God of War (2018) may be a heavily narrative driven game, but it is still an adventure game with role-playing game mechanics. It also features a wide, open-world that you can pretty much explore to your heart’s content, provided you have access to those places. Since players have had time with the game, lots of little easter eggs have cropped up. However there is one specific easter egg — a hidden treasure – that is technically meant only for folks who own the God of War Collector’s Edition cloth map.
As you unfold the God of War Collector’s Edition cloth map, you will notice that it contains a lot of runic scriptures, as well as what looks like routes and names. Well, turns out that it is not all just jargon, or things meant to make the map look more realistic. Instead, it is a little secret puzzle, one that ended up being way too complex for me to try and solve when I first heard of it.
The rest of the article will deal with spoilers pertaining to the dwarven smiths that you meet in the game, the origin of Kratos’ wife, Faye, and certain realms that you may or may not unlock during the game, so proceed with caution.
Santa Monica Studio has lovingly dubbed the cloth map the “Stone Mason Map”, and it seems that the name was no mere coincidence. It depicts the Lake of Nine in the centre with all surrounding explorable areas around it. It also includes paths and routes, with added runes, that can actually be translated.
Some users on the God of War subreddit noticed that the World Serpent, Jormungandr, has runes written on its scales. With that knowledge in mind, YouTuber BRKsEDU transposed it using the rune alphabet found in-game. Throughout the game, Kratos and Atreus run into riddles, the transposed runes read just like those.
The video may be Brazilian, but the English-speaking world has figured it out too. The text below includes all parts of the riddle.
The brilliant huldra blacksmiths Brok and Sindri traveled all around the lands of Midgard to create this great map for the giantess Faye a mysterious treasure was found at the space between them at the conclusion of their journey unfortunately for the brothers the treasure’s location was instantly forgotten Brok retraced his steps and blamed Sindri for losing the treasure Sindri retraced his own steps but clearly knew it was Brok’s fault they could not find it the treasure was never found and neither brother has spoken to the other either since.
To reveal the great treasure stand inside the golden circle and look straight ahead to Tyr’s temple now look to the left brazier look back to Tyr’s temple look to the right brazier and back to left brazier.
Having just looked to the left brazier now look back straight ahead to Tyr’s temple again now look down to the floor then look up to the right brazier and then back to the left brazier and finally look to Tyr’s temple to reveal the forgotten treasure.
While the first paragraph fleshes out the story between the brothers, the second and third parts are part of the riddle. As users pointed out, the hardest part was finding out where to start, and where the landmarks mentioned were in correlation to the starting point.
A few Reddit users eventually figured out that you simply have to look at all of the landmarks, from one position — eventually debated and revealed to be the Muspelheim Portal Tower.
By standing dead in the centre of the circle on the tower, players merely need to look in the direction explained in the riddle. If done correctly, two gongs will sound – one when halfway done, and another when complete. And that is it!
When you have done it correctly, realm tear will open (which counts as one of the 18 totals for the trophy). Have Kratos reach in and claim the lost treasure for himself: a special pommel for the Leviathan Axe.
The pommel boosts all of Kratos’ stats and adds a concussive wave to the end of his light attack combo. It is also of rare quality. The treasure is perfect for someone who has just unlocked access to the Muspelheim tower, but I cannot see how it will help anyone who is way further than that into the game. Whatever the case may be, this is still a nice little treasure meant to only be found by the most dedicated of players.
[Sources: GameRant, Kotaku, Reddit, YouTube (1)(2)]
Junior Editor at Vamers. From Superman to Ironman; Bill Rizer to Sam Fisher and everything in-between, Edward loves it all. He is a Bachelor of Arts student and English Major specialising in Language and Literature. He is an avid writer and casual social networker with a flare for all things tech related.