Chapter 1: Surviving Fimbulwinter

Chapter 1 no commentary footage available here

In this chapter, you play as Kratos, accompanied by your son Atreus and later Mimir, a talking head hanging from Kratos belt.

Once you select your difficulty, you’ll be in your first cutscene. Given the setup you’ve gone through, you should also have a text to speech voice narrating audio description, which originally came as part of the PC version of the game, (announced as one of its new features just before launch).

If you’ve followed or even played God of War 2018, then you might have a better understanding of what’s going on, though that’s not always guaranteed. Should you wish, you can find the key story beats of God of War 2018 with audio description in this linked playlist, thanks to the #TranscribingGames project. This should help you to get a better grasp on the events leading up to the game’s present circumstances.

Cutscene over, you’ll be riding a sled and, after a little while, you’ll have to deal with your first quick time events (QTE’s). There are audio cues for these as shown in the game’s audio glossary, but if you haven’t looked at that in advance, you might be surprised. Thankfully, below are the inputs you’d need to succeed at these and even if you die in the attempt, you’ll just have to press confirm/X/Cross to get back into the action.

QTE inputs for the opening sequence

• L1
• Hold Circle button
• L1
• R1
• L1
• R1
• L1
• Hold Circle button

Post-QTE

After completing the QTE, you’ll be presented with more sledding, where the opening credits also appear though these are not narrated. Following a cutscene at the end of your ride, you will see some tutorial prompts explaining how the navigation assist feature works.

You are told to press R3 to get pointed in the right direction, while using the left stick to move. So, it’s time to move forward, while using the navigation assist, or nav assist/nav assisting as it’ll be called for the rest of this guide.

After navigating into another lengthier cutscene, we leave Atreus and lay down to sleep. When we regain control, once again move forward and use your navigational assist. As much as you might be inclined to sprint past, I’d recommend walking this section, partly for cinematic effect and partly so you don’t miss any interactable prompts required for progression.

After a little nav assisting, conversation and dropping down to a lower level, a little further on you’ll have control taken away again for a shorter cutscene, though the usual sounds for losing and gaining control aren’t present in this particular instance.

After the cutscene dialogue finishes, nav assisting forward, you should hear an interaction prompt. You want to hit this to continue, though note that you might have to move towards it a little to get the full interaction cue you’re accustomed to.

Note that on the PC version at least, the cue will be to your left and you’ll have to manually turn towards it and approach.

First Climb

After the prompt sequence finishes, a tutorial pops up about climbing. You just have to use the navigation assist and walk forward to automatically climb (with auto-traversal enabled at least), unless otherwise noted.

After reaching the top of the climb and walking into another cutscene, it’s time to go hunting, to a fashion.

Hunting

Here we see the first mention of the journal, where you can view objectives and resources as well, though this isn’t mandatory. As previously mentioned, the map is not accessible without sighted assistance, though you can find information via other methods, at least on PS5.

From this starting point, use navigation assist to follow the path to your first interaction cue of the sequence (where Kratos says “he crawled through here”, with the path itself taking you through a couple of dialogue triggers as you move.

Once you hit the interact, now locked in place, a tutorial appears showing how to attack, though this is not a true combat tutorial.

When you have smashed what blocked your way with a few heavy attacks (though the light attack cue plays for some strange reason), nav assist to crawl through and continue, after which you see a sprinting tutorial which you can follow for the most part from now on, unless otherwise stated.

Nav assisting your way along should cause you to traverse up a ledge and near to some raiders.

Now, we arrive at our first example of actual, player-controlled combat. Here’s a few combat tips as well to get you started.

Combat Tips:

Locking On

Locking on in God Of War Ragnarok is one of the best ways to guarantee you’ll hit your target. However, just because you’re locked on, achieved by pressing R3 (by default), doesn’t mean you need to rush in headlong and swing wildly. You can still wait for targets to come to you, should that be a desirable strategy.

Blocking And Your Shield

Instead of recklessly charging in, hold up your shield by pressing and holding L1, the game teaches you about this shortly after you start fighting.

You can still move behind your shield, albeit very slowly, but the shield itself gives you the ability to block and attack when you feel you have a turn or opportunity to do so, or to retaliate when your foes come at you from all sides.

