Quest Realm: Svartalfheim
Notes
- You can actually undertake this quest before you complete In Service Of Asgard. In theory, you’ll have to do a little less work than if you undertake it after finishing that latter endeavour, though these instructions take you through an extra sequence beforehand to account for those who wish to do these two favours in either order.
- Even if you’ve tracked In Service Of Asgard prior to these steps, you can switch quests on the fly once a trackable quest does appear.
- When you are first able to access this quest, some enemy types are things you’ve not seen yet and won’t have explained to you until later, including in this guide.
After In Service Of Asgard
once you’re in Svartalfheim, after completing In Service Of Asgard, tracking to any mystic gateway should allow you to eventually trigger this quest after a few initial steps, though only if a shop is present.
Go to the gateway you’ve tracked and use its interaction prompt as your starting point. Quick turn from here and look towards the shop. Find the warchest to your right and use this as a reference point to continue. Don’t grab what’s in here until after you’ve finished the quest.
If you’re in the right area and aim you might see a distant throw cue. This will be a further reference to get us to where we need to be.
Using that aim cue, keep walking forward and aiming until you see the cue turn solid (i.e. it is a clear shot), then aim and throw to make things explode and unblock the path ahead.
Walk forward until you see an interact, then climb. Unfortunately this is a climb where nav assist can’t help you, as if you’re doing this early you are not able to track the quest yet.
To complete this climb, move upwards until you stop, then look slightly to your left and you should transition over to the next surface. From here, you can continue left, then move upwards once you stop moving left until you reach the top.
To your left, from where you exit, there is an optional, very hard boss fight involving a Draugr whole and its associated boss, known only as The Hateful
.
To the right is a key location for the quest that we’ll revisit later.
Pressing nav assist once will orient you back towards the climb you just made. With the interact for this climb to your right, turn until it disappears.
This done, move forward and slightly to your left and eventually, you should see an interact prompt in front of you.
Interacting with this should prompt dialogue from Mimir, saying about a key from an island.
Unfortunately we can’t track the quest from here, at least not just yet.
Nav assist your way back to the gateway and interact with it to lock our orientation in, then disengage and the boat should be about 110 degrees to your left.
Move back from the gateway slightly and then turn and you should see the prompt for the boat, though it can be a little tricky to find.
If completing Before In Service Of Asgard
This is the theoretically easier way to start this quest.
Once in the boat, listen for the large geyser to your right as it periodically activates. Turn towards it then keeping it slightly to your left, move forward and you should hopefully find the interact for the dock that you need to hit.
Note that turning the boat to reach this point can be complicated and that the geyser bursts are very spread out, so you might have to wait a while if you get stuck during finding this dock.
I tried this using the wetlands mystic gateway (as determined via OCR) and was able to find the dock in question whilst rowing to start In Service Of Asgard. In a second latter test I found the dock by accident whilst undertaking the aforementioned Mining Rigs quest
, and if you do find the landing unintentionally, the above line from Mimir mentioning a key will be the first you know of the new quest.
Once you reach dry land, Mimir will give a line of dialoge, after which you can actually track the quest.
Note that as long as you can see the geyser and quickly get to it in time, this strategy can still work even if you’ve not done the climb and found the door the key fits into, all of which is mentioned above. Essentially, if you find this new dock, you’ll be doing things in what would be considered the correct order
.
When you’re on said dry land, nav assist until your feet stop, then roll back once and turn to your right.
If you hit aim, you might be lucky and hear a tiny sample of a throw cue. Note that said cue is actually a little higher up than the point that is snapped to, so you may have to aim downwards a little to hit your target.
Hit this to blow up some material and start a fight with not only wretches, but a wretch nest as well.
If you lock on and run in, you should get a chance to obliterate the nest and end the fight early.
This done, nav assist your way up some autotraversal and you should be able to hit a second aim cue, once your feet stop moving.
Having exploded some more material, interact with the revealed prompt to start a climb.
For just this climb, turn the climb setting under accessibility to default before interacting.
Setting temporarily tweaked, interact then move forward until you stop, press nav assist once, then move down until your feet stop again.
From here, move right for 6 haptic sets of two or 3 vibrations each, 3 or 4 of which will sound like Kratos’ hands are slapping against the surface.
Pushing forward should see you disengage from the climbable surface automatically and enter a fight with wretches and another nest.
Fight done, Turn the aforementioned climbing setting back to camera.
Note that using nav assist will take you back to the climb, don’t hit it until you need to.
Walking straight forward after you exit the climb and have finished the fight, assuming your oriented correctly, should take you to the interact needed. If not, navigating back to the climb, then turning 180 and running forward, then rolling left once when your feet stop moving should get you there or at least nearby.
Interacting with this prompt sees Kratos hold a crank, much like other mechanisms you’ve used already, with the prompt Move stick vertical choice.
Move the crank all the way back, then aim and throw the axe. Do not recall until advised to do so.
Disengaging with circle, nav assist your way back down the climb.
Once you exit that climb, nav assist until your feet stop moving. This should mean you are in the lift and can recall your axe. If you hear lift audio to both your left and right, you have succeeded. Atreus also asks if we can break through the ground, which indicates you’ve reached your intended destination to begin the next progression phase.
This is achieved via an interact, which nav assist will take you to.
Deal with the bergsra that’s revealed, as well as its wretches. This might be your first time fighting one, so learning how this boss fight works (as discussed in other sections of this guide) is key. After this battle, nav assist takes you to the next interact prompt.
