Surviving Fimbulwinter is the first main quest (path) in God of War Ragnarok. This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Surviving Fimbulwinter Main Quest (Path).
Requirement: N/A
Reward: 500 Kratos XP, 250 Atreus XP
Quest Info: More snow. We must head home.
Objectives:
- Head home
- Track Atreus
- Return home with Atreus
- Return home to Atreus
- Follow Atreus into the forest
- Return home
- Follow Sindri
- Enter the house
- Talk to Sindri
- Follow Sindri to the workshop
- Meet Brok and Sindri at the Mystic Gateway
- Retrieve Mimir and travel to Svartalfheim
Head Home
After the initial scenes play, you will automatically be riding the dog sled back to the house. You can move back and forth with the left stick, but there aren’t any obstacles in this first section and the dogs automatically move away from the walls, so you don’t need to worry about anything jumping out at you yet.
After the dogs stop once you’ll need to hit 
in a quick time event, then start steering around obstacles in your path. The dogs will jump over them regardless, but hitting them will cause some damage to Kratos.
There will be another quick time event where you need to mash :o:, followed by another set of obstacles to avoid. The next quick time section involves alternating hitting and 
to defend against Freya on the side she is grabbing you on.
After this you will have one final 
mashing quick time, then you will follow the path all the way back to Kratos’ house. Follow the path up the hill after getting off the sled, then go past the front door of the house for another scene.
Kratos goes to bed, then wakes up in a different location. Follow the figure ahead of you down the linear path to progress.
After stopping for a moment, you’ll turn back and need to interact with some fallen logs to continue. You can then climb the ledges ahead and you’ll return to the house.
Track Atreus
After gaining control when outside, you’ll need to find where Atreus went. You can follow the tracks in the snow back down to where the wolves are, then down to the crack in the wall just past them.
Keep hitting 
to break through the ice blocking the path, then go through and follow the path on the other side to a clearing. Here you’ll have your first actual combat encounter of the game against a bunch of Raiders. This part goes over basic combat abilities if you don’t remember from the prior game, so follow along with the prompts if needed as more enemies enter the area.
After they are all defeated, head to the left from where you entered where you can interact with a log to progress to the next area.
If you were injured you can find a Healthstone on the ground just ahead, which is picked up with . If you prefer there are options in the settings menu that allow you to have the game automatically pick up any Health and Rage stones when needed so you don’t have to worry about them.
Keep following the trailer through the snow. At one point the path will split and on the right, you can enter a cave with a small chest. These small chests will only ever contain Hacksilver, the basic currency in the game.
Head back and look across the gap ahead. You’ll need to aim with your axe and throw it to break the tree, allowing you to jump across to the other side.
Keep following the linear path ahead. If you stick to the left side there will be another Hacksilver chest, before reaching a spot you need to crouch through to arrive at a new area with more Raiders.
Deal with all the Raiders as they appear, then follow the path around to the dead end where you’ll encounter your first Raider Scout. These ones are weaker than normal but also have ranged attacks. In many places they’ll appear on the ledge above you, so you need to fight back by throwing your axe or pulling them down.
After the enemies are defeated you can climb the wall behind where the Scout appeared. At the top, you can find your first Material Chest of the game, containing some Hacksilver and 1 x Forged Iron. These chests always contain crafting/upgrade materials and have this red glow.
Keep following the path until you enter the cave ahead. The game will prompt you to use your jump attack on the enemies ahead, which allows you to run off ledges then attack in the air to slam down on enemies for a large amount of damage.
Continue further into the cave, watching for the enemies that will start attacking you from the ledge above. After dealing with the first group you can climb up the ledges to continue, but make sure to jump across to the ledge on the right where you can finding another Materials Chest containing 1 x Forged Iron.
Deal with the enemies that will now appear, then climb up the next wall. After exiting back outside, you will have your first boss fight of the game.
Boss Fight – Bjorn
Bjorn is a giant bear, and will introduce you to block-break and unblockable attacks. Block break attacks will be indicated by a gold circle, whilst unblockable attacks will be indicated by a red circle. Bjorn will release a flurry of swipe attacks and follow it up with either of these attacks. The best way to fight Bjorn is to block his regular attacks with your shield, then dodge when he uses a special attack, getting in hits after dodging. You can also destroy trees in the environment to get health crystals.
Partway through the battle you will be able to enable your Spartan Fury ability with 
+ 
, allowing you to do serious damage and heal. This will also act as a mid-battle checkpoint.
Once you have completed the fight, you will earn the A Grizzly Encounter 
trophy.
Return home with Atreus
After the fight you can around the area for extra Healthstones to heal if needed, then interact with the log blocking the way and break it to continue.
Follow Atreus along the path and you’ll run into an enemy. Here the game introduces you to the companion mechanic, where you can have Atreus shoot arrows at your target as long as he has charges available (bottom right of the screen).
