In this chapter, you play as Atreus, accompanied by Sindri.
After the cutscene from the previous chapter finishes, you gain control of… Atreus! Yes, for a while at least, we will be playing as Boy
himself.
Nav assist forward and some dialogue will begin. Slowly make your way onwards whilst this continues and, once it finishes, you’ll get a quest update.
From here, continue nav assisting to the mystic gateway, where travel is again automatic (though that is not always the case of course.
As before, just stop and wait until the dialogue finishes and then head forward, you should be able to go straight through via an interact prompt.
When you get through the Mystic gateway, we have another quest progress update, as well as some dialogue.
Nav assist and traverse your way along. You’ll auto-traverse, then drop down twice in a row, the drops being a little further apart than you might expect.
Now you’re introduced to Atreus’ attack scheme via a tutorial of sorts on Sonic arrows, as you have to aim and then hold heavy briefly when the cue appears, then release to fire a sonic arrow at a progression blocker.
There are two of these to hit in this quick tutorial. Hitting the first one is usually easy, but the second one that is just alongside it to the left, on the PS4 version at least, can be almost impossible to locate at times.
If you really are stuck, you can restart the checkpoint and run the short distance back to the area until you hit both targets, at which point an interact prompt will appear. In my testing it didn’t take too many tries to succeed at this one though.
On PS5, nav assist to hit the second prompt then continue as normal.
If you continue navigating along, there are actually a couple of extra tutorials here for light attack arrows being unlimited as well as sound stone on a barrel. It turns out that these are all totally optional, as well as being hard to locate and hit, however.
Tutorials done or not, traverse along until the arm of Tyr’s statue is mentioned. If you aim and hear a heavy attack cue, you can hit it to progress this small puzzle-style section. If not, feel free to restart the checkpoint and you should be able to hit nav assist once, aim and hit it straight away.
After you hit the sound stone, navigate your way to a climbing spot, at which point you’ll have to nav assist all the way along until your feet stop moving.
From here, look down slightly and aim and, if you get another heavy attack cue, hit it. This might take some repositioning, at least it did in my testing, but if you’ve nav assisted multiple times and you’re sure your feet aren’t moving forward and you even get the attack cue when aiming, rolling left once might solve it.
If successful, Sindri briefly retells part of Kratos and Thor’s first encounter.
Navigate forward until you find an interaction prompt, which then takes you into a climb.
When you get to the end of this, there’s a second interactable which, after some dialogue, leads you into your first combat encounter as Atreus.
Though you’ve only learnt ranged combat so far, you can also use normal light and heavy attacks.
Additionally, you can access runic abilities in the same way you would with Kratos. Holding down L1, R1 is your actual Runic ability whilst R2 is your runic summon.
The game doesn’t overtly tell you any of this, at least not yet).
Post-combat, nav assist to an interactable and use it to discuss the state of a lift, then do so again to activate said elevation device after some dialogue.
Having ascended, nav assist and walk forward to trigger a cutscene.
After the cutscene, your quest will update again and you can nav assist forward, then interact to progress, at least that what you’ll think will happen.
After a little while, hold interact when prompted, then nav assist so Sindri can do what’s needed. Once you get another quest update, nav assist forward once again to another interaction prompt.
Hitting this, continue nav assisting until you get into combat, after which point you get a tutorial about oil pots. Nav assist until you see an enemy or until you aim and get an arrow prompt, whichever comes first. Once those are dealt with, move to the interact prompt. If none shows up, you might have to aim and shoot a heavy arrow to get it to appear.
Nav assist to another interactable to help Sindri to progress, though as mentioned you may have to shoot an arrow first to unlock it.
This includes if restarting from a checkpoint as I did when I reloaded a save here. Sindri will ask if this is a sign once you hit the necessary prompt.
Just after this conversation occurs, you’ll get a narrated prompt about new skills being available, so purchase those if you want, then nav assist to what becomes a climbing sequence.
The next interactable you climb to will trigger a conversation, but you can still keep climbing after using it.
Once you reach the top of this climb, you’ll get into more combat, though this time without Sindri’s aid.
Given you’re supposed to hit an oil pot here but target locking doesn’t factor those in (at least as of time of writing), you can just shoot the enemy with regular arrows to get the job done.
Alternatively, if you’re feeling adventurous, the oil pot should be to slightly to the left of the enemy that you’re targeting, with it being indicated by a companion prompt.
Combat done, walk forward and interact to continue climbing, where Sindri will ask if this is a good idea.
As you climb, you’ll hear an interactable, hit it and continue traversing until you reach the top of this particular section (you might need to move to your left after hitting that mid-climb interact).
Then as before, nav assist forward to yet another climbing area as signalled by an interaction prompt, where Atreus says as long as I go up and forward
.
This is the final climbing section for now and, once you reach the top, you are able to nav assist and run into combat. If you see a light arrow cue, hit this and you might get some resources as well. Dispatch your foes, then nav assist for some traversal and more enemies will attack you.