That all assumes that you’re facing the correct direction in the first place, something you’ll master as time goes on and you learn about switching targets as well, useful when multiple are on screen at once.

Visualising the shield:

Contrary to what the above might make you think, your shield will not automatically block all incoming damage from all sides. It covers the direction you’re facing, as well as your sides to an extent as well, to probably just under a 90-degree angle to your left and right. That just under part is important, as if an enemy comes at you from slightly too far back and attacks, you might think you’re safe but will still take the hit.

Try and position yourself as best you can, though given this is the first encounter and you’re likely playing on a low difficulty, you’ll have time to adjust and learn. Remember that if you die, there is no penalty other than starting back at the beginning of the encounter, maybe with a little traversal required to initiate it depending on the situation.

Evading:

This will become more important later, but evading/dodging and rolling are crucial skills to learn in Ragnarok and can literally save your virtual life. Though these first enemies don’t have audio telegraphing for some of their attacks, when they have a long wind-up, you can dodge out of the way by holding a direction on your analogue stick and double tapping X/Cross to roll just as the attack is coming in.

Alternatively, if you know you won’t get hit via practice, you can sidestep the attack with a single tap of the X/Cross button. If you fancy getting used to this now even against these regular enemies, it might be a good idea.

You can even get stun kills this early, by sheathing your axe with right on the DPad and punching your foes with the same light and heavy attacks, then holding circle by default when the stun prompt appears.

The game will even give you the opportunity to parry, though you can’t take full advantage of it yet. If you get a long enough wind-up as mentioned previously, you can time your press of L1 so that you parry the swing of the attack, you’ll hear a resounding metallic clang if you’ve done it successfully.

Finally, you could of course just lock on with R3 and beat your foes into submission with aggressive swinging of your axe, no blocking or evading needed, depending on your playstyle, but this is very much not condoned or recommended.

Target Switching

Target switching is achieved by flicking the right stick to the left or right whilst you’re locked on and, though it doesn’t always seem consistent at times and there is no indication when it happens other than the lock on cue moving in the stereo field on occasion, it can be very helpful if you’re facing certain priority targets in amongst a group of other enemies.

Throwing And Recalling

Though the game doesn’t teach you this yet, you can actually throw and recall your axe (a heavy throw is seemingly best against these early raiders. To do this, aim and hold heavy attack for a split second then release to freeze your target. This can allow you to take on other targets around you or do more damage to your currently focused foe.

Recall your axe by pressing what the game describes later as the “signature weapon ability button” (triangle by default), at which point you can throw the axe again.

The Story Continues

After successfully winning your first battle, use navigation assist and walk forward to the next interactable to lift a tree out of your way.

A tutorial pops up telling you about health stones. This is a good time to mention that unfortunately, nav assist does not allow you to discover all the items around you. Sometimes you’ll hear items or interaction prompts off the beaten path which, most of the time, you’d be free to grab as they would be resource chests or, in this case, health and rage stones.

Health and Rage Stones (the latter not being introduced yet) have a small sound cue attached to them, though it’s hard to hear in the heat of battle for instance.

As a result, your best bet is to listen out for interaction prompts as you fight and if you need health or rage and can hear said cues, try and go towards them. With auto pick up on, you’ll grab them without needing to worry about pressing circle/interact.

Whether or not you found a health stone or two, just continue onwards for now via nav assist. There may be an interact prompt nearby, though it not required to be hit for you to progress.

continue forward via nav assist after Kratos says “We must find Atreus,” and here we have our first, in this case easy, puzzle.

Note that if you’ve been wandering around to try and find interaction prompts, Mimir may instead say “ahh… we need a way around” or similar.

Puzzle

• If you haven’t already, you’ll drop down first then do a little more traversal onto a platform of sorts. All being well, after a little while, Mimir will say we need a way around.
• Nav assist your way onwards and keep pressing L2 to aim as you go. You should eventually hear a light attack cue, once you do hear that, stop moving.
• Here, you’ll have to throw the axe. Do this by holding L2 to aim, and then press R1 to throw when you hear the light attack cue mentioned earlier.
• Let the axe fly and hit an object blocking your path, then, as instructed, press Triangle to recall your axe to you. If you’ve done this correctly, the way is clear and you can continue onward.

