God of War Ragnarok Animal Instincts Favor Walkthrough

Animal Instincts is a Favor (Side Quest) for Kratos in God of War Ragnarok. This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Animal Instincts Side Quest. For an overview of all quests in the game see God of War Ragnarok All Favors.

Requirement: Access to Lake of Nine area in Midgard (automatically visited during story)
Reward: 1000 Kratos XP, 250 Freya XP, Token of Elemental Evasion Amulet Enchantment, Crackle of Bilskirnir, Besties

Objectives:

Eliminate the Kol Raider Camps
Return to the wolves

Starting Location: Animal Instincts

Animal Instincts is automatically started after clearing any of the four Kol Raider Camps in Midgard.

Eliminate the Kol Raider Camps

Go to the four Kol Raider Camps around the Lake of Nine and clear them out. The four locations are Raider Keep (south), Raider Fort (west), Raider Hideout (east) and Raider Stronghold (central). The Kol Raiders are relatively simple, and don’t pose too much of a problem.

#1 – Raider Keep (South):

#2 – Raider Fort (West):

While here, you will find a Treasure Map on the ground.

#3 – Raider Hideout (East):

Just before entering the Hideout, there’ll be an Odin’s Raven on the large door outside, and the location of that Treasure Map you picked up will be in between the large doors.

Inside the Hideout, there’ll be a Legendary Chest to the right, and a Nornir Chest in the middle.

For the Nornir Chest, there’ll be a brazier behind the bramble to the left, one behind the ore in the middle, and one at the end of the pit by the entrance. Use the fire bomb dispenser alongside runic arrows to light them all.

#4 – Raider Stronghold (Central):

After clearing out the Stronghold you will be faced with the Chieftain, Olaf Nautson.

Olaf is a relatively simple fight, as he doesn’t have a huge amount of health and his attacks are quite predictable. He will do a mix of block break and unblockable swings, as well as unblockable slam attacks and a shield strike attack where he will heal himself. At the start he’ll only have short combos, but as his health gets lower he’ll start chaining together more of these in a row.

Unload all your runic attacks at the beginning, then bait out his attacks, dodging and getting in hits in between. His ground slam and healing ability are great opportunities to get in some heavy damage, as he’ll be vulnerable after these. When his health is low enough he’ll do two ground slams followed by a shield strike ground slam, given you another opportunity to stun him and get heavy damage in.

After defeating Olaf, there’ll be a Legendary Chest in the back where he came from.