God of War’s cloth map hides an elaborate puzzle

God of War players have solved one of the game’s most dense, well-hidden puzzles — one that only owners of the physical special edition could even discover in the first place. Deciphering a set of directions found on the Stone Mason Edition’s cloth map led the community to find a reward they never would have been able to, had one player not caught on to the hints hidden in plain sight.

Earlier today, a Reddit user took to the God of War forum with a request. YouTuber BRKsEDU suggested that the real-life cloth map included with their hard copy of the game wasn’t just decorative — it had text on it, written in runes that they had translated into English.

Kratos’ son Atreus does mention in the game that these runes can be translated; they’re from the proto-Norse runic alphabet, Eldar Futhark, as other players have already found out. That’s how BRKsEDU kickstarted what became a longer quest in transcribing the rest of the runes dotting the edges of the cloth map.

[Warning: There are story spoilers for God of War below.]

The biggest block of text refers to the dwarves Brok and Sindri, who pop up around the map in-game to sell Kratos items. Although the two are brothers, they are never seen together; according to the cloth map, that’s because they had a huge falling out.

This is what the runic inscription on the left-hand side of the map says:

The brilliant blacksmiths Brok and Sindri travelled 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

Reddit

Reddit’s call for help led to players making some impressive discoveries. First, they deduced the paths of both Brok and Sindri, figuring out where they must have traveled — and thus, finding the space between them. That ends up being on either side of Muspelheim Tower, which sits below the giant Tyr’s Temple.

Players then followed the orders laid out at the top of the cloth map, also written in runes. They are as follows:

To Reveal the great treasure stand inside the golden circle and look straight ahead to tyrs temple now look to the left brazier look back to tyrs temple look to the right brazier and back to left brazier

Having just looked to the left brazier now look back straight ahead to tyrs 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 tyrs temple to reveal the forgotten treasure

That golden circle, based on where Brok and Sindri end up, is on Muspelheim Tower. Players must use the camera to quickly look in the aforementioned directions in order to unlock that forgotten treasure.

After just a few hours of trial and error, and teamwork, players unlocked their reward: a legendary axe pommel called the Forbidden Grip of the Ages. The relic increases all of Kratos’ stats and adds a concussive wave to the end of his R1 combo.

Here’s all of that in action:

Whew. It sounds like a lot, but most of the legwork is done; even if you don’t have that actual cloth map, you should be able to go ahead and grab that treasure. But it’s amazing to think that all of that effort only took a few hours and a lot of perseverance — and translation skills.