End Of Puzzle

Puzzle completed and axe in-hand, walk until you come to an interactable, where you may get a small tutorial telling you that you have to press interact to crawl into the opening. Continue traversing onwards.

Mimir and Kratos discuss prophecy and “things that defy explanation” as you crawl through. You’ll also hear voices that signify further raiders up ahead as well.

Once you reach the exit of the area you’re currently traversing and just before the next battle, a tutorial appears that you can dismiss with X/Cross, letting you know about Frost Awaken (your axe’s signature ability).

You can hold triangle to activate this and do extra damage on your next attack, changing its properties, though you can’t do multiple back-to-back attacks in this style; you must charge the ability every time between individual attacks.

Whether you take the tutorial’s suggestion to heart or not, it’s time to get busy fighting again.

“Where’s that trail gone?”

After this battle is over, walk via nav assist and you’ll run into some more enemies. Continue this process, fighting a second set a little further on.

This set of enemies also includes your first example of a projectile-throwing variant that you’ll have to learn to fight, though a strategy for these is discussed a little later.

During this fight You should first get a tutorial about parrying and then one about climbing, which is how to proceed to progress. Nav assist onwards via an interact prompt and climb upwards as Mimir comments on Kratos tutelage of his son.

Nav Assist and Loot

When you enter the next area, a cave, you will see a perfect example of the game’s nav assist not always giving you the opportunity to pick up the various items lying around.

If you are patient, you may find an interact cue just to your right (i.e. technically off the beaten path). Interact with this prompt and you’ll open a chest. If you can’t find the prompt, then don’t worry. Just continue by using nav assist as usual.

Continue onward, drop down and aim periodically to allow you to throw your axe at a distant prompt to dislodge an object. You may find health and a hacksilver chest as well, useful for upgrades when the time comes. Continue onwards to another interact, with more climbing and conversation occurring as you do.

Combat And More Strategies

When you climb through, there are more enemies. Right before the battle, there is a short tutorial explaining you can press Light attack while in the air to do a death from above attack.

press X to confirm and close the tutorial, then move into combat.

As a note on this style of attack, if you feel a haptic as you’re running forward, you can hit light or heavy attack and if you’re lucky you’ll land the Death From Above as specified in the tutorial. If you don’t, not a problem, but it’s good to keep in mind for fights that involve traversal as it can come into play as a stealthy but cinematic beginning to some battles.

After some more navigation, you’ll run into a fight where Mimir points out that someone got in the bear’s way.

this is your first encounter with multiple projectile-based enemies, though you may have seen a single one earlier. With these sling-wielding raiders, you’ll hear a callout from the enemy then a whip-like noise, with the projectile flying through the air.

Keep your shield up and block or dodge to avoid these vessels of incoming damage, though remember them as you might have a chance to exact some reflective revenge should you wish, as discussed in more detail later. By way of a straight forward question to give you a hint, have you tried parrying them?

If you can’t hit your enemies, then hold down the aim button and throw the axe. Don’t forget to recall it by pressing Triangle, at which point you can rinse and repeat.

Enemies defeated with the tips learnt so far, continue onwards. Note that after you’ve traversed up a platform, you might need to role left to smash some geometry in your way to progress.

If you end up dropping down as a part of navigation and traversal, you may face some more raiders, just battle them as discussed previously and you should be fine.

After discussions of a bear’s impressive rampage when you are in the vicinity of an interact prompt, navigate forward and climb, until you reach a cutscene.

Said cutscene begins the very first…

Boss Fight: Bjorn

The first boss fight is against Bjorn, the aforementioned bear. Once you break out of the QTE that begins the battle, I’d advise you block until you understand his attack patterns, what a block break looks like and how an unblockable attack works in terms of dodging, as well as of course fighting him when you feel comfortable.

Eventually, you’ll hopefully have done enough damage to stun him, with a hold audio cue playing when you’re close enough. Holding circle will trigger a small sequence where, afterwards, it might be unclear what to do to proceed.

pressing L3 and R3 together will activate Spartan Rage for the first time and then allow you to punch Bjorn squarely in the face multiple times for a little while.

