AKheon | God of War: Ragnarök (PS4) - early Lake of Nine continuation @AKheon | Uploaded February 2024 | Updated October 2024, 4 hours ago.
If you'll recall, at the end of 2023 I posted a video about reaching Lake of Nine early. This video contains some more observations and speculation regarding this huge yet still theoretical skip.
To note, this footage was captured on the unpatched PS4-version, things might vary in unforeseen ways on the other versions of the game.
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0:00 - You can pick up a Blades Runic-attack and equip it even though Kratos left his Blades at home.
0:38 - In the same vein, you can purchase and equip Blade-pommels to increase Kratos' power level. Apparently, if you don't have Blades, Kratos just displays the Axe in the shop screen instead.
1:06 - One thing you can't equip early are enchantments for the Amulet. If you pick up one and then open the menu as prompted by the game, you get a crash.
1:27 - Various grapple points can be used even without having Blades, which is at least a small mercy for gear-less Kratos.
1:45 - Beating the rest of the game without any gear and no companion might be impossible since there are so many gear / companion-related obstacles on your way. Fortunately, there's a new opportunity to do early Lake of Nine after Freya joins your party.
The game normally prevents you from re-entering the crevice that is used to go out of bounds near Kratos' home. However, the crevice prompt can be used like normal for a short time after gameplay resumes when retrying from last checkpoint. Conveniently, you can generate new checkpoints in this section at will since you always get a new one after the dialogue with Freya and Mimir ends.
In other words: set up a new checkpoint in front of the crevice, then retry and quickly do the prompt glitch to go out of bounds as the screen is fading in.
If done from this point in the game, the skip would save over an hour on NG+, so it would still be pretty significant.
2:47 - To note, the inside of the crevice is mostly unloaded at the moment.
3:11 - Showing the later early Lake of Nine skip in practice.
But like I implied earlier, there are still some obstacles in the way before this becomes a viable skip. First of all, Freya doesn't have Sonic or Sigil arrows on her, which makes completing many upcoming puzzles impossible. I've heard from the people in the GoW speedrunning Discord that at least on NG+ entering the arena and switching companions gives you the magical arrows, which allows you to get a bit further.
Next roadblock is the fact that you skip Asgard 1 and never get the mask for Atreus. There are a few points where you have to use the mask in Atreus' Helheim-segment to progress, so at the moment, trying to do this skip ends there. (Or so I've heard from speed_gunner).
So yeah... Some more tech is needed for this skip to become reality. But this is the current progress as of now.
If you'll recall, at the end of 2023 I posted a video about reaching Lake of Nine early. This video contains some more observations and speculation regarding this huge yet still theoretical skip.
To note, this footage was captured on the unpatched PS4-version, things might vary in unforeseen ways on the other versions of the game.
---
0:00 - You can pick up a Blades Runic-attack and equip it even though Kratos left his Blades at home.
0:38 - In the same vein, you can purchase and equip Blade-pommels to increase Kratos' power level. Apparently, if you don't have Blades, Kratos just displays the Axe in the shop screen instead.
1:06 - One thing you can't equip early are enchantments for the Amulet. If you pick up one and then open the menu as prompted by the game, you get a crash.
1:27 - Various grapple points can be used even without having Blades, which is at least a small mercy for gear-less Kratos.
1:45 - Beating the rest of the game without any gear and no companion might be impossible since there are so many gear / companion-related obstacles on your way. Fortunately, there's a new opportunity to do early Lake of Nine after Freya joins your party.
The game normally prevents you from re-entering the crevice that is used to go out of bounds near Kratos' home. However, the crevice prompt can be used like normal for a short time after gameplay resumes when retrying from last checkpoint. Conveniently, you can generate new checkpoints in this section at will since you always get a new one after the dialogue with Freya and Mimir ends.
In other words: set up a new checkpoint in front of the crevice, then retry and quickly do the prompt glitch to go out of bounds as the screen is fading in.
If done from this point in the game, the skip would save over an hour on NG+, so it would still be pretty significant.
2:47 - To note, the inside of the crevice is mostly unloaded at the moment.
3:11 - Showing the later early Lake of Nine skip in practice.
But like I implied earlier, there are still some obstacles in the way before this becomes a viable skip. First of all, Freya doesn't have Sonic or Sigil arrows on her, which makes completing many upcoming puzzles impossible. I've heard from the people in the GoW speedrunning Discord that at least on NG+ entering the arena and switching companions gives you the magical arrows, which allows you to get a bit further.
Next roadblock is the fact that you skip Asgard 1 and never get the mask for Atreus. There are a few points where you have to use the mask in Atreus' Helheim-segment to progress, so at the moment, trying to do this skip ends there. (Or so I've heard from speed_gunner).
So yeah... Some more tech is needed for this skip to become reality. But this is the current progress as of now.
