God of War guide: Find the hidden Realm Tear and get the Forbidden Grip of the Ages (2024)

After a lot of truly impressive detective work, fans of God of War decoded a puzzle on the cloth map included in the Stone Mason Edition of the game. But you don’t need their map (or their language skills) to reap the reward. We’ll walk you through how to get the Forbidden Grip of the Ages axe pommel below.

SIE Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Getting to Muspelheim Tower

The first challenge between you and the Legendary axe pommel is getting onto Muspelheim tower. Only one of the tower’s elevators works and that one is stuck at the top. So you have to come at it from the other side of the doors.

The path to Muspelheim Tower actually starts at the Lookout Tower during the Low Water phase.

Get back to the Lookout Tower beach and clear up the Nightmares waiting for you there.

On the right side of the beach — the west end — look for a crack you can climb. There are spikes sticking down from the top, though, so you can’t climb it yet. Look to the left for a spinning pillar. Hit it with your axe until the spikes disappear, then climb up.

At the top, follow the path to the right and jump the gap. There will probably be more spikes blocking your path. Turn around and hit the spinning pillar some more until they go away.

Climb up the next cliff as well. At the top, turn left to find a wooden chest and a chain that leads back down to the high water area of the Lookout Tower. To the right of the wooden chest is yet another cliff to climb.

Just keep climbing until you’re at the top where you’ll find a zip line. Ride it down, then deal with the Revenant and Nightmares waiting to meet you.

Directly ahead of you is a More than a Myth shrine. Just to the right of that, you’ll be able to find the Kneel Before Thor buried treasure if you picked up the map in Landsuther Mines.

Hop across the gap to the left of the shrine, then climb the wall. At the top, you’ll see a Legendary chest where you can pick up a Symbol of Heart enchantment.

Push open the doors, and you’ll find yourself on Muspelheim Tower. There’s a Mystic Gateway on your right and a very tough level six Traveler ahead of you.

Before you leave, make sure to use the elevator on your left to get it working — and give you a way up from the Lake.

Muspelheim Tower

Once you have Muspelheim Tower available (and you cleared out that pesky Traveler), you can claim your new favorite axe pommel.

To “reveal the forgotten treasure,” you have to stand in the center of the golden circle inlaid on the top of the tower and look in a series of specific directions. And you have to do it pretty quickly. We’re going to walk you through it as simply as possible with so you don’t have to worry about anything else while going through the steps.

Our directions for the four things you’ll be looking at are:

• Left — the brazier on the left side of the tower.
• Straight — Tyr’s Temple directly ahead of you
• Right — the brazier on the right side of the tower
• Down — the floor.

Below, you can watch a GIF of us doing it successfully (after many, many tries). We’ll put the specific steps below that.

1. Straight
2. Left
3. Straight
4. Right
5. Left
6. Straight
7. Down
8. Right
9. Left
10. Straight

Tips

You may find it helpful to tap L2 to “confirm” each thing you’re looking at. This isn’t necessary, but it helps keep you aimed in the right direction.

Don’t rush, but don’t go slow either. You have a set amount of time to get through all 10 steps and any too-long pause will make you have to start over.

There’s a gong sound that will play after you successfully make it to step five. Don’t pause and wait for this, and don’t let it distract you. It’s just to let you know you’re on the right path.

The Forbidden Grip of the Ages

Right away, the Forbidden Grip of the Ages boosts Kratos’ stats — eight points to Strength and six points to everything else.

Upgrading this pommel is relatively cheap, too. The upgrade to level four costs 4,200 hacksilver and five World Serpent Scales. The upgrade to level five costs 9,000 hacksilver and 12 more World Serpent Scales.

When it’s maxed out, the axe will boost Kratos’ Strength by 12 and everything else by 10. And it adds a fun explosive finish to your combos (R1 + R1 + R1 + R1 or R1 + R1 + R1 + R2).