Once rage subsides, you can continue the fight as before, though Bjorn now has a new attack or two to avoid as well.

As a fun aside, you can, in fact, beat the bear, bare-handed (i.e. just using your fists).

After a while of your relentless onslaught, you’ll get Bjorn into another stun state, indicated by the hold circle prompt and a quick booming sound as well which you might’ve picked up on, which means the same thing, that an enemy is in stun.

It’s useful to be aware of both of these elements as, sometimes in fights, you won’t be close enough to get the interact/hold half of this set of cues but will hear the boom from a long distance away.

Stun grabbing Bjorn will trigger the game’s next cutscene, concluding the first big boss battle of your journey.

End Of Boss Fight

Resulting cutscene over, you’ll hear a sound indicating quest progression. Similar sounds accompany the start of a quest. Remember these and as previously stated, press the up arrow on the DPad to attempt to track a quest if you hear one and wish to do so. Do note that not all quests are trackable and in the case of the main quest they wouldn’t need to be tracked anyway.

Returning Home

Now all the dialogue’s done with, continue walking and find the next interactable with the help of nav assist. Heavy attack as instructed and you can progress onward.

Keep navigating and you’ll eventually traverse your way up to some more raiders, with a tutorial about companion arrows appearing.

The sound cue that plays in this sequence indicates that you need to press square to have a companion perform an action, in this case, shooting arrows at enemies, which recharge over time. You have infinite arrows, but the recharge can make it feel like you’re running low if you don’t let them fully replenish.

On lower difficulties, at this stage at least, a few arrows will be enough to stun an enemy, allowing you to go in for the finisher similar to what you did with Bjorn or even the earlier raiders.

After defeating these foes, with Mimir asking about Atreus abilities, continue forward and interact to get your first chain climbing prompt.

At first, it might be unclear which way the game wants you to go, but this is why we set climbing to follow the camera. If you’re lucky, hitting nav assist and then pushing forward a little while after should send you in the correct direction, namely downwards. You might also be able to grab the chest on the right of you as well, found a little while after you leave the chain behind and start nav assisting forward. This stile of stone chests will hereafter be referred to as resource chests.

As you continue moving from here, conversations will start. If you weren’t already aware, you don’t have to stand still to listen to them though, you can continue nav assisting your way onward.

Once you drop down, you might see an interact prompt which will give you more hacksilver if you can hit it.

With discussions of blood upon the snow, nav assist your way through some traversal and into another cutscene, after which a storm is mentioned. Wonder if that’ll be of any relevance soon.

Parrying Projectiles

Weather patterns aside, nav assist forward to lift a tree via an interact prompt, where some more enemies await you, including some with projectiles.

If you feel up to the challenge, try and see if you can first block a projectile so you know the rough timing on when to parry, then see if you can return the throwable to its sender for massive damage.

Of course, as you nav assist and traverse onwards, Atreus then has to go and ask the question how could things be any worse than here.

That question in our minds, continuing will reveal an interact for a climb. Reaching the top, we join two genuinely friendly wolves that Atreus decides to pet.

Note that you don’t have to watch though, you can continue onwards immediately, should you wish.

Continue moving to your next interaction point, opening the door to Kratos and Atreus house. Nav assist a little further and you’ll see a second interact to sleep and trigger a resultant lengthy cutscene, introducing someone you would’ve expected to see given the trailers for this game and the mythology it draws from.

Cutscene over, we begin:

Boss Fight: Thor

This battle has several phases and each is different, starting with you in your unarmed stance. Keep your shield up, dodge when required and keep an eye out for QTE elements within these fights as well, all whilst still attacking where you have opportunity.

Though I won’t go through each phase in detail here, remember the cues you’ve learnt so far and that using rage can help to get you out of tough situations.

On lower difficulties, Thor isn’t too tough to deal with, but keep in mind some attacks will send you flying backwards, at which point you’ll have to run in again to deliver up close retaliations of your own.

Keep a lookout for interact prompts as well. One does actually progress the fight at a point, but there are also health stones and combat-related ones occasionally present.

