In this chapter, you play as Kratos, accompanied by Various companions.
Directly following the ending of Chapter 12, with Atreus saying that he’s going to study his notes on the mask
, move to the interact prompt to leave, though you can turn around and try and find the shop if you wish, though it will have to be manually once again.
From here, upgrade, converse and collect loot as needed, during my runs I had an axe upgrade available which proved to be pretty useful. This was also the first instance I can recall of seeing the Berserker’s resurrection stone available to purchse. This revives you with full rage but only a small amount of health on use.
Once you’ve done what you need to, go back to the gateway, speaking to Ratatoskr if you so choose, then head to Vanaheim to progress the main story.
Leaving the gateway via the exit, stand still and aim. If you haven’t removed it earlier in the game as a part of the Freya’s Missing Piece questline, Atreus may or may not point out sound stone on a log.
If you haven’t got rid of it, aim and you should get a companion cue. Hit this with sonic arrows and you’ll remove it from the equation.
Also note that there’s a resource chest to your right here, which is always useful to get if you can.
If you have in fact removed the log earlier, you can just nav assist and interact to get into the boat and row onward.
Exit the boat once you get to the dock and nav assist until your feet stop moving. Roll left a few times and nav assist, you should eventually be able to aim and embed a spear to continue traversal, though it can be tricky to find at times.
During my testing it seemed as if there were actually two spear points to embed here, though it was unclear in subsequent tests as to whether this was actually the case.
Keep nav assisting and hit an interact to trigger a cutscene where we meet Hildisvíni, a friend of Freya’s.
Cutscene done, nav assist and interact, then continue nav assisting to follow Hildisvíni. Unfortunately, the geometry is a little sticky here, so you might need to move around a little as you nav assist to successfully get to the next progression point.
At said point, it’s mentioned that you have a way past this
.
The this
in question can be found by nav assisting and aiming around, looking for a throw cue. Said throw cue is actually for a spear weak point.
As usual, detonate your spear once thrown to allow you to progress onwards.
After a quest update, nav assist onwards, grabbing the resource chest to your right.
Keep going, interacting, auto-traversing and watching out for plants. Eventually you’ll come into combat.
You’ll be fighting a Fierce Stalker
, a variant of an enemy that you’ve seen at least once during your journey, alongside some additional ads.
It’s less range-happy than its Huntress counterpart, though that doesn’t mean it’s any less deadly. Just listen out for the cues, block, dodge and learn any patterns as you go.
After finishing off the main enemy with a stun cue or two, deal with the smaller ads as well, then journey onwards.
After some auto-traversal and a blades prompt, you’ll come into contact with a Nokken or two, alongside a bunch of other enemies.
Try and triangulate the Nokken’s positions and use range to your advantage to take them out as quickly as you can.
The other enemies, even without the Nokken’s aid, are still powerful. Watch for unblockables and use any runics you have as well to get this fight done as quickly as you can.
That combat encounter over, nav assist into a climb, then nav assist again until your feet stop moving.
Aim with your spear and you should get a prompt that it turns out is for a detonation point.
Detonating the weak point, hit the stationary raven to your right and take out a plant that’ll come at you, then continue onwards.
Nav assist onwards until legend meeting reality
is a topic of discussion. Then continue until the party talks about finding the moon.
Quest updated, through nav assist, you’ll see an interactable that starts a climb. As you do, the party discuss a box.
Continue onwards, keep aiming periodically as the plants are as vicious as ever and eventually, you’ll hear the swirling of poison.
You could try rolling through this again though it is rather tricky, or potentially sacrifice a bar of Wrath to get through should you need it. However, you could also sigil the poison areas and freeze them with the axe, running through as you did earlier in the game.
There are two, one after the other, but knowing when you’re out of one and in range of the next can be tricky.
Whatever your method for getting through, you’ll encounter Einherjar up ahead.
As usual, they are powerful and strong, including utilising delayed unblockable attacks. If you’ve taken damage from the poison as well, you may end up needing to restart this fight and consequently having to do the poison run all over again.
The multiple waves dealt with, nav assist, interacting to pull an object, then keep going. Eventually you’ll have a new enemy
as a talking point, though you don’t fight it just yet.
Nav assisting and traversing where required, you’ll interact to create a zipline. Slide down this and you’ll come to a wall.
As soon as you drop down, aim and if you don’t get a cue, nav assist then aim again. This is for a spear weakpoint that you’ll need to detonate.
Weakpoint detonated, carrying on through this area leads to combat, with blade points around the arena to help take down your enemies.
After several waves, Mimir will point out that this might put a dent in Odin’s forces
, signifying the end of battle.
Nav assist your way along, interacting where needed and eventually you’ll kick down a chain.
Interact with this, climb down and you’ll enter a chase sequence.
Run and fight your way through. After the first wave, there’s a stationary raven just as you embed the first spear point for traversal.
Then continue Fighting and embedding spears where required.
