Chapter 10: Forging Destiny

In this chapter, you play as Kratos, accompanied by Freya, Mimir, and Brok.

After taking the gateway exit at the end of chapter 9 and hearing the accompanying dialogue with Freya asking Where are we? alongside a quest update, you should be able to aim and hear an axe cue, without the need to nav assist.

Hitting this will have Mimir remark about the flammability of what’s been released, something you might want to take note of though you can’t easily utilise it.

Nav assist for a while until your feet stop moving, then aim and ignite a blades prompt and use the interact that follows, where Mimir talks about Dwarven culture.

Continue nav assisting and you’ll come to some enemies which, once defeated and you navigate further should unleash some more.

Once those are all dealt with, with Mimir saying I can see why it’s an abandoned service tunnel after either one of these encounters, nav assist until your feet stop moving.

Roll backwards once and you should find a blades prompt to ignite. Igniting said prompt reveals an interact to continue.

Nav assist and some enemies will spawn in at range. Once they’re defeated, continue onwards and you’ll find a multitude of enemies awaiting you, including at least one Grim.

After defeating these foes, Sindri will then appear. You’ll talk to him automatically and, should you so choose, can even interact with the prompt nearby to progress at the same time and interrupt Sindri’s dialogue.

Nav assisting onwards leads to…

sigil puzzle

• Nav assist forward until you get to an interactable. Hit it and pull back on the left stick as instructed.
• Switch to sigil arrows and aim then hit the cue in front of you.
• Now throw the axe at the same cue to freeze the chain in place.

The Tricky Part

• Disengage from the chain via pressing interact, then manually walk to your right 1 or 2 steps, then forward a few (don’t run).
• If successful, aim and you should hear a throw cue. You have to recall the axe and throw it at the twilight stone in front of you. If it bounces off without cutting the chain, then you should move back 1 or 2 steps and try again. In testing, I got the chain cut on the second try, with Freya saying it’s open marking the puzzle completion.
• Nav assist onwards to leave the area and this acts as a checkpoint, should you wish to save here.

End of puzzle

After this, nav assist through the open gate and you’ll be in more combat, with an enemy type that you’ll see a lot down here.

Battle over, you start another:

Puzzle:

This is a longer running puzzle that spans multiple combat encounters.

• Nav assist until your feet stop moving. Then turn to your left around 90 degrees and move forward manually. You should climb up onto a platform of sorts, immediately stop moving if you do.
• From here, press nav assist once then aim. You should find a cue to hit in the centre of your stereo field.
• Throw the axe at it and if you’re successful, you’ll hear a freezing sound then a grinding metallic noise, with discussions of a wheel turning if you take a while to get the cue.
• It’s a little tricky to find if you’ve run forward too far, but a little patience, looking around and aiming should snap you to it. if not, restarting the checkpoint should help, as usual with these kinds of puzzles.
• With that done, nav assist onward and listen to the dialogue, interacting and moving to the left, then later to the right, when nav assist gets stuck to continue forward.
• Towards the end of the dialogue you should be able to sprint again, but be aware there’s combat round the next corner. The nav assist may struggle to get you there, but with some patience and not spamming the nav assist constantly (which can turn you around in circles), you should find a nightmare and a Grim.
• After dealing with them, nav assisting onwards past the water, you’ll find more combat as well. These enemies shouldn’t be as much of a problem given what you’ve already dealt with.
• Those foes eliminated, interact with any prompts until you hear a chain as part of one and climb it.
• The next interact should get Mimir to say now we can open the other gate (yes, this is still part of the above puzzle we started earlier.
• Move onwards and interact with another chain. This time you’ll be climbing down if you nav assist and push forward on the left stick to move the required direction, after waiting a little.
• Nav assist your way to another interactable, this time to unlock a blade shortcut.

This Puzzle’s Tricky Part

• Nav assist and you’ll get to a blade point, hitting this to get onto a platform. Hit nav assist again to snap yourself so that a throw cue is in the centre of your stereo field.
• Hit this throw cue with sigil arrows and an axe throw. If you are in the correct place, you’ll hear a rushing water cue to your left. Turn towards this (around 90 degrees left) then recall the axe and hit that second cue with it.
• If you’re at the first point and you don’t get that rushing cue, follow nav assist to a second blade point and use that. Once you’re on the associated platform, repeat the above steps and continue onwards.
• If successful, you’ll hear the metallic grinding noise once again and Mimir’s shout of haaah. Teamwork!, this dialogue confirming that you’ve achieved your goal.
• Nav assist and run through the gate, you’ve completed the puzzle and got to a checkpoint if you want to save here.