Eventually, you’ll get a hold prompt, after which Thor will say I say when we’re done, resuming the fight once again.

More fighting and dialogue later, you’ll get pulled into a finishing cutscene, marking the conclusion to this titanic 1v1.

End Of Boss Fight

Cutscene done, your quest progress will update, accompanied by the associated sound cue.

Keep using nav assist to run forward and around the area to find the next interactable prompt, as Sindri and Brok, two friendly Dwarven faces from the first game, enter the story.

Once you’ve hit said interact to open a door, nav assist a little more and you’ll see your first mystic gateway appear, after Sindri says this will get you home.

Nav assist to the interactable to enter the gateway itself and, waiting until the dialogue finishes, eventually the exit portal of the gateway will load, immediately in front of you.

From here, just walk forward and interact to emerge on the other side. Waiting until dialogue has finished before exiting gateways like this will be a standard strategy going forward, unless otherwise noted.

After exiting the gateway, just round the corner via nav assist is Kratos’ house which, once you enter, triggers another cutscene.

Gear Up

After the cutscene, a gear up tutorial, focusing on armour and weapons will appear. The actual screens involved are not read by the TTS though other elements of this tutorial are narrated, so let’s go through how this all works.

The TTS will partially walk you through the instructions, but here is a more in-depth description:

• Press X to close the first confirmation prompt, then X again to go to the chest armour screen.
• Here, if you have OCR available, you can choose from the following chest pieces:
  • The default survival piece, which is described as Thick, sturdy armour that was built to endure
    Fimbulwinter. This set mostly focuses on stats much later on in the game and is the default set if you press X immediately.
  • Alternatively, if you want to go with something a little more aggression-oriented, you can choose Vidar’s chest piece, which mentions allowing the user to swing with more force. This is designed with combo finishers in mind
  • Finally, you could choose the Fortified Husk piece (which says about providing the wearer maximum coverage, increasing their defense) if you want to focus on parries or mitigating damage whilst blocking.
• Armour selected, axe customisation is mentioned. Press circle to progress.
• Press L2 to go to the Weapons tab.
• Now press X twice to get to the axe attachment selection, where you can choose from the following:
  • Wooden Knob: the default axe attachment, providing boosts to stats much later in the game.
  • The Furious Maul: This attachment, if upgraded once, offers the chance for any axe kill to grant a gift of strength.
• Attachment selected, press X to equip it if you haven’t already
• That done, press Circle once to exit the subsequent screen, which reminds you that equipping items improves stats and can unlock new abilities
• Now the stats help overlay is mentioned. Press Triangle to view this stats screen.
• Even though these elements are narrated here, they’re not actually spoken outside of this screen, nor are the associated values for each item narrated in-game.
• Finally, press Circle until the tutorial closes and a cutscene is triggered, followed by more quest progression.

Follow Atreus

Quest updated and now outside, nav assist onwards.

You’ve hopefully got used to the axe by this point, but now it’s time to learn to utilise Kratos’ other iconic weapon, the Blades of Chaos. As the tutorial instructs, equip them by pressing left on the DPad.

Armed with your new chain blades, you can nav assist onward to see how they work.

Usually, you can keep pinging nav assist periodically to keep moving in the correct direction. Sometimes, as you traverse through the world, you’ll also hear a soft but reverberant sound cue (separate from nav assist), indicating you’re entering a different area of the world.

This latter cue can be useful sometimes when re-treading harder encounters, especially if they happen after entering a knew area, though the area names themselves are not narrated in-game.

After a fair amount of running and conversation, when you find your next interactable, , utilising it will swing Kratos over to the other side of a gap using the blades. These are relatively commonplace and might be called traversal points, blade points or grapple points for short throughout the rest of this guide.

Continue nav assisting until a tutorial about aiming to ignite brambles appears. As instructed, hold L2 and, whilst holding aim and hearing a heavy attack cue, press heavy attack (R2 by default) to ignite said obstruction and remove it.

Pathway cleared, navigate forward as usual and, dropping down and moving further, interact to use the blades not to traverse in this case, but to pull an object, though no stick movement is required here .