Defeat the group of enemies and continue down the chain into the cave. Watch on the immediate right after the chain where you can find a Materials Chest containing 1 x Forged Iron.
Continue along the path and you’ll drop down near the first Hacksilver chest you could have grabbed. Follow the path back towards the house for a short scene, then you’ll return through the very first area you fought Raiders. There will be more to deal with, though you have Atreus this time and he is good for dealing with the ones on the ledges above. Once they’re dealt with keep following the path back to the house and interact with the front door.
Inside the house, interact with the bed on the back left where you’ll then have a long bit of cutscenes.
Boss Fight – Thor
After the long cutscene is completed, you’ll have been pulled to a different location by Thor for a fight. You will want to employ similar strategies to Bjorn: block his regular attacks, dodge the yellow and red circle attacks, hitting him in between his attacks where you can. This fight will have 3 phases in different areas, and it will give you a checkpoint for each phase.
For the first phase, it will mostly be hand-to-hand combat without weapons, as you aren’t able to summon the Leviathan Axe. In the second phase, Thor will start using his hammer a lot more including lightning attacks. There will also be pillars you can interact with to throw at Thor for some damage. In the final phase, Thor will introduce more attacks, including lightning on the ground that you will need to dodge.
Utilize your Spartan Fury ability when you can to heal and deal damage, and try to fill Thor’s stagger bar to progress the phases faster.
After the fight is complete you will earn the Blood Debt trophy.
Return home to Atreus
After Thor leaves, Brok and Sindri break through the nearby wall to allow you to exit the area. Follow the path up into the temple, then interact with the Gateway to go back to the house.
After exiting the gateway, head over to the house again and interact with it for another scene. Before leaving the house you’ll be given some tutorial on the equipment menu, and can swap some of your armor and equipped items if you wish.
Follow Atreus into the forest
After exiting the cabin, Atreus is going to lead you to something. Follow him through the now-open gate opposite the house.
After grappling up the first ledge with your Blades you can grab a Hacksilver chest to the immediate left, then continue following Atreus. You’ll reach a spot where you need to ignite some brambles to advance through. You’ll know you’re going to hit them while aiming if the red arrows appear above and below your aiming reticle.
Follow the path ahead, then hit to pull down the logs blocking the path. Any time you see that red diamond symbol on a wall like this it means you’ll be able to pull the block away to proceed.
Continue along the path until you reach the circular tower where the path splits. If you want you can go left first where you can find some brambles blocking a Hacksilver Chest, then head back and continue along the right path. Watch for the enemies that will appear, as this will be your first experience with Hel-Raiders. These enemies generally have the blue section of health bar first, which means that they reset damage from everything except your Blades of Chaos, which will quickly burn off the extra health bar and allow you to damage them normally.
Continue through the gap ahead into a large open area. Before continuing to the right, you can drop down the wall to the left for a Hacksilver Chest. Go back up and drop two levels to the right. To continue you need to go through the gap on the left, but you can first knock down the bucket hanging in the archway to the right and drop down for another Hacksilver Chest.
In the next room, a Raider will appear. Once they are defeated, they will immediately turn into a Hel-Raider, meaning you need to defeat them twice.
At this point, you will then be prompted about upgrading your skills. For Kratos, skills are locked behind upgrading your weapons to specific levels (the number shown on each ability) whiles Atreus’ skills are locked behind story progression. They each have separate XP pools, so make sure to check often for whether they have skills available. The first time you unlock any skills (which you should do now) you will earn the Knock off the Rust trophy.
Continue through the next gap, and you’ll encounter the first object that you can move with the Blades. Hit to attach, then you can move the object in certain directions using the left stick, in this case to the left to open the path.
Jump across the gap, then turn around and move the pillar back to where it was before. You can then climb the wall behind you and use the pillar to continue across.
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At the end of the path you can interact with a chain, which will be used to raise the rope to zip across. It’s being blocked by a clamp though, so you’ll first need to break it to release the rope. During sections where you’re holding ropes or cranks you can hold 
to aim and throw your axe, which is used in more complicated puzzle solving later in the game. In this case though you can just toss your axe to free the rope, then pull it up to allow you to zip across.
Drop down to the lowest area where you’ll need to fight another group of Raiders and Hel-Raiders. When dealing with the ice-shielded enemies you can mash 
with the Blades to charge up fire, then attack to instantly remove the ice portion of the health bar and set them on fire.
Once all the enemies are defeated you can head over to the wall where Atreus should be standing and burn some Brambles to continue along the path.
After defeating the next couple of enemies you can interact with the runes nearby to obtain some lore. These Rune reads aren’t required for trophies, but in other areas do count towards 100% completion if you are wanting to earn that (nothing counts towards 100% completion in this area of Midgard though).