End of puzzle

Keep nav assisting and you should find yourself in combat with not 1, but 2 of those earlier new Grim.

These two are tough, as they’ll sometimes hit you at the same time or overlap attacks. With one having poison attacks and the other having fire, this fight can be a nasty one on higher difficulties, but just dodge and counter as you have and you should be fine if your head’s in the game.

Mimir will ask who’s ready for fresh air and you can nav assist onwards.

Keep nav assisting and traversing including climbing and eventually, you’ll reunite with Brok and get a quest update.

With Freya having parted company with you for now, nav assist your way forward, auto-traversing as needed and you’ll come to some combat with a nest and some nightmares.

At this point in the game, realistically, you should have no trouble with this, especially if you’ve been able to upgrade your skills and the like.

Combat done with, keep pushing onwards until more enemies appear.

Deal with these, then find another interactable via nav assist. Hitting this, keep moving onward, paying attention to the dialogue here for narrative reasons.

After this cinematic walk segment including an interactable to your left, you’ll traverse into more combat which does interrupt the dialogue, just to warn you, should you want to hear everything.

Once again, your task is to clear out some more nightmares.

Quest updated, nav assist until the nightmares decide to invade your personal space again, destroying them and their nest will let you keep moving.

Eventually, Brok will say looks like that wheel up there opens the gate. And this is, of course, the start of another…

Puzzle

• Nav assist until your feet stop moving and roll backwards once. Ignite a blades cue with Aim+heavy attack.
• Moving and nav assisting again should give you another interact to swing from a blade traversal point.
• Once up on the platform, press nav assist to snap yourself to the correct orientation. Freeze the water in front of you with the axe via an aim cue, then run across via nav assist until you reach the next platform with more rushing water.
• Only recall the axe once you’ve auto-traversed up in front of a second geyser. Aim and hit another cue, leaving the axe where it is until the next throw, you’ll hear the lift moving with dialogue from Brok.
• After the dialogue has finished, nav assist whilst standing still and hit a companion cue for the first time this puzzle.
• Nav assist your way back across and listen for the sound of rushing water on your left. When it’s at its loudest point, retrieve then throw the axe at the aim cue there and leave it stuck, for now, triggering some more dialogue.
• Nav assist and traverse, dropping down twice as part of auto-traversal, until you hear the nav assist audio cue rotate. You might also hear a companion cue here as well, which indicates you’re in the right place.
• Standing still, recall your axe and the lift should ascend, accompanied by more dialogue from Brok to confirm.
• Note: If you’re not in the lift when it ascends, trying to find the grapple point you used earlier, which sometimes nav assist will take you right to, then hitting the geyser again will allow you to repeat the nav assist rotation sequence above. This should get the lift to ascend with you inside it if successful.

A new vantage point

• Now, whilst turning to your right in small increments as you’d seen in the Gryla fight, move forward until you are able to sprint for a short distance, with a grapple point appearing on your right. Hitting this point, which can also be achieved via nav assist with a little work, will prompt Mimir to say ahh, promising.
• From here, nav assist whilst standing still to re-orient, and turn to your right to get a companion cue. Hit this (though the radius to have it available is rather small).
• Now nav assist to orient again, then manually run forward until your feet stop moving. I’d suggest running in short 2 step increments and aiming in between. You should be able to aim and get a distant throw cue, though you might get lost here. Leave the axe where it is.
• Note: If you do get lost and choose to restart the checkpoint, it’ll reset you to the very start of the puzzle with the blades ignition prompt.
• If successful, hitting this aforementioned cue and leaving the axe stuck there should have Brok shout right on the money.
• At this point you can nav assist to re-orient and use your companion cue again. You’ll hear associated grinding noises and Brok should confirm that the gate is open.
• From here you can nav assist to get through the gate and leave the area, though do not recall the axe until you are safely out of harm’s way. I’d suggest switching to the blades for a while until the next piece of dialogue’s triggered, which also happens to be when enemies are in range as part of the next combat encounter.

End Of Puzzle

Nav assist your way along and you may find a legendary chest interactable prompt to your right. If you find this and open it, you’ll receive the Atlas Eruption blades heavy runic attack, as I did whilst testing this section.

I was also able to get this after finishing the nightmare fight and destroying the nest, nav assisting and turning 180 to do so, though this may be inconsistent.

Nightmare combat over, Brok will say finally! once you finish this encounter.

From here, nav assist, interact to trigger a blade shortcut, then continue onwards.

