quick answer: Walk up to a skull until “Hold [E] Collect” appears, then hold E until the circle fills. Repeat at all 100 spots in Santa Monica Basin. Each pickup adds +5 Tracks and one to your counter.
How to collect a Direwolf skull
Every skull is picked up the same way, and you can do it with any creature, horse or wolf. You don’t need a gamepass or a special item.
Hold [E] Collect appears on screen. If the prompt doesn’t appear, you are not close enough yet.
A notification in the format X/100 skulls found, +5 Tracks confirms that the skull counted. Your Tracks balance goes up at the same time.
You stand still while holding E, so check for predators and wild NPCs before you start. Dire wolves can attack on the beaches.
Using the 100 skull locations map with the in-game map
Players have made a grid map of Santa Monica Basin that marks every skull with a numbered red dot, from 1 to 100. The most efficient method is to keep that image open on a phone or second screen. Then open the in-game map, find your white chevron marker, and match it to the nearest red dot.
The in-game map has Close Map and Migration Zones buttons along the bottom. It does not show skulls. Use it only to find your position and the direction you are facing.
Different versions of the community map can disagree slightly on the exact skull count and positions. Some list more than 100 spots. To avoid searching the same area twice, mark off each region as you clear it and keep an eye on the in-game counter rather than the dot numbers.
Where Direwolf skulls spawn in Santa Monica Basin
The skulls are spread across the whole basin, but they cluster in certain kinds of terrain. Clearing one area completely before moving on is faster than crossing the map back and forth.
| Area | Where skulls sit |
|---|---|
| Coast and beaches | Sand, dunes, driftwood, rocks |
| Sandy cliffs | Against the cliff base, in tunnels |
| Rivers and swamps | Riverbanks, beside shrubs |
| Game trails | On or next to the trail |
| Inland plains | Open grass, dirt mounds, boulders |
| Westchester Bluff | Meadow soil, fossil rib cages |
| Fan Palm Oasis | On open ground |
Coastline and beaches
The beaches hold a large share of the 100, and many players skip them because they spend most of their time in the forests. Run along the shoreline and check beside rock clusters, driftwood logs, flat stones, open dunes, and the bottom of sandy cliff walls.
Rivers, creeks, and marshes
Many skulls lie along riverbanks and in swampy ground, including Ballona Creek, the Los Angeles River, and Tule Marsh. The trails that run alongside the main river are especially worth sweeping.
Inland plains, mounds, and trails
Inland skulls are usually easiest to spot. They sit in open grass, on cracked dirt, on raised dirt mounds, or next to large boulders on grassy slopes. Some are tucked between bushes or partly hidden in tall yellow grass, so slow down when you are close to a marked spot.
Skulls on bare cracked dirt are easy to miss because the colors are similar. Several can sit close together, sometimes just at the edge of a nearby patch of grass.
Game trails are dark paths that light up under your feet at night, and many skulls sit along them. When you first step onto one, a popup explains that players and NPCs move faster and lose less stamina on game trails. That makes them the best way to travel between distant skulls as well.
Caves, trees, and rocks
Not every skull is out in the open. Some sit inside caves, at the base of trees, or behind rocks. When you reach a red dot and see nothing, circle the nearest piece of cover before you decide the map is wrong.
Controls that help on a long skull hunt
Collecting all 100 in one go takes several hours. Splitting the hunt into chunks of around 25 makes it easier to manage. These HUD controls are the ones you will use most:
Run | LShiftto cover open ground between dotsToggle Sprint | XandToggle Trot | Zso you don’t have to hold a keyScent | Fto help spot things against busy terrainRest | Rto recover stamina between areasAttack 1 | LMBandAttack 2 | RMBif something attacks you mid-pickup
Confirming the 100 skull quest is complete
The counter is the only progress tracker you need. Each pickup shows the running total, and the quest finishes when the notification reads 100/100 skulls found. Collected skulls stay counted, so you can leave the server and come back without picking up the same one twice. At 5 Tracks per skull, a full set earns 500 Tracks on top of the quest credit.
The skull hunt is tied to the Halloween event. In the Halloween 2025 event, finding all 100 halved the price of the Mangey skin for the Dire Wolf, from 4,000 Tracks to 2,000. That event ended on November 7th, 2025. No official end date for the current skull hunt has been confirmed, so check the update log on the title screen for the deadline and reward before you plan a long session.
