Walkthrough

Odyssey's chapters are one-way gates. Nothing you decide will ever stop the story moving forward, which is exactly why the decisions are easy to walk past without noticing, and why a plain list of quest names is the least useful thing anyone can hand you. This page is ordered by what each chapter closes behind you.

Every section below answers the same question: what has to be settled before you leave, because you cannot come back for it. If you want the button-by-button quest steps, those live on the individual chapter pages linked from the table. What sits here is the decision map.

One honest note on scope. We publish chapter pages for 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9. Chapters 4 and 6 appear below as rows and as prose, sourced from our choices and endings coverage, but there is no page to send you to for them yet.

The nine-chapter gate map

Chapters 1 to 4: Kephallonia to Athens

Chapter 1: the tutorial that hides three real decisions

The prologue is the battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas against the Persians, and it is a pure combat tutorial. What follows on Kephallonia looks like errand work, and mostly is: Prologue, So it Begins, Debt Collector, An Eye for an Eye, Fancy Guests, Penelope's Shroud and The Big Break, ending with the Adrestia.

Three things here are not errands. Do not spare the two thugs at the start, because they come back with reinforcements. Side with Duris afterwards and he gives you his sword. And find and kill Talos, a level 5 mercenary, because if you leave him alive he turns up during the Cyclops fight much later and makes a hard encounter considerably harder. Freeing Odessa is optional but it is the only way to open her romance.

Chapter 2: the decision that decides the ending

A Journey into War, Crumble and Burn, The Final Push, The Wolf of Sparta and Onwards to Phokis. You sink three Athenian ships, strip Megaris of its war supplies and treasure, fight your first conquest battle, and then meet the Wolf.

Spare Nikolaos. Not because the fight is hard, but because killing him ends the family-reunion ending here, in the second chapter of a nine-chapter game, and nothing later can undo it. Sparing him also opens a whole questline that only exists on that branch. While you are here, kill Hyrkanos rather than leaving him, and make the deal with the spy after freeing him for 100 drachmae and a tablet.

Chapters 3 and 4: Phokis, the Cult lair and the Forge answers

Chapter 3 runs Onwards to Phokis, The Wolf's Fate, Of Visions and Visionaries, The Serpent's Lair and Memories Awaken. You report to Elpenor, hunt him through the Valley of the Snake, meet the Oracle, and find the Cult's lair beneath the Temple of Apollo. The Serpent's Lair is worth remembering for a different reason: it stores identity clues for a great many Cult members at once, which our cultists guide covers in full.

Chapter 4 takes you to Athens, and the thing to watch is small and easy to miss: the answers you give on the way out of the Forge feed directly into whether your family is standing together at the end. Chapter 4 is also where the option to seduce Alkibiades appears, through the "Sounds like Quite the Party" line.

Chapters 5 to 7: where the relationships fork

Chapter 5: Xenia, the Monger and a flag you will not see fire until Chapter 7

This is a long chapter: Pirate Hospitality, Warm Conversation with Xenia, Land of the Lawless, Follow That Boat, Port of Lawlessness, Monger Down, A Prescription for Discovery, The Doctor Will See You Now, The Priests of Asklepios, Written in Stone, A Heart for A Head and Speak no Evil.

Xenia first: do not kill her pirates and do not lie to her, because either raises her fee to 17,000 drachmae. Then the Monger. Follow Brasidas' plan when you deal with the Mongers and you get more locations and a different resolution, and killing the Monger at the theatre damages your standing with Brasidas.

The part nobody warns you about is what that flag does two chapters later. Sparing the Monger leaves Brasidas the option of talking Lagos out of the Cult, which lets Lagos live, hand over his artifact fragment, and give you the Ring of Pausanias. That ring is the physical proof that gets Pausanias exiled and your Spartan citizenship restored without an assassination. Kill the Monger publicly and that route closes: Lagos has to die, and you are pushed toward assassinating Pausanias for the proof instead.

The Argolis half is smaller but has its own traps. Bribe Dymas to save both patients. Do not lie to Pleistos or Timoxenos dies before you reach the olive tree. During A Herald of Murder, do not accuse your neighbour or you gather less on the cultist Chrysis. And save the baby, which unlocks a further quest.

Chapters 6 and 7: Myrrine, Brasidas and the biggest chapter in the game

Chapter 6 is where you promise Myrrine you will bring Deimos back, using the "I'll bring Deimos back" line. That is step two of six, and the only thing you need from that chapter.

