Total Achievements: 37.
Type of Achievements: Offline (37), Online (0).
Minimum Number of Runs: 1.
Missable Achievements: 0. There is a free roam after end game.
Difficulty-Dependent Achievements: 0.
Glitched Achievements: 0.

I am proposing this guide for all-around users to unlock 100% of achievements in the fastest way. I know that you can reach 100% even faster in some games for a professional gamer. However, I am aiming for guides that will also benefit users with no experience with the game. So normally, there are no suggestions like doing the first run in the hardest difficulty.

SPOILER ALERT is in order as some details about the story of the game will be revealed here.

God of War achievements are not difficulty-related. So selecting the difficulty depends on your personal choice. By selecting the one you desire, in the first and final run, you are going to enjoy the story and get 11 out of 47 achievements along the way. That is at the least since those 11 are story-related.

All other achievements of God of War are related to three categories, namely exploring the map (side missions), gathering collectibles, and the gear (combat). Since after the end game, you can freely roam to map and gather/do whatever you want, all other achievements can be done when you finish the story.

Therefore, for the run, I am breaking the achievements into three groups, excluding the story-related ones naturally:
1. “Collectibles” are the achievements that you should gather stuff from all around the map.
2. “Explorations” are the achievements that you should perform an action such as a side mission.
3. "Combat and Gear" are the achievements that you should defeat an adversary or modify your armors and weapons.

Some notes for the run:
1. Up to a certain point in the story, you cannot use portals so there are no back-tracks. No worries though, as you can travel back later in the game.
2. During the run, you might take note that you are missing some collectibles because they are not accessible or not reachable after you pass them. Either those locations will be accessible later in the game, or those collectibles are extra and you would not need them for the achievements.
3.

There are some stand-alone achievements related to the story and they will simply pop up as you make progress through the story.

The Journey Begins
Defend your home from The Stranger.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

A New Friend
Survive the Witch's Woods.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Feels Like Home
Allow the Light Elves to return home.
Areas Involved: Alfheim
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Dragon Slayer
Defeat the Dragon of the Mountain.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Troubling Consequences
Defeat Magni and Modi.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Hello, Old Friend
Retrieve the Blades of Chaos.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Promise Fulfilled
Heal Atreus.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Round 2
Rescue Atreus.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Past Haunts
Ride the ship out of Helheim.
Areas Involved: Helheim
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Twilight Beckons
Defeat Baldur.
Areas Involved: Midgard
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

Last Wish
Spread the ashes.
Areas Involved: Jötunheim
This is a story-related achievement. You will get it anyway.

The achievements related to collectibles are the closest to the story-related ones. As you make progress through the story, you can get a good amount of them to lower the burden. As you might know, the water level in the Lake of Nine will descend as you make progress through the story of the game, so keep in mind that some locations might not be available to you in the earlier stages of the game.

For each achievement, there is a video made from my progress through the story so it is clear what you can achieve by just completing the story. There is no order for these achievements, just gather the most you can and come back for rest after end of story.

Trilingual
Learn the languages of Muspelheim and Niflheim.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
The new languages are learned by opening the cipher chests in the game. There are 14 cipher chests in the entire game, 7 for the secret language of Muspelheim and 7 for the secret language of Niflheim. You need to open 4 of the chests for each language to learn the language and open the realm of travel to those areas. As soon as you open the 8 chests, you will have the achievement triggered for you. The rest of the 6 chests will drop a random enchantment for you. Note that you do NOT need to travel to those realms for this achievement.


I have linked a video guide below to locate all of the cipher chests. While you progress through the story, you can get some of them. If you use this guide, you will have already around 10 by the end of the story. The rest then should be done after the end game. The order of chests shown in the video is based on my progression through the story.


Idunn's Orchard
Fully upgrade your health.
Areas Involved: Midgard, Alfheim, and Helheim.
The upgrades for health can be gathered from Nornir chests. There are 22 Nornir chests in the entire game, 11 containing Idunn Apple for health upgrades. You need to open 9 chests containing Idunn Apple to have health fully upgraded. Every 3 chests gives you one upgrade. This will trigger the achievement for you. The rest of the 2 chests will drop a random enchantment for you.


I have linked a video guide below to locate all of the Nornir chests. While you progress through the story, you can get some of them. If you use this guide, you will have already around 15 by the end of the story. The rest then should be done after the end game. The order of chests shown in the video is based on my progression through the story.