This encounter done with, time for some more arrow progression puzzling.
Puzzle:
- Nav assist and aim, looking for a heavy attack cue. This will allow you to shoot some sound stone, unlocking an interact prompt.
- You’ll hear the sound stone drop even if you don’t get a cue, and you may also get a cue for a light attack which will activate an exploding pot, when the interact prompt you’ve unlocked is to your left. Don’t hit this light prompt yet.
-
Interacting with the previously mentioned prompt should let you try and climb, but your way is blocked. Moving right however, does seem to work. Continue moving right and down with the left stick in various combinations until Atreus says
I need to get a better angle
. - Nav assist until your feet stop moving, then roll backwards once and then nav assist again. If successful, you should be able to aim and hear a light attack arrow cue. Shoot this to obliterate that aforementioned exploding pot, though your work isn’t done.
- Continue nav assisting (if you get stuck, rolling left and back, then nav assisting again should reorient you correctly). Once you run for a little while and stop, you should be able to aim and hit a heavy arrow cue, breaking the sound stone and spawning enemies which you can deal with. This does, additionally, mark the end of the puzzle as well.
end of puzzle.
Sound stone destroyed and enemies obliterated, nav assist forward until you can find that interaction prompt we tried to work with as a part of the puzzle. Atreus starts talking to himself about what his father would say once you hit it.
After climbing, you’ll eventually come to another combat encounter which will inform you of aforementioned bow abilities (the equivalent to a runic attack). If you can’t hit enemies with physical light/heavy attacks here, utilise the ranged equivalents.
After this fight, run forward and interact to undertake some more climbing, with an interaction to continue up towards another combat encounter with some nightmares.
Keep fighting these shorter battles and moving forward with nav assist until Atreus says he wishes he had a compass.
Continuing onward you’ll run into some more nightmares which, in case you’re unfamiliar, are flying ranged enemies that are easily taken down, usually with a heavy arrow for stun then a light arrow to finish them.
Sometimes they’ll play an unblockable/dodge cue, which means that they’ll attempt to explode at your location and do damage to you. Either avoid them or shoot them down.
After this encounter, run and nav assist to another one, this time with seemingly stronger enemies. If you feel they are too strong, double check and see if you have any skills you’d like the look of, as they can help in tough fights. Repeat the same process with some more exploding nightmares at which point Atreus will doubt himself by asking I got this, right?
Another combat encounter awaits you after some more nav assisting, in my case with a singular shielded enemy. If you didn’t decide to upgrade Atreus skills, you can run in and attempt to hit him with a light attack, at which point the enemy will react and give you a shield strike prompt.
Hitting this strike will stun it and allow for significant damage from any of your attacks.
You could also opt to block one of its attacks that are usually telegraphed by a quick, low croaking growl about a second before the actual attack connects, leaving them vulnerable.
If, however you did opt for upgrades, you can hit him with the running heavy attack to launch enemies and a hold heavy for stun should you have those skills available to you.
Foes defeated, with Atreus talking about a big door
, nav assisting and some traversal will get you to a point where Sindri yells out asking if it is indeed us up there
, thus signalling the end of the combat gauntlet.
If you haven’t already gone past Sindri, you could use his voice to find a talk prompt to answer his question. This prompt did prove a little tricky to find at times, but you can also progress without triggering the dialogue should you so wish. Said talk prompt also leads to a fun choice as well as to whether to hit interact or light attack, both providing different responses.
Whether you triggered the optional conversation or not, nav assist forward, continue to traverse and you’ll reach another climbing sequence, all whilst Atreus discusses what’s to come. He’ll say something along the lines of here goes nothing
when you are near the top. When you finally reach it by heading to your left, still on the climbable surface, you’ll trigger a cutscene.
Once the cutscene’s done, along with another quest update, nav assist your way to an interaction prompt for a chain. Climb it and continue to nav assist to another interaction prompt, beginning the first of a series of further climbing sections.
Once Atreus says good thing I like climbing
, the next time you are on solid ground and able to nav assist, do so until your feet stop moving, then role backwards once.
From here, aim and hit a heavy attack cue to explode a progression blocker, revealing Sindri and an interaction prompt, which you should hit.
A long climb or two later and you’ll be able to nav assist to an interactable which triggers another conversation with Sindri, then some combat.
After the battle, courtesy of an interaction prompt via nav assist, Sindri will ask Atreus opinion on something.
Nav assist and you’ll come to a battle, after which point you’ll learn what Sindri was on about.
Whilst the dialogue is still ongoing, or after it’s finished, nav assist to an interact prompt, climb (move left to exit the climb itself at the top), auto-traverse and navigate your way to even more combat.
Post-fight, the next interact prompt continues more conversation and after the dialogue finishes, you should be right on top of another interaction prompt, this time for the lift.
With the lift stopped, nav assist to the mystic gateway and exit as usual. Nav assist again to an interactable to trigger a cutscene that marks the end of chapter 3.