How to fully upgrade the Blades of Chaos in God of War Ragnarok

Gaming’s favorite sad dad is back to take on Asgard. In God of War Ragnarok, our hero Kratos can use an assortment of powerful weapons suited to any combat situation — and he can learn a variety of abilities to make them more powerful. Kratos’s Blades of Chaos are his original weapons from the older God of War games, and they were reintroduced partway through the 2018 installment. Now, Kratos starts with them at the beginning of Ragnarok.

Warning: mid-game story and sidequest spoilers ahead for God of War Ragnarok.

The Blades of Chaos are great for crowd control. The material needed to upgrade the weapon is the Chaos Flame. You receive the blades at the beginning of the game, like the Leviathan Axe, and there are eight Chaos Flames to find in total. The first five Chaos Flames are dropped from story bosses during the main campaign, so they are impossible to miss. They are:

1. Defeat Dreki (The Path: The Quest for Tyr)
2. Defeat Forest Ancient (The Path: The Reckoning)
3. Defeat Frost Phantom (The Path: The Word of Fate)
4. Defeat Double Dreki (The Path: Creatures of Prophecy)
5. Defeat Double Soul Eater (The Path: The Summoning)

Chaos Flame location #6

This one is a reward for completing the first six Muspelheim Trials. Travel to the Mystic Gateway in the Crucible area. You should be in the middle of an arena with a Nornir chest in the center. There are three giant words that hold two combat challenges each.

Here are some tips for the six trials:

1. Weapon Mastery - You just have to kill enemies within a specific time limit. This one is very simple as you just have to use the correct weapon against elemental shields, such as the Leviathan Axe on enemies with fire shields and the Blades of Chaos on enemies with frost shields.
2. Flawless - You’ll have to defeat all enemies without taking a single hit. Most of these enemies will explode when you defeat them, so it’s better to use your Leviathan Axe and Draupnir Spear to attack them from a safe distance.
3. Ring Out - You’ll face off against enemies with rapidly regenerating health. So instead of killing them in the traditional way by depleting their HP bars, you’ll need to knock them off the ledge into the lava below. Using special skills such as Leviathan’s Fury is helpful because it will create a wave of ice that will launch enemies upward, hopefully throwing them into the lava. Serpent Snare is also very useful too as Kratos will slam his Levithan Axe into an enemy and throw them. The Chaos Blades’ Blazing Explosion and Rising Chaos skills also launch enemies into the air as well.
4. Feed the Rift - Here, you just kill enemies and they drop orbs. Kratos must grab the orbs and then throw them into the rift in the middle of the area.
5. Population Control - You need to kill the Bergsra enemy while the total enemy count is four or fewer. In the beginning, four smaller enemies will spawn alongside the Bergsra. If you just focus on the Bergsra, you should be able to take it down before any more new enemies will spawn. If, for example, you accidentally kill the Bergsra when a fifth smaller enemy spawns, then you fail the challenge.
6. King of the Hill - Here, you need to keep enemies out of a ring for a certain amount of time. There are three waves, and each wave adds an additional ring you need to defend, along with a higher time requirement (40, 70, and 90 seconds, respectively). There’s a meter at the top that fills up the longer an enemy stays inside a ring and it doesn’t refresh after every wave, so make sure to clear out any enemies ASAP with any big attacks you have.

After clearing the first six trials, go back to the Nornir chest in the middle of the arena and grab the Chaos Flame.

Chaos Flame location #7

To snag this Chaos Flame, you must survive a tough Berserker Gravestone fight — you’ll challenge Haklangr the Bearded in the Sinkholes area of Vanaheim.

Haklangr hits very hard, and all of his attacks either break your shields or are unblockable, so prioritize dodging his attacks. His main gimmick is applying frost or fire shields to his health, so use the appropriate weapon to destroy them. The Draupnir Spear also works on either element as well.

Haklangr’s most powerful attack will see him holding his hammer up and preparing to slam it into the ground. You’ll see a dark green swirl enveloping the ground around him, and that’s your signal to dodge out of that area before he brings the hammer down.

After beating him, pick up the Chaos Flame he drops.

Chaos Flame #8: How to get all 6 Chaos Sparks

To claim the final Chaos Flame, you’ll have to find the six Chaos Sparks. You can find them by defeating several corpse-like mini bosses called “The Hateful,” which spawns at the six Draugr Holes scattered throughout the nine realms. This is part of the “Born from Fire” Favor that is activated by finding your first Draugr Hole.

• Watchtower area in Svartalfheim - This will most likely be the first one you manage to find early in the game and will activate the “Born from Fire” Favor. It’s where the Watchtower Mystic Gate is.

• Applecore area in Svartalfheim - Go to the Mystic Gateway in the Applecore Descent. Keep going through the dungeon and you should come across a room filled with barrels

• The Barrens area in Alfheim - Go to Mystic Gateway in The Canyons and then ride the boat to go north to find this hole.

• The Lake of Nine area in Midgard - Go to the Mystic Gateway in Kings Grave and ride the sled down to find a ledge where the Draugr hole is.

• Abandoned Village area in Vanaheim - Behind the big building in the Abandoned Village area, the Draugr Hole is concealed there.

• The Plains area in Vanaheim - This one can only be found after completing the “Return to the River” Favor. To start this Favor, head down to the Jungle area in Vanaheim, which will automatically activate the quest. From there, go behind the giant dam and raise it to flow the water back into the entire Crater area. You’ll now be able to use a boat to cross into the little island with the Draugr Hole.

God of War Ragnarok is available now on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.