Combat over, the party will say that They are not smart
.
Nav assist until your feet stop moving, then roll backwards once and aim for a weakpoint cue.
Detonate this and interact to start a climb, where Atreus will compare events now to one of the shrines as you progress.
Eventually you’ll reach the top of the climb and find a Wyvern alongside its tamer, a separate enemy. Killing the tamer first is probably a good idea and the Wyvern is mostly just block, dodge and retaliate.
These two new foes taken care of, nav assist your way to a companion cue and hit it for a conversation and a quest update.
Keep nav assisting, with Kratos pointing out They will pursue
until, once again, your feet stop moving.
Aim and throw a spear to embed a spear point (you may have to nav assist around a little to find this), then continue into combat.
Einherjar vanquished, continue onwards, fighting any other enemies that might cross your path, where Atreus will ask if there’s any way to avoid fate.
Eventually, thanks to an interact into a climb, you’ll enter a cutscene. If you save here, the climb itself is the checkpoint.
Cutscene over, grab the gift
via an interact prompt, then nav assist your way into a combat encounter.
Be careful in this fight, as you might accidentally aggro a plant that can cause you to take damage whilst still in battle if you move too far forward.
Combat done with, Atreus remarks on the humidity again, at which point you can nav assist into more combat.
That fight over, Kratos will ask what Atreus saw of Odin’s army.
From here, nav assist forward through some traversal prompts and eventually you’ll enter a boss fight againstâ¦
Boss fight: Double Dreki
You’ve fought one of these at a time before, but not 2 at once. On higher difficulties, this can be a real challenge, but on lower ones you can use Wrath to your advantage and be aggressive to the Dreki in front of you at the start of the fight, taking it out in relatively short order, especially if you’ve been upgrading your axe, blades etc and equipping runic attacks.
Once that first Dreki’s down, just remember to keep your shield up when required (if you’re using Stone Wall) and retaliate when it’s safe to do so, before finishing the fight with a QTE or potentially a standard kill.
During testing the above battle, I actually managed to hit the second Dreki so quickly that it got stunned during an effort to charge its AOE attack, much like the one that you’ll have seen the first time you fought one much earlier in the game.
Duo Dreki dealt a debilitating defeat (including dropping Artillery Of The Ancients, a spear heavy runic attack), nav assist onwards, then aim and hit a detonation point to progress.
Nav assist and aim to find a spear weakpoint, detonate it and use the revealed interact to climb. Once you reach the top of this surface, find another interact to take a zipline, you may need to move to your left to exit the climb itself.
Interact, traverse and nav assist onwards. You’ll eventually come to an interact prompt for the door into the main area of Freyr’s camp, where Freya greets you.
This prompt can be difficult to hit as the nav assist can divert you. So be patient and ping whilst you’re standing still rather than whilst sprinting as you might’ve been doing before.
Once there, if you manage to find the warchest for the shop, make any upgrades, have any optional conversations and then continue onwards.
For clarification, I had the opportunity to upgrade my blades here, as well as purchasing a new summon for Atreus.
Upgrading and conversing done, Nav assist through some dialogue and interact your way to the boat.
If you’re lucky enough to hear an interact prompt once you’ve moved a little, hit it and you’ll earn another Yggdrasil’s Dew, which as before increases one of your attributes such as strength or cooldown.
Once you emerge onto the bank, you’ll hear a strange growling noise. Deal with the whisps, then nav assist into more combat.
You might have to run for a little, but eventually you’ll be able to take down the enemies here and continue onwards.
More combat awaits after a little nav assisting, featuring first Einherjar, then a Nokken and accompanying ads, then more Einherjar.
Signalling that combat is over, Freya will comment they’ve rallied more soldiers since their last visit.
At this point, you can nav assist through a door to another Nokken fight, arguably the hardest of the battles in the game so far just due to how many Nokken there are to remove.
Note the enemies aren’t immediately aggressive to you, so use this time to try and head towards the Nokken right at the start of the fight.
if you can hear one in the distance and in front of you, but can’t hit it, centre it and aim the blades as if burning sigils, you may ignite a bramble that’s blocking it from view.
If you can kill all the Nokken in the area, the enemies will go down easily. However, if you can output enough damage to the enemies even while the Nokken are alive, you can theoreitcally kill them, though it takes a lot of effort and upgraded abilities.
If we ffind an optimised setup for this fight at some point in the future, we’ll update the guide as needed.
Once done, nav assist your way through a brain plant and past a Nornir chest (not covered in this revision of the guide), then hit an interact prompt to change the time of day.
That complete, nav assist your way onwards, as Kratos and Freya talk about choice and the prophecy.
Eventually, you’ll come to some combat with more Einherjar, sometimes started via an interact prompt to your left for a combat object.
Einherjar dealt with, Freya discusses killing Heimdall. Nav assist onward and you’ll eventually come to a poison area like those you’ve frozen before. Freeze this one or roll through it as you wish and continue onward.