Quick Tempered
Fully upgrade your rage.
Areas Involved: Midgard, Alfheim, and Helheim.
The upgrades for rage can be gathered from Nornir chests. There are 22 Nornir chests in the entire game, 11 containing Horn of Blood Mead for rage upgrades. You need to open 9 chests containing Horn of Blood Mead to have rage fully upgraded. Every 3 chests gives you one upgrade. This will trigger the achievement for you. The rest of the 2 chests will drop a random enchantment for you.


I have linked a video guide below to locate all of the Nornir chests. While you progress through the story, you can get some of them. If you use this guide, you will have already around 15 by the end of the story. The rest then should be done after the end game. The order of chests shown in the video is based on my progression through the story.


The Truth
Read all of the Jötnar shrines.
Areas Involved: Midgard, Alfheim, and Muspelheim.
There are 11 Jötnar shrines in the entire game, out of which 9 are in Midgard and the other two are in Alfheim and Muspelheim. While going through the story, you should be able to open 7 shrines, including the one in Alfheim. The remaining 4, including the one in Muspelheim, need a little exploring into areas that are not related to the main story. If you need help finding the shrines, I made a proper full guide for all 11 shrines and the link is below:


Allfather Blinded
Kill all of Odin's Ravens.
Areas Involved: Midgard, Alfheim, and Helheim.
For this achievement, you need to kill 51 Ravens of Odin. Important note here is that there are a total of 53 Odin's Ravens in the entire game, so two extra. Two extra Ravens are in the region of The River Pass and Shores of Nine. By extra, I mean the actual number is not shown on the map of the game for the said region.


I have a linked a video guide below to locate all the Ravens by location. In the video, I showed the total count and the count of each sub-region for more clarity as Midgard has a rather wider map. The challenge is not so hard, as you have to pay attention to the clicky-metallic sounds Ravens make when you are close to them. I killed them in the order I made it through the game. However, the time-codes below are marked with sub-regions as well for your convenience in case you already know which regions you are missing a Raven for.

While going through the story, you should be able to locate almost half of the Ravens, and that makes this achievement rather long one as you are required to explore the map almost fully in those regions.


Treasure Hunter
Use treasure maps to find all of the dig spots.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
There are 12 Treasure Maps in the entire game, which will open a digging spot each to collect a treasure. Please note that if you do not have the treasure map, the digging spot will not show up for you. The achievement will trigger when you have all 12 treasure maps and all 12 digging spots. I think it makes sense to have all the treasure maps and then go after the dig spots if you are in the end game already as you can use Mystic Gateways.


I have linked a video below to help you find all of them. If you use this guide, while going through the story, you should be able to collect 5 treasures. The time-codes below are marked with sub-regions as well for your convenience in case you already know which regions you are missing a map or dig spot for.


Curator
Collect all of the Artifacts.
Areas Involved: Midgard, Alfheim, and Helheim.
There are 45 artifacts in the entire game, part of 7 different artifact sets, scattered throughout seven different locations of the game. Each location will give out one set of artifacts. Collecting the artifacts in the same location will trigger in-game labor and an experience reward eventually. You can also sell the artifacts in the shops. Collecting the artifacts of all locations will trigger the achievement.

I have linked a video below to help you find all of them. While going through the story, you should be able to locate almost 30 artifacts, and that makes this achievement rather long one as you are required to explore the map after end game in other regions.

The achievements related to explorations are the completely off the story and they are all related to side missions. Completing them will grant you loots and rewards. If you need resources, you can choose to go off the route and complete some or all of them, but take note that they can be intimidating. For that, the order of achievements below is from the easiest to the hardest.

As you might know, the water level in the Lake of Nine will descend as you make progress through the story of the game, so keep in mind that some locations might not be available to you in the earlier stages of the game.

Beneath the Surface
Explore all the Lake of Nine has to offer.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
There are supposedly 12 areas around this lake in Midgard that you have to visit for this achievement. You do not need to engage with any enemies or do any other sort of action, except docking on these areas and walk into them a few steps until you see the pop-up on screen introducing the newly discovered area to you.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: You must visit these areas AFTER the water level has descended for the second time. If you are not sure about what I am referring to, please check the video I linked below. There is a cutscene at the beginning of the video for clarity. If you have visited an area before this cutscene, you must go back to them again. For this part, please do not rely on the map of the game alone as if an area is already visited, even before this cutscene, the fogs on the map will be gone. So there can be a confusion.

