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How auto twining and traversal abilities trigger
Twining hands you a creature's body, and the terrain does the rest. Here is what fires on its own, what you have to press, and which Aniimo carry which movement skill.
The short version
- Climbing starts on its own: approach a climbable wall while transformed into an Aniimo with the Climb ability and the character begins climbing, with no input required.
- Water twines for you. Entering it automatically puts you into a swimming-capable Aniimo.
- Climbing and swimming are graded by level. Celestice provides level one climbing, Bolty has level two, and Skippy provides level one swimming.
- Emberpup's Hustle is an active ability, not an automatic one. It increases movement speed and consumes stamina.
- Nimbi flies, jumps higher, and gets an additional air dash.
- True flight is unlocked with Lumin Amber.
Movement in Aniimo is not a menu of tools you select. You twine with a creature, you get its body, and the terrain reacts to whichever body you happen to be wearing. Each Aniimo provides its own distinct physical traversal ability while twined, and the full spread covers sprinting, climbing vertical walls, swimming, diving, gliding, flying, and burrowing underground.
The part that catches new players out is that most of this is not something you activate. Two of the big traversal abilities trigger by themselves, off nothing but your position in the world. One of the most useful ones does not, and costs you stamina every second it runs.
This page is about which is which.
The wall and the water trigger themselves
Traversal abilities in Aniimo trigger automatically. While you are transformed into an Aniimo that has the Climb ability, walking up to a climbable wall starts the climb. There is no input required and no button to learn.
Water works the same way from the other direction. Entering water automatically twines you with a swimming-capable Aniimo, so you do not need to have planned for the crossing before you stepped in.
The difference between the two is worth holding onto. Water performs the swap for you. The wall does not. Climbing fires only if you are already in a form that has Climb, which means the climb you want is decided at the moment you choose who to twine with, not at the moment you reach the cliff. In vertical country, stay in a climber.
Climbing and swimming come in levels
These abilities are graded, and the grade is attached to the creature. Celestice provides level one climbing. Bolty possesses level two climbing, which lets it scale walls and surfaces. On the water side, Skippy provides level one swimming.
So the roster is not simply split into creatures that climb and creatures that do not. Two climbers can sit at different levels, and the level travels with the Aniimo you twined into. Celestis is the other well known wall-user, capable of both climbing walls and flying or gliding, and its kit is covered in full on its own page.
In practice this means your climbing capability is a property of your current partner. Swap the partner, swap the capability.
Hustle is the one you press
Emberpup breaks the automatic pattern. Its traversal ability, Hustle, is an active one. It enables sprinting for rapid movement across the map, increasing movement speed while consuming stamina.
That makes it the opposite of climbing and swimming in two ways. You choose when it runs, and it has a running cost. Twining with Emberpup is what you do when the ground is flat, the distance is long, and the obstacle is time rather than terrain.
Climb and swim
- Traversal abilities trigger automatically.
- While transformed into an Aniimo with Climb, the character begins climbing on approaching a climbable wall.
- No input required.
- Entering water automatically twines the player with a swimming capable Aniimo.
Hustle
- An active traversal ability belonging to Emberpup.
- Enables sprinting for rapid movement across the map.
- Increases movement speed while consuming stamina.
Getting into the air
Some Aniimo fly, and flight is how you reach high elevations that nothing else opens up. Twining with a flying or climbing Aniimo lets you climb cliffs and fly vertically, which is why those two skills so often show up on the same creature. Celestice carries level one climbing and level one flying together.
Nimbi is the specialist. It has flying, a higher jump, and an additional air dash, which gives it more to work with in the air than a straight ascent.
Gliding sits alongside flight in the same family of traversal skills, but the two are not the same unlock. True flight requires Lumin Amber. Until you have it, the air is something you pass through rather than somewhere you can stay.
Going underground
Burrowing is the traversal skill players find last, and it belongs in the same list as swimming and gliding rather than off to one side. Hummins possess the ability to dig into the ground. Bud Claws burrow underground both to hide and to travel, which is behaviour you will see in the wild before you ever use it yourself.
As an exploration skill it is specifically about burrowing into underground gaps, so it answers a different kind of obstacle than climbing or flight do. A cliff is solved by going up. A sealed gap is solved by going through.
Where to start
Pick your twine for the terrain ahead, not the terrain you are standing on. Climbing only fires if you are already in a climber, water handles its own swap, and Hustle is the one ability you actually have to press.
Most of this page was re-checked against the released game on 20 September 2026. The rest has not been re-confirmed since release.