Chapter 7 is enormous: nineteen quests from Paradise Lost through Kings of Sparta, The Olympian, Pankration, Brasidas' Path, both parts of The Conqueror, The Cultist King and the Battle of Pylos. Run A Family's Legacy after United Front, both because it gets you to the level the next quest expects and because completing it is what unlocks Atlantis.

Two of the six ending steps are in here. If you spared Nikolaos, your answers to him decide whether he speaks to Stentor, and he has to for the family to reunite. Then you face Stentor yourself, and you must not kill him. Elsewhere in the chapter, siding with Myrrine opens two quests and siding with Brasidas opens another, killing Lagos damages Brasidas, sparing Lagos gives you more on Pausanias and makes him easier to kill, and when the tree falls on Deimos at Pylos, choose "Hold On".

Chapters 8 and 9: talking Deimos down

Chapter 8 is Uprising, The Resistance, Public Opinion, A-Musing Tale, Unearthing the Truth and the Battle of Amphipolis. You escape the Athenian jail, tarnish Kleon through the play and Sokrates' speech, and then fight at Amphipolis, where Brasidas is killed and Kleon falls. In Attika, start convincing Deimos that he is being manipulated by the Cult. How warmly Brasidas treats you from here depends on everything you did with him in Chapters 5 and 7.

Chapter 9 is Homecoming. You escort Myrrine from the Chasm of Taygetos up to Mount Taygetos, the place where you and your sibling were sacrificed, and meet Deimos for the last time. Refuse to fight. If Deimos reaches for the Spear of Leonidas, you have the ending you have spent seven chapters building toward, and the Demigod set comes with it.

The ending you can lose in Chapter 2

There are nine endings. Only one puts Myrrine, Nikolaos, Stentor and Deimos in the same room alive, and it is decided across five chapters by six specific actions. Here they are with what each one costs you if you miss it.

The dialogue that actually does the work is worth writing down. In the jail: "It was the prophecy", then "You and I both know who feeds the Pythia her words", then "Our mother searched for you" and "She thought you were dead". At the Chasm: "The cult is using you" and "I don't want to fight you". Our choices and consequences guide logs every decision chapter by chapter, and our endings guide covers what the other eight endings look like.

When each region opens, and what is waiting there

The story path touches perhaps half the map. The rest is genuinely optional, and knowing which half is which is the difference between a 40-hour game and a 140-hour one. Our side quests walkthrough catalogues every region; the table below says when the story takes you there, if it ever does.

That last row is the useful one. Twelve regions are never visited by the main story at all, which means everything in them, including some of the best gear in the game, is something you have to go looking for. Our locations guide covers the tombs and the Arena, and our items guide covers what is in the chests.

Threats you meet on the story path and can put off

None of these are ranked by difficulty here on purpose. For how the fights actually go and where the recurring hunts sit, see our targets overview.

After United Front: Atlantis

Atlantis is not a chapter and it is not signposted. Beat United Front in Story Sequence 7 and the side quest A Family's Legacy triggers automatically; completing that is what opens Atlantis. Once inside, it gates four encounters.

The Cyclops comes during Stairway to Olympos on the Isle of Thisvi. Do not try to parry him, because he has too much durability for it to be worth the time; use arrows to stun and then hit him, dodge the charges and stomps, and stay to his side so he cannot grab and slam you. Halfway through he starts throwing the terrain at you. The Minotaur comes from the Myths and Minotaurs chain, in a maze you navigate by following the rocks; he swings an axe and ground-pounds, and gets stronger at about half health, and running too far just makes him charge.

The Sphinx does not fight at all. It asks three questions drawn from a pool of twelve, and the answers are on our Sphinx riddles guide. Medusa is the last and the hardest thing in the game, reached through Romancing the Stone Garden and met during Writhing Dead. You want to be close to level 50. Clear her allies first, hide behind the stone pillars to break her petrifying laser, dodge the mortars, punish her when she teleports, and expect her to summon four more allies at a third of her health. The full write-up is on our Atlantis guide.

Where the rest of the guide lives

This page deliberately stays on story sequence and consequence. The Cult of Kosmos tree, the mercenary ladder and the Daughters of Artemis contract are in our targets overview. Legendary weapons, armor, the 17 chests and the engraving economy are in our items guide. The 22 tombs and the Arena are in our locations guide. Combat, ship upgrades, farming and how the choice system works as a system are in our mechanics guide. And if this is your first hour, start with our beginner's guide.