After a while of running, you’ll interact with a lift prompt that triggers a very interesting discussion on nature and form.

Once the lift reaches the top, heralded by Brok saying I smell trouble, nav assist into combat.

That battle done with, nav assist, roll where needed and traverse your way to another interactable, this time for a crank.

As you near the interact prompt for said crank, there’s a stationary raven to your left should you wish to hit it.

Activate the crank and after a dialogue exchange, move via nav assist so that Brok can get to the mechanism as it fails to work.

You’ll have your next task via a quest update and more dialogue with your Dwarven companion. This dialogue is actually a checkpoint, should you wish to save here.

Nav assist to an interact prompt, throw a couple of heavy attacks and go back to Brok. If the nav assist doesn’t work first time to get you where you need to go, keep trying and moving if needed and you’ll find your interact prompt, this is not as broken as some areas in the game.

Interact with Brok and you’ll have to repeat this task again, this time with a different object, though the loop is the same. After this second loop, including interacting with Brok, wait for the dialogue to finish.

That done, nav assist and hit the crank to trigger a long but important cutscene, which will be your checkpoint if you want to stop here and save.

Cutscene over, combat ensues once you nav assist to it, sometimes aiming and throwing starts things off with a bang.

Here, you learn how to use a third weapon, the Draupnir spear (or just the spear from here on out). By default, press down on the DPad to equip it, then aim and press light attack to throw a spear, triangle (as the signature ability button) detonates any embedded spears.

You can embed several in enemies and there are skills that can increase this amount as well if memory serves, though it does have melee attacks as well.

Combat done with, follow the instructions to aim at a weak point and throw and detonate as above.

Nav assist to an interact and climb, then keep nav assisting to more combat.

Once the battle is over, nav assist and aim to get another weak point for detonation. Make it go boom as usual.

Nav assisting will take you to a climb, which itself leads into another combat encounter.

Once this is done, you learn about embed points, which allow you to traverse gaps that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to make. This one took me a couple of tries to get, but nav assisting, rolling back if you need a new angle or even climbing back down to where you came from then back up again (in my case) via the interact prompt, managed to get things oriented correctly.

You shouldn’t need to worry about this under normal circumstances as it should work first time, but I’m just noting it here just in case.

Embed point… embedded, nav assist and interact to swing over, then continue onwards. If you nav assist and move forward a little, you should be able to aim and find a spear cue for a detonation.

Hit this weak point and along with the customary loud explosion, Brok will yell look out below!.

Nav assist and drop down, then continue running forward and hit nav assist again to reorient.

Keep moving and, if you manage to get through this small area without getting stuck, interact to start a climb and some dialogue, into combat.

This could be, in some cases, your hardest fight so far, with not 1, but 2 ogres involved amongst a bunch of lighter enemies. You could try either rushing the larger ones to use them to take out smaller ones as we’ve done before, or do the reverse to thin out the numbers.

Once dealt with, whatever your strategy, Brok will say he’s going to set up shop. Run around and collect what you can, though you’ll be able to retrieve it later if you don’t because it’s loot from a combat encounter, then nav assist until you drop down.

Brok should actually be to your left here, so you can try and find him to upgrade your gear if needed.

If you’re done or wish to continue, then interact with a prompt found by nav assisting. You’ll either throw a speer to create a zipline or, if you’ve already sorted that part, you’ll zipline your way down.

Nav assist and you’ll get into a cutscene, where Odin appears.

Cutscene done and quest updated, nav assist to an interactable, where you reunite with your allies against some einherjar.

Combat over, nav assist onwards into a climb. After this, you may inadvertently interact with something that triggers a battle with a stalker and a couple of other enemies, though it’s not mandatory and as a result it doesn’t matter if you can’t win it.

Unfortunately, this optional battle can be hard to find if you lose. Moving to your right whilst nav assisting on reload may get you there). I did actually manage to beat this fight for the record whilst testing for this guide, not once but twice, though again you may not be able to find it yourself during your own run.

After an interact for some traversal as well as some more nav assisting, past a raven that is unfortunately one of many flying ones throughout the game, the next main progression point is an interaction prompt that starts an unskippable sequence.

I recommend saving before you start this sequence, just to keep your progression intact.

Trigger this interact prompt to ride the train down the mountain in an inversion of what you did previously earlier in the game.

Just after this cutscene, via the subtle swirling sound of the gravestone to your left which will be referenced in dialogue, you actually get the opportunity to fight a Berserker here, the equivalent to the previous game’s Valkyries.