Note that some areas have multiple docking points which otherwise cannot be reached. For instance, the small docking point at the beginning of Mason's Channel. All of these areas must be visited.

In the video, there are 5 extra areas that you can visit by traveling FROM Lake of Nine. I did some research on this and visiting these 5 areas should not be related to this achievement. However, for FULL DISCLOSURE, when I returned to Stone Falls to have the achievement triggered, I already visited those 5 extra areas, so I cannot really verify one or the other.


Unfinished Business
Assist all of the wayward spirits.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
For this achievement, you need to engage with the wayward spirits to have some favors done for them, all as side missions. There are 5 Spirit Encounters in the entire game, one of which is about freeing 4 spirits on its own. You need to trigger the spirit favors by talking to them, which will open the request for you in the game. Then complete the mission and return to the spirit (except for one case) to close the favor.

If you need help with location and how to handle the favor, I have linked a video below as a guide:


Dangerous Skies
Free all of the Dragons.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
For this achievement, you need to free three Dragons in the Midgard area, all as side missions. The side mission will show up as favors when you enter the area where the Dragons are imprisoned:

1. The Flight of Fafnir in Lake of Nine
2. The Fire of Reginn in Konunsgard
3. Otr's Imprisonment in Veithurgard

Each Dragon is being held by an anchor which can be released when three shrines are destroyed in the same area. If you need help with location and how to handle the favor, I have linked a video below as a guide:


Death Happened Here
Fully explore Veithurgard.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
The main objective for this achievement is to navigate through this area of Midgard, defeat the Ancient, the Daudi Hamarr, at the end of main hall, and then use the key it drops to open the Legendary chest. The Dragon residing in this area does not affect this achievement.

For your convenience, I have added a video guide which covers Veithurgard in full, including lore, mission, side missions, and all collectibles.


Like Oil and Water
Complete all of Brok and Sindri's Favors.
Areas Involved: Midgard.
For this achievement, you need to engage with the Dwarves, Sindri and Brok, to have five favors done for them, all as side missions. After finishing your quest in Alfheim, Sindri and Brok will give you the first favors, each one a separate favor. Once each favor is done, they are going to give you a second one. After completing all four favors, when you meet them in the shop above Tyr's temple in Midgard, they will offer the final favor. Favors and their locations are as follows:

1. Fafnir's Hoard in Fafnir's Storeroom.
2. Family Business in Northri Stronghold.
3. Deus Ex Malachite in Landsuther Mines.
4. Second Hand Soul in Völunder Mines.
5. Hail to the King in Konunsgard.

Note that for the second favor of each Dwarf, you must have finished the first request. Finally, if you need a guide, I have linked a video below:

There are some achievements related to combat and gear that are very easy to do and you will get them just by finishing the story and level up the gear. So this will make these achievements the second closest to the story-related ones. However, I have put the achievement set at the end as some of the achievement are pretty tough, and one, the toughest, mind you.

Consequently, I made the achievements below again in the order from the easiest to the hardest.

Enchanted
Slot an Enchantment into your armor.
Areas Involved: Any.
This is an easy one as you just need to socket any enchantment with any piece of armor you like. That would be under your "Armor" tab on top of the pause menu.

Nice Moves
Obtain a Runic Attack Gem.
Areas Involved: Any.
This is an easy one as well. While travelling to the Mountain, you will stumble upon a Legendary chest that Atreus will point you to. Open it, equip the rune, and the achievement is yours. There will be a lot of more gems to come in the game as well.

Dwarven Ingenuity
Upgrade a piece of armor.
Areas Involved: Any.
While you are with any of the Dwarves, if you have enough Hacksilver and other possibly required materials to forge and improve an armor, simply do so and the achievement is yours. For the achievement, you have to choose a piece of armor and upgrade it once.

A note of advice: Better to save your resources for a better piece of armor to get upgraded as there are a lot of piece or armors that will become incapable very soon while you progress through the game.

Best Dressed
Craft an outfit for Atreus.
Areas Involved: Any.
While you are with any of the Dwarves, if you have enough Hacksilver and other possibly required materials to craft an armor for Atreus, simply do so and the achievement is yours. This usually does not require too much of materials.

