God of War Ragnarok Walkthrough Part 18: Nidhogg Boss Guide

After choosing to help Freya, despite the fact that it’s unclear if she’ll kill him after he does, Kratos comes face to face with a powerful creature, the Nidhogg. The beast appears after Kratos and Freya make their way to Freya’s childhood home in Vanaheim and serves as the final roadblock stopping Freya from freely traveling the nine realms in God of War Ragnarok.

The walkthrough below starts once Kratos and Freya make it to her childhood home in The Path: The Reckoning and ends after the cutscene where Freya and Kratos talk about forgiveness.

NOTE: This walkthrough only covers the main quest and doesn’t cover any side quests.

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Nidhogg Boss Fight

Nidhogg is a formidable foe in God of War Ragnarok that can give you a lot of trouble since so many of its attacks can break through your guard making shields useless. Because you aren’t able to parry Nidhogg’s attacks, you also aren’t able to reset the tempo of the right in your favor meaning that the fight against the most is primarily about dodging its attacks and counterattacking when you find an opening.

Because Nidhogg is so big and requires you to be running all over the boss arena to fight it, it’s not a bad idea to primarily use the Chaos Blades for the fight since you’ll be able to get some extra damage in against it thanks to the blades’ increased range compared to the Leviathan ax and Kratos’ fists.

In the first section of the fight, there are a handful of attacks to keep an eye out for. The first are two AoE blasts that Nidhogg performs. Both are telegraphed with red-rings, but one is much more dangerous than the other. The dangerous one comes when Kratos is at mid to long-range from the beast. It’ll bring one of its arms back above its head, you’ll see the red ring, and then it will sweep the arm forward creating a blast of blue energy in a straight line toward you. Nidhogg will often chain these attacks together doing multiple in a row. They can deal some significant damage to you and come pretty quickly, but luckily are easily avoided with a simple dodge or roll to the side.

The second AoE attack to watch out for is when Kratos is in close range, usually dealing damage directly to the beast. You’ll notice a red area on the ground in a line in front of Nidhogg which, after a second or two, will be filled with blue dark energy. It gives the boss some space as you won’t be able to use any close-range attacks on it while the area is in effect, so prioritize thrown attacks to get some quick damage in as you back off.

There are two yellow-ringed attacks to keep an eye out for as well: a lunge which has Nidhogg rear its head back and extend its entire body forward for a bite and a ground smash with its arm. When you see both attacks coming, dodge out of the way and then quickly turn towards the body of the beast to deal some fast damage.

After taking out the first fifth or so of its health, you’ll pull Nidhogg out of the realm tear it’s sitting in. This doesn’t drastically change anything about the fight, but it does give the boss another attack to use on you: a red-ringed tail stab. Luckily, if you avoid the attack, its tail gets stuck in the ground and you’ll see the blue-ringed prompt for you to perform a shield bash on it.

Rush to do a shield bash and you’ll be rewarded as the boss will become stunned for a few seconds, allowing you to get some major damage in. If you don’t get to the shield bash in time, the ground will explode near the tail and you won’t have the opportunity to stun Nidhogg until it does the attack again.

Once you’ve taken out a third of the boss’ health, it’ll lunge at you and you’ll need to mash to keep it from biting you in half. Freya will become human again, stab it in the head, and join the fight.

Once Freya joins the fight, the beast will wrap itself around a pillar and get a whole new set of attacks. The first two are sweeping beam attacks, the first sweeps across the arena horizontally and the second starts at the base of the pillar it’s on and shoots in a straight line toward you. The second attack is dodged pretty easily as long as you run out of the way, but the first guarantees that you’re going to take some damage if you don’t perform a quick dodge right before you’re hit with the beam. If you do a roll or block, you’ll be hurt, so you’ll need to do a simple dodge to duck under the attack.

The next attack has Nidhogg open a realm team in front of it and then over you, sticking its tail through the portal to try and stab you from above. It’ll try this three or four times, but the attacks are easily dodged as long as you’re constantly moving while the portal is open. It means that you can’t run up and do melee damage as that would mean that you’d be standing still, but you can deal some chip damage by using your long-range options.

As this section of the fight goes on, Nidhogg will climb between two pillars in the arena. While wrapped around the pillars, the boss’ moves are the same, but sometimes it’ll stop on the ground in between pillars to do some of the attacks from the previous section. In addition to its older moves, it’ll do a new attack where it sucks in a bunch of debris from the field and spit it back out at you. You’ll be able to survive this by hiding behind your shield until it’s all over, but the spit spread attack is often followed up by a slow-moving projectile attack that can’t be blocked and must be dodged.

As the fight goes on, eventually, it’ll climb on top of a pillar and Freya will use her magic to create things for you to use to your advantage. Either throw your blades into them to light them on fire or throw the ax at them depending on which Freya calls out for, and the boss will fall to the ground, stunned. When it’s down, rush in to dish out some big damage.

With about a quarter of its health remaining, Nidhogg will stop on the ground between the two columns and start relying heavily on its old moveset again. Once you’ve damaged it enough after that, it’ll go down and you’ll be prompted to click R3. When you do, you’ll see a quick scene where Kratos and Freya continue fighting, and you’ll be onto the final section.

Here, Nidhogg is backed into a corner and starts prioritizing the debris spit move. Freya will eventually shoot a sigil into its stomach, throw your ax inside and it’ll be nearly finished. Deal just a bit more damage, click R3 when prompted, and Nidhogg will be gone for good.

After defeating Nidhogg, watch the scene where Freya removes Odin’s hold on her and decides that she’ll neither forgive or kill Kratos. After the scene, pick up the amulet on the ground.