Berserker: Hardrefill The Callus

This particular Berserker is one of the easiest to defeat under normal circumstances, should you wish to take him on, though keep in mind that you will be very under-levelled and underpowered for this battle. However, if you feel you wish to, you can take on the challenge at your leisure. The stone that you activate to face this boss is actually technically a checkpoint should you wish to use it for that purpose, if you die to him once.

Berserker tips:

I’m leaving this section here for anyone that decides to take him on, though again I advise you that this fight is not easy. If you’re not doing the side quests etc, the build here is terribly unoptimised, thanks to a lack of accessibility to find loot and other optional, more powerful items.

If using the Stone Wall shield, block and counter, dispelling the shield where needed between strings of attacks or after the AOE mentioned shortly.

If you decide to opt for the guardian shield instead for the sake of parrying, then be aware the timing can be quite tight, though it is possible, even without the Ronde of Deflection that increases the timing window on parries.

He will either do one of 2 things when it comes to non-AOE attacks: a single large swing, or several smaller ones that can vary anywhere between 2 or at least 4 (I don’t think I’ve seen him go over that latter threshold).

You can actually negate the need to block by dodging backwards for his multi-hitting strings, though of course keep in mind that he could in theory back you into a corner if you don’t sprint to make up ground between you periodically.

The only attack you have to really worry about is his AOE, which usually comes later in the fight. Trying to time avoiding these can be difficult.

The best way I can explain the strategy I use to avoid this devastating slam is that, as he winds up for the attack, signified by a line of dialogue and an unblockable dodge cue, start moving to your right with the left stick. When he comes to the highest point of his animation in terms of audio, just before he slams down, roll double tap X whilst still holding right with the left stick when using default controls and you should be able to dodge the resulting one shot.

There is a version of this that occurs when his health is below a certain point, where he’ll chain multiple slams together. This version requires a little risk-taking on your part, as you’ll need to dodge the first one, hit him once with melee to recentre your camera, then dodge subsequent repeats as you would above, left stick right to move during the wind-up, then roll as he lands.

I did try this fight and even on give me grace, before I figured out some of the strategies above, I was of the opinion the power deficit may be too much.

However, utilising the Glave Of Dodher and having upgraded Freya’s Sword thanks to the legendary chest found in the Sigrun’s curse side quest, as well as working with some additional skills I’d purchased via OCR, I was actually able to beat him in what was quite an intense fight.

Having completed multiple fights with this boss and having these new strategies to hand on the most recent runs, I believe I may have also beaten him without taking a single hit on at least a couple of occasions.

Alas, if you wanted to leave this fight until later, there is unfortunately no easy way to get back to him without sighted assistance if you progress the story past this point, so you either take him on now, or not at all.

All of this being said, a very funny thing happened when playing through to get the original notes for this chapter of the guide: Somehow, I’d managed to glitch his AI. As a result, he didn’t throw in a single attack, so I was just able to decimate him with the axe and I’m not sure why this occurred.

I’m not saying this will happen for you of course (and I’m still not sure why it did transpire in the first place), but the fact that it did, I thought, was worth mentioning.

Story Continued

Moving on from the Berserker, keep nav assisting until your feet stop moving, roll back once and you’ll be able to aim and throw your spear for an embed point. Nav assist and interact with it and to your right will be Durlin. Talk to him for an optional conversation that will unlock a side quest, Spirit Of Rebellion.

Along with any other optional conversations with Durlin, there’s also a chain you can kick down next to him via an interact prompt. Said prompt leads to a dock if you needed to utilise a boat at all, including for completing the side quest you’ve just unlocked.

Nav assist onward again to the gateway and trigger it, holding square to get to Sindri’s house, exiting on the other side as usual via an interact prompt.

Nav assist to the door, you might have to roll right to get around the geometry, then to the shop. You can also grab the warchest loot if there is any, though you can’t make any upgrades just yet.

Interacting with the prompt available through nav assist starts a conversation where, eventually, Kratos realises he’s tired.

This discussion reveals the actual shop prompt. Make any upgrades here then nav assist to the next interact to trigger a cutscene.

After the cutscene is over and you regain control, nav assist to an interact prompt to board a boat. Keep nav assisting and listening to dialogue as you row. If you ping just under every second or so you should be able to hit a small area where you lose control and trigger dialogue, with no need to nav assist further.

Said unskippable dialogue references what Kratos will do and his current state of being, with rushing water passing on your right.

Eventually, you’ll float into a cutscene and hear the line Atreus is our future. This cutscene transitions directly into chapter 11.