The Best Moves
Fully upgrade a Runic Attack.
Areas Involved: Any.
There are 30 Runic Attacks in total. Here are some screenshots from them:

Leviathan Axe:

.

Blades of Chaos:


.
Atreus's Bow:


Just pick whichever you like and upgrade it to the fullest. That will trigger the achievement for you. The upgrades will require Experience points.

All Will Fall
Kill 1000 Enemies.
Areas Involved: Any.
If you are going for 100% of the achievements, this is a given. That will be well before exploring the map fully in Midgard and explore other realms.

Why Fight It
Fully upgrade the Blades of Chaos.
Areas Involved: Any.
You need the blades to be at level 5 for this achievement. Upgrades to the blades come with Chaos Flames and you will need 4 of those. You can get them from:

1. Defeating Mattugr Helson giant in Helheim.
2. Defeating the Grendel of the Frost and Grendel of the Ashes giants in Temple of Tyr.
3. Defeating the first Traveller encountered in the second visit to Helheim.
4. Defeating the Valkyrie of Muspelheim and selling the Raging Inferno of Muspelheim to Dwarves.


Worthy
Fully upgrade the Leviathan Axe.
Areas Involved: Any.
You need the axe to be at level 6 for this achievement. Upgrades to the axe come with Frozen Flames and you will need 5 of those. You can get them from:

1. Brok at the first time you see him.
2. Defeating the Ogre giant in the Foothills.
3. Defeating Jarn Fotr giant in The Mountain.
4. Defeating Magni and Modi at Thamur's Corpse.
5. Selling the Mists of Niflheim to Dwarves requiring 5000 Mist Echoes.


Path of the Zealot
Obtain Traveler armor set.
Areas Involved: Any.
This armor set has to be crafted at the shops, managed by dwarves, so you cannot get the armor as a loot drop from enemies. What you get from them is the crafting material needed for the armor set, for three different pieces. The three pieces of armor and their crafting materials are as follows:

Chest: Breastplate of the Traveler

• 5x Traveler's Armor Shard
  
• 16,400 Hacksilver

Wrist: Gauntlets of the Traveler

• 18x Traveler's Grisly Trophy
  
• 3x Traveler's Armor Shard
  
• 12,800 Hacksilver

Waist: War Belt of the Traveler

• 12x Traveler's Grisly Trophy
  
• 12,800 Hacksilver

Traveler's Armor Shard and Traveler's Grisly Trophy drop only from Travelers. There are different types of Travelers, but you just need to defeat 5 or 6 of them to get this achievement as shown in the video. Once you defeat the first one, I am assuming at the Thamur's Corpse, there will be two in-game labors opened for you, named "Travel's End" and "The Road Less Traveled". Then you can start crafting the set at the shop by just visiting one of the dwarves.


Primordial
Obtain Ancient armor set.
Areas Involved: Any.
This armor set has to be crafted at the shops, managed by dwarves, so you cannot get the armor as a loot drop from enemies. What you get from them is the crafting material needed for the armor set for three different pieces. The three pieces of armor and their crafting materials are as follows:

Chest: Pauldron of the Ancients

• 3x Ancient's Heart
  
• 12,800 Hacksilver

Wrist: Gauntlet of the Ancients

• 8x Ancient's Rubble
  
• 9,600 Hacksilver

Waist: Belt of the Ancients

• 8x Ancient's Rubble
  
• 9,600 Hacksilver

Ancient's Rubble and Ancient's Heart drop only from Ancients. There are six different types of them which are listed below with their location:

Fire Ancient - Iron Cove
Lava Ancient - Veithurgard
Frost Ancient - The Mountain
Ice Ancient - Thamur's Corpse
Forest Ancient - Fafnir's Storeroom
Stone Ancient - Alfheim

Fire and Brimstone
Complete all of the Trials of Muspelheim.
Areas Involved: Muspelheim.
For this achievement, you need to complete all the trials of Muspelheim. In these runs, you will be faced with different combat challenges. Completing the first 10 trials, which are in Normal and Hard difficulties, will lead you to the mountaintop of Muspelheim, where you have to defeat a Valkyrie. Doing so will open the hidden trials in Impossible difficulty.