Continuing to navigate forward past an enemy on your right that you don’t have to attack, though you can try to if you wish and will be able to fight them if successful, gives you the first glimpse of something, though at this point nobody in-game is sure what it is.

Mystery still in your mind, progressing further you’ll encounter enemies that the game advises you (through audio cues) to use the blades on. You can kill them with bare-handed attacks, but the blades should dispose of them more quickly. If you hear a shattering sound, that means they are now vulnerable to all weapons, not just the one they are weak to at first.

Combat done, nav assisting and interacting to climb, you’ll get into a conversation, again though you can continue moving while this occurs.

Now we get a tutorial on how to drop down from a high ledge, though with auto traversal this is partially nullified.

Having this setting on makes it much less frustrating to move around, as you don’t have to constantly listen out for as many interaction prompts.

Keep moving forward and interacting where needed until you hear enemies, thus signalling combat after you exit a squeeze through.

This is usually just a couple of regular raiders, so this shouldn’t be too much trouble.

This battle over, you’ll then be introduced to more screens that don’t read but are workable with OCR, in this case, the skill tree.

Use the touchpad to go to the skill tree, though you don’t have to equip any skills now if you don’t want to. Should you not wish to, just press confirm to dismiss the information prompt, then circle a few times to back out of the menus altogether. If you want to go ahead and purchase any skills, see the section in the intro for how best to achieve that.

I personally bought the forward and backward evade-based skills at this point during one run, as they can be useful when rolling in battle to do some extra damage.

Having exited the skill tree, nav assist forward and interact to climb, then once you’ve finished climbing, you’ll get a prompt to blade latch, starting a…

Puzzle

• After interacting with the blade latch prompt, pull the left stick left to move the pillar.
• Nav assist forward until you jump a gap, at which point the conversation continues.
• Swing over to the next area via an interactable prompt, then nav assist until your feet stop moving.
• At this point you have to use your right stick (I.e. your camera) to look down and slightly to the right and if done correctly you’ll hear an interaction prompt; it can be a little tricky to find, so patience is key.
• Activating this will allow you to pull the pillar to the left again and jump back using nav assist.
• Interaction with the next prompt (which is still part of the puzzle) and pulling back on the left stick for a while should give you a tutorial prompt to aim.
• Aim and throw the axe to hit the rope, then pull back with the left stick to tighten the slack, as instructed by the TTS.
• Once done, you can nav assist onwards to an interact prompt. Hit this to use your first of sadly only a few ziplines throughout the game and, after all that, you’ve completed the puzzle.

End Of Puzzle

Puzzle complete, after moving forward and some traversal, you learn about the blades’ signature ability, Flame Whiplash.

Similar to the axe, you have to hold triangle (or in the case of this ability, continually press if you don’t have the hold setting turned on). Once charged, you can use light or heavy attack when this ability is active for slightly different results, though you will have to then recharge your blades with the ability again to repeat the process.

There are quite a lot of enemies in this next sequence relatively speaking, but they don’t require the blades to defeat them. There are usually some projectile enemies present as well, so keep an ear out for Atreus or Mimir’s callouts.

There is also an interactable prompt in the middle of this arena, what I’ve sometimes jokingly called a combat tree. These aren’t always actually trees either, but I’ll mention them occasionally. When interacted with, these are thrown at enemies for large amounts of damage, though they’re not present in every environment and of course, harder to find without practice or prior awareness that they’re even there in the first place.

Battle over, burn through the brambles you find after nav assisting forward (you may get a navigation error cue at which point you can draw your blades and aim to hopefully get the attack cue), then continue your journey as usual via the revealed interact prompt.

Once you get to the end of that traversal segment however, there are some stronger enemies waiting for you that can break your guard and leave you vulnerable to follow-up attacks if you’re unlucky. Just keep dodging and attacking as usual and you should be fine.

Also be aware that you can aim and throw the blades at enemies from a short range for a grab attack, using either light or heavy versions. The light version of this strategy, which I’ve termed as fishing will come in handy later in the game.

Foes removed, nav assist to an interactable to progress. A little while of climbing later, you’ll meet a couple more enemies who don’t immediately attack you. Doesn’t mean they’re any less dangerous though and, to compound things further, these ones are resistant to the axe.