Nav assist through a traversal prompt and guess what, more Einherjar.
There are a lot of them here, with differing weapon-specific shields. Said shields have their associated weapon cues attached, though this is not consistent throughout the rest of the game unfortunately.
Combat done, nav assist and interact to pull an object, then continue onward.
Nav assist and eventually you’ll come to an interact prompt, after which you’ll have dialogue about Nidhog.
Nav assist until your feet stop moving. If you’re lucky, you should be able to roll back once, aim and hit an embed point to progress.
If not, just keep looking around for it in the relatively small area that nav assist takes you through, it is usually to your left by one roll.
Nav assist into a new area, where you’ll eventually come to an interact prompt. Hit this and pull back until you automatically disengage.
Nav assist until Freya remarks there’s an altar behind the vines.
Nav assist and aim to get a companion cue. Shoot a sigil arrow and ignite it with the blades.
Move to the interact prompt and change the time of day, then nav assist away from it, into a cutscene.
This cutscene leads to the fight you’ve probably been expecting this entire timeâ¦
Boss Fight: Heimdall
Phase 0: Gulltoppr
Remember Gulltoppr, the creature Atreus took the tour of Asgard on earlier in the game? Well, its rider is out for your blood, with Gulltoppr also being capable of doing damage.
Thankfully, Gulltoppr is easily parried or dodged most of the time, with projectiles occasionally coming your way as well. Shield strike when prompted, attack when you can and remember that sometimes being patient in battle can get you further than you’d think.
After Gulltoppr is defeated, Heimdall decides to take matters into his own hands.
Phase 1: Heimdall
Remember the spear’s purpose and it’ll serve you well in this fight. Throw and detonate and if you’re lucky you’ll get a hold prompt. Do this 3 times and you’ll make him enter his second phase, where he starts using realm shifts.
These are tricky to get around but try and be patient and not overcommit, dodging where you can.
After a while of hurling spears at him and detonating them, Mimir will call out when you have openings. From here, focus on using the spear as it seems to do the most damage and eventually you’ll get a stun prompt to enter a cutscene.
The fight’s not over yet however, as you enter:
Final Phase
Heimdall’s very angry and, as if it were in any doubt, he has it out for you.
Trying to describe his various attacks in text form could be very difficult, particularly as they happen so fast. Just note that the large rock-like attacks are ones you have to dodge backwards and the double dodge cue is for a charge attack.
For this latter attack, the first dodge cue should be avoided by moving backwards and the second, the connection point of the move, can be avoided by dodging to your left or right.
Also take note that some of his attack vocalisations will be covered by his pretty incessant dialogue, so you might get hit because you don’t know an attack is even coming at you.
If you can dodge these attacks though and hit him enough, you’ll enter a cutscene where his fate is decided.
End Of Boss Fight
Cutscene done, grab any loot you can find and nav assist+interact your way onward, where Atreus will greet you with a request for assistance.
Nav assisting onward will allow you, via an interact prompt, to swing into combat with a large number of einherjar.
Fight through multiple waves, using the blade points to get to your foes and eventually, there’ll be a longer pause in the fighting, at which point an Einherjar captain teleports in, accompanied by other ads. This captain is extremely strong so keeping him in view is arguably a priority.
This captain is also, in fact, a checkpoint. If you get to him first try, as I did during testing, you respawn with him as your first enemy and not all the way back at the start of the encounter.
Combat over, you’ll get another quest update, as well as dialogue saying Can we go?
.
Nav assist your way through the interact prompts in the arena, which can make it tricky to traverse, until you automatically put your weapons away and music resumes.
This puts you into a great, if straightforward, QTE-style sequence. Follow the prompts as instructed and you’ll enter a long cutscene or two afterwards.
Cutscenes over, with Mimir talking about what Prophecy holds
, you can turn around (manually) and find the shop and warchest to upgrade your gear, should you so wish.
Once again, you’ll have to do this based on audio alone of course, but the opportunity is at least there.
Once done, follow nav assist and you’ll unlock a new side quest, Scent of Survival, after potentially navigating around some inconvenient geometry. Said quest is to do with Helka, the Bloð Hundr and is covered in a separate section of this guide. This quest continues to a second, For Vanaheim
. This can be completed right now, should you wish.
Main story-wise, follow the path until you traverse over a spear point you embedded earlier and potentially a second one, looking for an interact to your left.
Hitting this should get you into the boat. Row for a while and you’ll come to another dock, where you can nav assist to the mystic gateway and hold Square for Sindri’s house.
On exiting the gateway on the other side, nav assist, hit the chimes and speak to Ratotoskr should you wish, retrieving the item he gives you to unlock another incompletable side quest.
Now, continue nav assisting onwards to the interact prompt for the door.
After making any upgrades and activating any remaining optional conversations at the shop, as well as listening to what can be some amusing dialogue, nav assist to a second interact prompt and you’ll trigger a cutscene to complete the chapter.