Disney Dreamlight Valley: How to Unlock Prince Eric

It’s no easy feat to unlock Prince Eric in Disney Dreamlight Valley. You’ll need to become best friends with both Ariel and Ursula before you can even start trying to bring him back to your village.

How to Unlock Prince Eric

Prince Eric is a valuable addition to your growing community in Disney Dreamlight Valley. However, it’ll definitely take you some time to bring him back to your village. Unlocking the handsome and heroic prince will take a fair amount of effort on your part.

You’ll discover there are a couple of prerequisites to complete before Prince Eric can return to Dreamlight Valley. Unfortunately, they’re not as simple as some of the unlock requirements for previous characters.

To even get started with unlocking Prince Eric, you’ll need to build up strong relationships with both his companions from The Little Mermaid. This means you’ll have to put the time and energy into raising your friendship levels to level 10 with both Ariel and Ursula.

You’ll also need to have access to three of Dreamlight Valley’s biomes in order to complete the questline that brings Eric back. Specifically, you’ll need to have unlocked the Glade of Trust, Frosted Heights, and the Forgotten Lands. That means you’ll need to have amassed plenty of Dreamlight during your time in the Valley too, especially as the latter two of these biomes are the most expensive.

It’s also important to have unlocked the Forest of Valor earlier on in your game, as Ariel will start talking about Prince Eric at level three. This is when she’ll send you on The Missing Prince quest, which will put the initial wheels in motion for finding Prince Eric.

Finally, you’ll need at least 10,000 Star Coins in your bank balance to successfully complete Prince Eric’s transition back to the Valley.

Checklist for Unlocking Prince Eric

Raising Your Friendship Levels With Ariel and Ursula

Before you can begin the quest to unlock Prince Eric, you’ll have to raise your friendship levels with Ariel and Ursula. Both of these characters will need to be at level 10 before you can start working on Prince Eric’s journey home.

This is actually trickier than building up friendships with the other Disney Dreamlight Valley characters. Although the majority of the Valley villagers are able to join you in hangout mode while you explore, Ariel and Ursula cannot. Due to the fact they’re water-based beings, you can’t assign them a hangout bonus perk, or invite them to join you as you quest around the Valley. This also means that it’ll take longer to level up their friendship with you.

In fact, the only way to boost these relationships is by ensuring you have daily discussions with both of them. Also, you’ll need to rely on bringing them their gifts of choice on a daily basis. This can be time-consuming and sometimes expensive, depending on what Ariel and Ursula have a preference for each day.

However, you can speed this process up by bringing certain types of gifts to both Ursula and Ariel. To help quickly increase your friendship level with both of these characters, you can give them any flower or any gem.

Ursula’s Level 10 Friendship Quest

Whilst Ariel will get you thinking about her lost love from around friendship level three or four, it’s actually Ursula who helps get the ball rolling. Once you’ve managed to raise your relationship to level 10 with both characters, Ursula will offer you a new quest.

Starting A Deal With Ursula will send you on a multi-step mission. Although it’s time-consuming, it’ll allow you to regain the long-lost Prince Eric. However, as always with Ursula, there’s a bit of a sting in the tail. We’ll come to that in a minute.

Firstly, Ursula will inform you of a deal she’s prepared to make with you. She’s discovered the source of the dark power in the Valley and wants your help to get hold of it.

In exchange for your services, she’ll trade with you for Prince Eric. It turns out she’s had him captive in her garden of poor unfortunate souls all along. To free the prince from her clutches, you’ll need to carry out a few steps.

Ursula will send you off to the ruins in the Forgotten Lands, where you’ll need to locate a dark crystal. You’ll find it near the empty stone pedestals at the back of the biome, near the campfire cooking stove.

Return the crystal to Ursula and she’ll send you back out to find the remaining lost crystals, which have been scattered across the Valley. She’ll return the original dark crystal to you, meaning you’ve only got three left to find.

Dark Crystal Location in the Glade of Trust

You’ll find one of the dark crystals in the Glade of Trust. This can be quite tricky to find, as it’s nestled snugly under one of the tree roots right in the middle of the glade.

You’ll want to head towards the giant tree that Mother Gothel lives in and search around on the ground to the right of the small bridge. Here, you should be able to see the dark purple glowing rings emanating from around the crystal.

Dark Crystal Location in the Frosted Heights

You’ll find another of the dark crystals in the Frosted Heights biome. Although it takes a bit of looking for, you’ll probably be able to spot this crystal quite quickly. The dark purple glowing rings around the crystal stand out quite clearly amongst all the bright white snow covering the Frosted Heights area.

The crystal itself is located at the rear of the biome, near the grey rocks at the back. You should see it on the ground where the river meets the opening between the rock walls. If you enter the Frosted Heights from the main steps out of the Forest of Valor, head around to the right and up towards the rear wall of the zone to see it.

Dark Crystal Location in the Sunlit Plateau

Another of the dark crystals is located in the Sunlit Plateau. You’ll find it by the edge of the larger watering hole on the far side of the biome. This means you’ll need to have unlocked the western area across the river.

For this, you’ll need to clear away the large wildebeest bones blocking the pathway at the end of each bridge. This happens as part of Scar’s Circle of Life quest and requires you to have upgraded your Royal Shovel. Additionally, you can’t get this quest until you’ve reached level seven with Scar, so you may need to work on this first.

Once you can access the area across the river, you’ll see the glowing purple rings of the dark crystal on the ground near the large watering hole.

Activating the Crystals

Once you’ve gathered the remaining crystals, return them to the empty pedestals in the Forgotten Lands. They’re where you found the first dark crystal.

When they’re all in place, they’ll activate and a large glowing Crystal of Power will appear on the central empty pedestal. Collect this and take it to Ursula.

This will bring this part of the quest to a close, as Ursula will trade you Prince Eric for the Crystal of Power.

However, there’s a catch. The prince doesn’t return as his human self. Instead, Ursula gives you his withered, soulless husk, just the way she’s been keeping him in her garden all this time.

This means it’s now down to you to somehow return Prince Eric to his former glory. In doing so, Prince Eric’s first quest Poor Unfortunate Prince will begin, meaning your first task is to find Ariel and fill her in on what’s happened.

Restoring Prince Eric to His Former Self

Take the withered husk of Prince Eric to Ariel and she will suggest that you give him to her to look after while you seek out Merlin for advice.

Find Merlin and he will give you some ideas on how to give the prince back his human form.

First, he’ll give you the challenge of building a home for Prince Eric. Of course, it’s not just any home, it’s his castle, which will cost you 10,000 Star Coins to actually build, once you’ve placed it.

After constructing the castle and paying the fee to Scrooge McDuck, you’ll need to head inside and look for Prince Eric’s flute. It’s on the table straight ahead as you enter the castle.

Pick this up and take it back to Ariel.

She’ll call Eric’s name three times and seal the enchantment with a kiss. This will give Prince Eric back his human form and he can finally make his return to Dreamlight Valley. You’ll then be able to meet him at the fountain to welcome him home.