Post-combat, use an interact prompt for another climb, with Mimir talking about the kind of morning it’s been, leading directly into another boss fight via a QTE.

Boss Fight: The Huntress/Stalker

This is your first run-in with a stalker, a fierce centaur-like enemy with a nasty tendency to fill the area with harmful projectiles, at least in this form.

The strategy for this boss revolves, visually, around hitting the enemy when its horns are glowing. However, given there’s no deliberate accessibility cue for this, you’d think there’s no way round this fight without assistance.

This is, in fact, incorrect, as not only can you just continue to throw your axe at the huntress and await the loud, enemy specific clang that accompanies her entering her stunned state, but you can also listen for her loud, obvious breathing between attack combinations and hit her then as well for guaranteed damage and opportunities.

Keep hitting her until she’s stunned with a hold circle prompt, executing it to finish the fight permanently. Do note that the stun prompt isn’t required to win this, but it does deal the cinematic blow that is rightfully deserved in this instance.

End Of Boss Fight

Collect all the interactables here, as these are boss loot, and it’s here we learn about runic attacks. See previous guidance in the section covering menus to learn how to equip them when outside of this tutorial.

Runic Attacks

The entire tutorial, other than the runic that you’ve equipped, is spoken, so just follow the instructions, pressing confirm when none are directly given. Press circle a few times to back out, at which point you must utilise a runic attack to progress.

Press block+light attack to perform the runic attack, then wait for it to recharge as it’s always good to have these fully stocked before going into larger encounters. You’ll also get to hear the audio cue for when the light runic, in this case Winter’s Bite, is fully charged.

Post-Fight Discussions

With the Huntress defeated, climb via an interact prompt again to continue, and Atreus asks about Kratos (now broken) shield. Running and nav assisting for a while will get you to an area where Atreus mentions a collapsed pillar.

Puzzle

• Similar to before, blade latch onto the pillar with interact, then push your left stick to the right to move it.
• From here, you’ll have to nav assist and periodically aim to find a cue to throw the axe. You’ll have to move a little to get an angle on the log you want to hit.
• If needed and you don’t get a lock on by default, nav assist forward until your feet stop moving. Then role left and repeatedly nav assist forward and run until the game definitely won’t let you go further. If done right, you should be able to aim and hear a light attack cue.
• Throwing at this will allow you to hit the log and, using nav assist, move to the pillar again. Note that you might have to move to your right for a little to let nav assist guide you to the next prompt
• Interacting with the pillar and moving your left stick to the right again will let you continue your adventure, with the obstruction now removed.

End Of Puzzle

Puzzle successfully completed, nav assist forward as standard to trigger two cutscenes back-to-back. When you regain control after more dialogue, walk forward and interact to trigger a third cutscene. The end of this cutscene marks another progression point in your quest.

Returning Home

Cutscene done, after some traversal, interact to kick down a chain, then do so again to be able to climb down it.

Doing so, after a little more nav assisting, you’ll get into another fight. Given the in-game change of circumstances, you’ll have to fight a little differently here. The main new enemy you come across, a heavy for lack of a better description, has unblockable attacks, so remember to dodge out of the way and learn the timings as you fight.

Note that these also have their own unique execution animation should you want to try for that too.

Battle completed, nav assist and move forward until you get an interact prompt, at which point you need to wait while a conversation occurs.

Conversation done with, keep traversing, grabbing the resource chest to your right as you go if you can, until we are fully introduced to Sindri, one of the dwarves you met earlier. If you’ve played the 2018 game, you are aware of the important role him and his brother Brok play.

Move towards what initially sounds like a locked chest, but is actually a mystic gateway, which Sindri activates on your approach.

Head through the gateway as you did before and, once the dialogue has completed along with hearing a quest completion cue, exit to Sindri’s house in the realm between realms via the associated interact prompt.

Objective Completed: Surviving Fimbulwinter

Leaving the gateway triggers a cutscene, at which point you’ll have to nav assist to get to another one. During this latter sequence you’ll also be reunited with Brok, Sindri’s brother.

Once this cutscene completes, you’ll see your first shop as part of a tutorial, which is mostly spoken and allows you to procure a new shield.