The final trial will be open but requires you to acquire 3 keys for that. Bringing you back down to the mountain to face 5 trials in impossible mode. Though I am not sure if you do 3 trials only to get the keys will earn you the achievement, so be mindful of that. In the final run, it does not matter which medal you get, you just have to finish it with a medal.

If you need help with the trials, I have linked a video guide below for your convenience:


Darkness and Fog
Retrieve all treasure from the Workshop's center chamber.
Areas Involved: Niflheim.
For this achievement, you need to gather all the treasures from center chamber of Niflheim. This means that you have to open all chests, unlocked and locked alike, and also the realm tears. In order to open them, you need Mist Echoes and Anchors of Fog, all of which can be gathered by doing runs in Niflheim. These runs are arbitrary and depend on how fast you can collect the requirements to unlock locked chests and realm tears.

For Niflheim runs, the first ones are rather harder because you might not have proper armor to help with the cooldown. So first runs are just to gather some Mist Echoes to get proper armor, that is whatever helping with the cooldown. The gears will be Ivaldi's whatever and the description of armor will read like: "... and increases your resistance to the Cursed Mist of Niflheim". The Dwarf, Sindri, will create the first armor for you. So at the beginning, do this order:

1. Do some short runs, gather resources, and return to Sindri to craft the Entry Stone.
2. Open the center chamber, open all unlocked chests, and return to him with armor materials.
3. He will craft the first armors for you and from here you can do longer runs.

Remember that Mist Echoes coming from chests are increasing as you open more chests inside a single run. So try to go to all areas in each run to gather more and more Mist Echoes. Here is the map of the area:


I also provided a video guide below with some sample runs. Remember that you can get even around 20K Mist Echoes in one run. It just depends on how many chest you open.


Chooser of the Slain
Defeat the Nine Valkyries.
Areas Involved: Midgard, Alfheim, Niflheim, Muspelheim, and Helheim.
Buckle up as this will be your toughest achievement to get!

There are 9 Valkyries, one of which is the Queen of Valkyries, Sigrun, which is the final encounter. The queen will spawn once you defeat all other 8 and place their heads in the Council of the Valkyries. Defeating her will earn you the achievement.

For each Valkyrie, you might need to redo your build and skill set. They are not easy and best to do them at the very end when your character is level 7 and above. Remember that all Valkyries are basically training for the Valkyrie Queen. Do not even try to approach her if you are not level 8 or above. Some notes about each encounter:

Valkyrie Kara: Best pick as the first encounter. Lots of range attacks so dodges are required too often.
Valkyrie Gunnr: Use runic attacks with powerful stuns. Lots of melee attacks so blocks are required too often.
Valkyrie Geirdriful: Rather hard one with both melee and range attacks. Use Runic attacks with powerful stuns. She will try to grab you by diving and side jumps can prevent that.
Valkyrie Olrun: She is too jumpy so you need to stun her most of the time.
Valkyrie Göndul: She will trigger sky-fire attacks. The most important thing here is to do a side-jump in the same direction she does. So after the attack, if she jumps to the left, you do the same, and so on. She will also slam the ground in front of you and the only dodge is the back-jump.
Valkyrie Hildr: Rather easy one but since you are on a time limit, you have to be fast. So all runic attacks with the highest damage. If you die in your mystic run after defeating Valkyrie, defeating her still counts toward the achievement.
Valkyrie Rota: She will do a lot of sky-dive attacks. Learn to dodge them. She might do 3 at the most in a row.
Valkyrie Eir: Use only axe for this fight as she jumps to the air a lot to perform a fatal attack. So you have to throw your axe to stop her. She will block your normal attacks a lot. You can break her guard with a runic attack.
Valkyrie Queen Sigrun: Get your level up to 8 or 9. Remember all the stuff mentioned above as the queen will do ALL attacks from the former Valkyries.

I have linked a video below as a guide to show the location of all Valkyries, the fight you have to put up leading to freeing up the Valkyries, and the lore of Valkyries.

Father and Son
Obtain all other achievements.
Areas Involved: All.
Once you have all other 36 achievements, the final achievement will pop up for you automatically.

Hope that helps you secure 100% of your achievements in the fastest way. Please feel free to comment or add me for any questions regarding this guide.

Please rate up this article if you liked the guide or if it helped you in any way. It would go a LONG way for me if you could subscribe to the channel providing the videos as well:

https://www.youtube.com/@VoydenGames

Many thanks and enjoy your time doing the challenges.