Said prompt sees you open the chest containing the key you need, after which you are free to nav assist through a door and back to your boat.
A short row later, you’ll find dry land again and this is actually where you can take that climb from earlier, with The Hateful as an optional fight.
Now given nav assist will let you progress properly, if you want to take this on whilst you’re here you can choose to do so. Though note it might be a tricky fight, even on easier difficulties (with it not being easy to find in the first place). Listening for the strange, bubbling fire-style sound will help you find the zone to activate the encounter, but you’ll have to go along and around, keeping the sound cue to your right as you move in sort of a horseshoe pattern to get it to work (nav assist of course won’t be able to help you).
Defeating this rapidly attacking enemy will earn you the Cursed Empress Handles if you succeed, as well as a Chaos Spark, part of a blades upgrade should you collect enough.
Draugr hole cleared or not as the case may be, continue to nav assist your way to an interact prompt, which unlocks the door you’ll have seen if we tried to start the quest early.
Though there’s no success dialogue, you can still nav assist onward, where you’re advised to give that drum a good loud strike
.
Nav assist will take you to an interact prompt, then into a cutscene-style QTE. Following the prompts, you’re informed that you’ll need to free a creature from its restraints.
Freeing The Lyngbakr
Nav assisting your way along should get you to an interact to unlock a blade shortcut, then allow you to drop down and run to the interact for the boat.
Another short row later, you’ll end up at a dock that gives you a quest update when you disembark.
From here, nav assist should lead you to the climb from before where we had to manually navigate, though this time the game’s systems will lead you to the correct area and indeed more combat.
If it doesn’t, manually turn to your right until you can auto traverse up onto a platform, then hit the interact to your right to start the climb, at which point nav assist should be able to take over.
Fight off these foes at the top of the climb, then nav assist until you are able to aim and get a throw cue. When hit, this causes more geometry to explode, leading you to an interact much like the rig shutdown mechanic you see in In Service Of Asgard.
However, this is part of freeing the creature from its restraints.
After some dialogue indicating this isn’t the end of the quest, you can aim and throw your axe to hit a distant throw cue, triggering even more dialogue.
Freeing The Second Fin
With Mimir having mentioned collapsed debris
, nav assist onwards and manually unstick yourself if needed, though it’s not likely to be required. Do not hit the interact you see on your left, that is the climb back down.
Eventually you’ll autotraverse down a small drop into combat. Enemies removed, nav assist to an interact for a chain and climb up it.
Once at the top, nav assist and interact to grapple to a new area, hitting the interact nearby for some more hacksilver.
This done, further nav assisting will lead you to more enemies.
Combat over, there’ll be some more poinient dialogue, meaning you can progress to another interact to kick down a chain and descend it.
Once you’re at the bottom, nav assist takes you to the interact for the next binding. As before, follow the prompt then aim and throw to hit the chain.
Once that’s broken, you’ll immediately be accosted by more wretches. Deal with them and their nest and then continue towards the next interact.
This is an oil pot despencer, the first you’ll have seen in the game if you take this quest at the earliest possible opportunity. Grab a pot, then nav assist until your feet stop moving. Roll back once for safety in this case, then throw.
Now nav assist back to grab a second pot and, after retrieving it, nav assist onwards until you drop down a couple of ledges, pot still in-hand and Atreus will hopefully point out a dock.
Nav assist until your feet stop moving. Once in position, aim and throw. If successful, you should get dialogue about getting back to the boat.
The Tail
Nav assisting your way back and hitting the interact to your right for a resource chest should you wish, you’ll come to the oil pot dispenser again. Don’t use this as it’s not required for progression, instead turn to your left around 90 degrees and walk forward.
You should be able to find an interact that takes you through a door, prompting more dialogue and continue on from here via nav assist, retracing your steps back to the boat.
Rowing once again, after a while you’ll come to a landing where Mimir will point out that you can reach the tail from this dock
.
Nav assisting should lead you up an autotraversal and through to an interact for a climb.
Reaching the top, after moving to the right when you stop climbing part-way through (if required), moving forward slightly will lead you into a large number of enemies. Take these out and nav assist to the final interact prompt to free another chain, though you can’t hit it from here, with Mimir saying about sliding down a rope.
Nav assist to a zipline and take it. Once you land, nav assist to an aim prompt, but don’t hit it yet.
Quick turn (i.e. turn 180 degrees) and you should be able to find an interact prompt.
Hit this to break an object with the blades, then turn to your right around 90 degrees and move forward to find a legendary chest. This contains a new shield ronde, the Rond Of Agravation.
Now you can nav assist the small distance back to the aim prompt and hit it to trigger more dialogue. As much as you’d think this would complete the quest, there’s one final step to undertake.
Reaching the Lyngbakr’s Eye
Nav assisting your way to a chain, don’t descend just yet. Note that the PS4 version seemed to have some trouble getting to the chain in the first instance, so a little patience will be required to find it.
Once you reach the chain’s interact, instead of hitting it and descending, turn to your left around 45 degrees or so and listen for a shimmering sound. This is a rune slate that you can interact with, though if you do this too early you won’t be able to do anything with it, according to Atreus.
If you can indeed interact with it and the item behind it doesn’t remain locked, follow the prompts and hit a companion cue, which lowers a gate.
Now you can descend the chain, rolling right and nav assisting back to the boat.
Rowing for a while will not find you on dry land, but instead see you enter a cutscene. Once that cutscene completes, the quest does as well and you can now continue back to whatever else you were doing in-game.