New Shield Tutorial

• After pressing confirm then down on the DPad until you hear a booming noise (only heard in tutorials like this), press right to get into the shield menu.
• You’ll only be able to craft 1 shield at this point in time, with each shield having a different sound cue when selected here and in the future, alongside an animation.
• Your shield options are:
  • the Dauntless shield, a smaller shield in terms of the width it covers but designed for parrying
  • The Stone Wall shield, a larger one that is designed to take damage and then dish it out at a later point.
• Previously, I’ve always recommended the Stone Wall shield, even to players who know what they’re up against. This is because it’s a reliable option to stop those pesky regular attacks that don’t have any audio to time a parry to, with other latter effects allowing you to deal large amounts of damage to enemies whilst still behind it under the correct circumstances.
• Though I usually would have not recommended the Dauntless shield to fellow gamers without sight, during my balanced run to test out revisions of this guide, I was able to complete the entire main story and most optional fights whilst using it, after multiple runs that I’d gone through previously to practice with the Stone Wall variant.
• For the sake of this guide, we’ll go with the Stone Wall Shield. To select the correct shield, the lower, more prominent sound cue of the two, hold up on the DPad until the game won’t move upwards any further, then hold square to craft.
• Now press confirm to equip the shield you’ve just crafted. At this point you’ll get another tutorial prompt, as discussed below.
• Now we need to get Atreus some new armour. Pressing left on the Dpad will get you out of the shield’s menu and the tutorial will direct you from there to find the armour tab, easily achieved by pressing R2 once.
• Press down on the DPad until you hear a confirmation-style sound, then press right on the DPad to get into the list of armour that you can craft for boy.
• You’ll only have 1 option here, so just hold square then hit confirm to equip. Now back out of the shop by pressing circle a couple of times.

End Of Tutorial

At this point, you’ll also be taught about the item chest, which we’ll also call the war chest throughout this guide.

First, press triangle (you’ll hear a whooshing noise to indicate an optional conversation is available), then turn to your right towards an interactable cue. This is the war chest, for lack of a better term and gives you loot from any encounters that you might’ve missed as well as other resources that you might’ve left behind. Always make sure you grab the items in here before starting any upgrades.

Something that wasn’t referenced in the original versions of this guide were an additional armour set and an additional appearance set for Kratos, available from the chest as part of any new game.

The former, the Black bear armour set, was previously an exclusive to new game plus, with this restriction being lifted as a part of a patch. It consists of the cloak, wraps and belt as its components, with it focusing on perks for those who like evading as a part of their playstyle.

The latter appearance-only set, known as Dark odyssey, was designed to celebrate 20 years of God Of War as a franchise.

Shopping, Upgrades And Beyond

If you don’t move, you will be standing right next to the shop, which you can open again by pressing the interact button. Look at the menus section to figure out how the shop works if you have OCR available.

Here you can upgrade the axe, as well as purchase any additional armour pieces you might need to complete your set if you don’t have them already.

When you’re done with the shop and any optional elements, you can nav assist your way to the next area and keep doing so to follow the dwarves during a conversation. You’ll also hear a sound that indicates some more objective progression, though usually on a smaller scale.

Before making your way to the gate, be sure to listen to what Brok has to say, as well as accepting an additional optional conversation with him.

As a general note, I would advise if you get the chance and are able to find the prompts for optional conversations, take them, as they can not only lead to some funny and insightful dialogue, but also at times give you completable side quests.

From here, nav assist again and go through the door (which might be to your left if you’re on PC), then repeat to find your way to and activate the gate. After a rather unusual exchange and a further interact prompt, you’ll be introduced fully to realm travel. You’ll see the realm travel view, accompanied by a tutorial of sorts.

Though you can navigate this with the DPad to an extent, that doesn’t fully work. Instead, move your left stick to the right once and Svartalfheim should be spoken, at which point you press confirm to go to the map view, then press and hold confirm to both dismiss a tutorial and initiate travel itself.

This final press of confirm initiates travel and, once you exit the gateway, entering Svartalfheim brings an end to chapter 1 and begins Chapter 2… The Quest For Tyr.