If you wish you can also drop down to the area to the right where there is a Hacksilver Chest, but be aware that you’ll be attacked by a higher level enemy when you’re down there so be ready if you venture down.
Climb up the wall ahead to the next area and defeat the couple Hel-Raiders that appear, then interact with the wall where Atreus is waiting to trigger another boss fight.
Boss Fight – The Huntress
The Huntress is a very simple fight, though you want to be aware you can’t use your shield properly due to it being damaged in the fight with Thor. She will mostly launch ranged attacks or try to ram you, both of which can easily be avoided by dodging. Whenever her horns glow, use a ranged attack with your axe or blades on them to stagger her, then wail on her until she stands up. After a few cycles of this she will go down.
After the fight, make sure to pick up the items she drops to obtain a Frozen Flame (used to upgrade the Leviathan Axe) and your first Light Runic attack, Winter’s Bite. Do note that if you happen to miss any pickups like this from bosses they’ll automatically be placed in the Lost Items chest at the shops, so you can’t ever actually miss any items. You’ll also now be taken through a small tutorial on equipping and using the Runic attack before you can continue.
Resume climbing the wall when you’re ready to continue. Instead of going to the right after Atreus, you can go to a short dead end to the left where you can pick up the Lore scroll “The Ashen God” (also not counted towards 100% completion if you miss it).
Continue following Atreus through the temple until you reach a large open room. Before progressing you can hug the right wall where you can spot a Materials Chest through a gate. In the back corner, you can squeeze through a crack to reach the area behind and grab 1 x Forged Steel from the Chest. There is also one more Hacksilver Chest you can reach in the opposite corner of the room by grappling to the ledge it’s on.
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Head to the stairway where Atreus is waiting. To progress, you first need to try and move the statue blocking your path, which will knock some ice off the tree to the right. You can then break the tree with your Axe, allowing you to move the statue fully out of the way.
After jumping over the ledge ahead you’ll have a scene showing what Atreus had discovered. Once it’s over, you can turn around and interact with the doorway to exit back out of the area.
Return home
After the scenes are over, drop down the ledge ahead of you. If you turn to the immediate right you can spot a gate leading to another Material Chest (containing 1 x Rawhide) that you might have spotted from the prior area.
In the area ahead Atreus will comment on the floor, which you should note is a large square with a grapple spot in the middle. When you spot these on the floor it means you need to grapple onto them from above. Climb the ledge to the left to the second level, then look down towards the break in the ground where you can hit to grapple through. Head to the left where you can find a Materials Chest containing 1 x Rawhide.
Climb back up to the second ledge, but this time look immediately to the left. You can grapple up one more level here, where you can find another Materials Chest containing 1 x Forged Iron.
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Head back and follow Atreus. You can interact with the gold chain on the ground to kick it down, allowing you to climb to the lower area to continue. Some more Raiders will spawn here, requiring you deal with them before you can proceed through the log on your way back to the house. This will also be the first time you encounter a Raider Chief enemy. These hit harder and have more health than normal Raiders, but are slower as a tradeoff.
Keep following the path ahead, and there will be one final Materials Chest on the right where you can obtain 1 x Forged Iron.
Follow Atreus and you will be back at the house, where Sindri will be waiting.
Follow Sindri
Follow Sindri over to the Mystic Gateway, then interact with it to head through. This completes this current story quest, and transports you to Sindri’s house.
Enter the house
Head over to the front door to enter. You’ll have a scene now discussing what’s happening with Brok and Sindri, before you are introduced to the shop and how crafting works. The main thing occurring now is that you get to choose a new shield to replace the broken one, so pick between the two which suits your playstyle (you can craft the other one later if you want to switch). Also, make sure to upgrade your Axe using the material you obtained earlier, and craft or upgrade any armor if you feel like it. The first time you upgrade any piece of armor you’ll earn the trophy Spit Shine .
You can then interact with the chest beside the shop to grab any items you left behind. Normally if there is something in the chest it will be glowing blue to show it has items, but this time you have to open it regardless.
Talk to Sindri
When you’re ready to progress the story, head over to the far room to speak with Sindri.
Follow Sindri to the workshop
Follow Sindri back to the other side of the room and wait for them to finish speaking.
Meet Brok and Sindri at the Mystic Gateway
Interact with the front doors to head outside, then head over and interact with the Mystic Gateway for another scene.
Retrieve Mimir and travel to Svartalfheim
Once the brothers are done borrowing him, interact with Mimir to grab him off the contraption. You’ll now have access to realm travel, allowing you to head to Svartalfheim to continue to the next story quest.
This finishes Surviving Fimbulwinter in God of War Ragnarok.
Up Next: The Quest for Tyr
For all other quests refer to the God of War Ragnarok Walkthrough.
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