Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I heard that getting past the gate leading to The Forge early might potentially be a major time save, so I devised a setup for doing so. Unfortunately, some new glitch tech is probably necessary to take this skip all the way there.
To note, this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on the other versions of the game.
Many of the game's prompts are preceded by an "auto-walk" where your character is re-positioned next to the prompt. The exploit here is that it's possible to give touch pad input to your characters to disrupt the auto-walk, which is in all likelihood highly unintended (and according to picobit, already patched in the current version).
This auto-walk has certain very unique properties to it. Most critically, Kratos is immune to collision while auto-walking. Therefore, if you escape from an auto-walk, you can controllably go through some walls in the game, although you do need a bit of setup and some good angles to do so.
The only two actions that can be tied to touch pad are Parry and 180 Turn, but even with those two actions you can do quite a lot.
Using the Dauntless Shield, Kratos will do a strike towards the direction he is currently facing with some curvature to either left or right. You can adjust it by waiting for him to turn around during auto-walk as well as 180 Turn. Although fairly awkward, this makes steering possible while this glitch is active, which is not possible with Atreus' version of this same trick (at least so far).
Using the Stone Wall Shield, Kratos will do a slower strike towards a fixed direction, which is always his initial direction at the start of the auto-walk. As such, you can set it beforehand for some additional control for moving around the level.
In brief: use the Parry actions and 180 Turn for movement and the auto-walk for clipping through boundaries when it's needed.
0:00 - As for the trick itself, I start by setting up an angle for Kratos' Stone Wall Shield parry.
0:12 - I examine the prompt and start 180 Turn and Parry to move away from it. The only input you can give Kratos during this time are these two attacks, which makes movement very awkward, but it's possible to get the hang of it.
If you try to evade (among other inputs?), you can skip the cooldown of a parry, which speeds up the time when Kratos can do another one.
0:26 - Get Kratos behind a bit of collision. The next time he auto-walks, he will phase through it. Wait a bit until you're fully out of bounds - I use one of the small rocks here as a positioning aid - then continue doing some Parries.
Two Dauntless Shield parries which angle to the left are enough to go around a collision boundary and behind the gate itself.
0:36 - I switch to Stone Wall Shield and do a single Parry. Now Kratos is basically behind/inside the gate, but there are still a few things you have to worry about. First of all, there isn't much floor to the direction of The Forge, so doing Parries too hastily will result in you falling down. Wait for the auto-walk to adjust Kratos' position until doing new Parries.
Second of all, the pile of boxes in the corner has collision and will trap you if you miss the timing of your Parries. You have to do the final series of Parries to essentially seam walk past the boxes from the right side without falling down.
0:56 - And now you're through! Unfortunately, you can't stop the auto-walk and regain control over Kratos so easily. You might have to retry from last checkpoint to do so, but there are no checkpoints on this small path.
(To note, at least with Atreus, getting hit by enemies will not end auto-walk, and I'd assume the same is true for Kratos.)
To make matters worse, the area up ahead seems to be a "no attack" zone, which means you can't progress any further with a character who can only move with attacks. I tried going a bit deeper through the adjacent mountain, but only fell out of bounds for my efforts.
In other words, this skip might be possible, but it might not be possible with this specific glitch tech...
1:21 - Apparently, Mimir can read the runes while falling. This finally breaks you out of auto-walk, but at this point it's a bit too late since you're half a mile under the ground!
I heard that getting past the gate leading to The Forge early might potentially be a major time save, so I devised a setup for doing so. Unfortunately, some new glitch tech is probably necessary to take this skip all the way there.
To note, this is played on the unpatched PS4-version. Things might vary in unforeseen ways on the other versions of the game.
Many of the game's prompts are preceded by an "auto-walk" where your character is re-positioned next to the prompt. The exploit here is that it's possible to give touch pad input to your characters to disrupt the auto-walk, which is in all likelihood highly unintended (and according to picobit, already patched in the current version).
This auto-walk has certain very unique properties to it. Most critically, Kratos is immune to collision while auto-walking. Therefore, if you escape from an auto-walk, you can controllably go through some walls in the game, although you do need a bit of setup and some good angles to do so.
The only two actions that can be tied to touch pad are Parry and 180 Turn, but even with those two actions you can do quite a lot.
Using the Dauntless Shield, Kratos will do a strike towards the direction he is currently facing with some curvature to either left or right. You can adjust it by waiting for him to turn around during auto-walk as well as 180 Turn. Although fairly awkward, this makes steering possible while this glitch is active, which is not possible with Atreus' version of this same trick (at least so far).
Using the Stone Wall Shield, Kratos will do a slower strike towards a fixed direction, which is always his initial direction at the start of the auto-walk. As such, you can set it beforehand for some additional control for moving around the level.
In brief: use the Parry actions and 180 Turn for movement and the auto-walk for clipping through boundaries when it's needed.
0:00 - As for the trick itself, I start by setting up an angle for Kratos' Stone Wall Shield parry.
0:12 - I examine the prompt and start 180 Turn and Parry to move away from it. The only input you can give Kratos during this time are these two attacks, which makes movement very awkward, but it's possible to get the hang of it.
If you try to evade (among other inputs?), you can skip the cooldown of a parry, which speeds up the time when Kratos can do another one.
0:26 - Get Kratos behind a bit of collision. The next time he auto-walks, he will phase through it. Wait a bit until you're fully out of bounds - I use one of the small rocks here as a positioning aid - then continue doing some Parries.
Two Dauntless Shield parries which angle to the left are enough to go around a collision boundary and behind the gate itself.
0:36 - I switch to Stone Wall Shield and do a single Parry. Now Kratos is basically behind/inside the gate, but there are still a few things you have to worry about. First of all, there isn't much floor to the direction of The Forge, so doing Parries too hastily will result in you falling down. Wait for the auto-walk to adjust Kratos' position until doing new Parries.
Second of all, the pile of boxes in the corner has collision and will trap you if you miss the timing of your Parries. You have to do the final series of Parries to essentially seam walk past the boxes from the right side without falling down.
0:56 - And now you're through! Unfortunately, you can't stop the auto-walk and regain control over Kratos so easily. You might have to retry from last checkpoint to do so, but there are no checkpoints on this small path.
(To note, at least with Atreus, getting hit by enemies will not end auto-walk, and I'd assume the same is true for Kratos.)
To make matters worse, the area up ahead seems to be a "no attack" zone, which means you can't progress any further with a character who can only move with attacks. I tried going a bit deeper through the adjacent mountain, but only fell out of bounds for my efforts.
In other words, this skip might be possible, but it might not be possible with this specific glitch tech...
1:21 - Apparently, Mimir can read the runes while falling. This finally breaks you out of auto-walk, but at this point it's a bit too late since you're half a mile under the ground!
