Valor Mortis walkthrough: every blocked path, and the no map problem

Valor Mortis has no map. No minimap, no world map, no marker. Every location in this game has to be described from a checkpoint, which the game calls a Lantern, and the chapter is divided into named areas you reach from one.

That single fact decides how you play it, and it is why the places people get stuck are routes rather than fights.

How a location is given in this game

Every pickup and every route below reads as a Lantern plus the area it leads to. That is the only navigation the game offers, so it is the format worth getting used to.

Chapter 2, Regroup, runs entirely in the Valley of Ashes, and its areas are the Guidepost, The Climb, the Demolished Path, The Other Side, the Military Camp and the Quarry.

The four places Chapter 2 stops people

Where	The mistake it punishes
The Quarry	The way out is up. You are at the bottom of a shaft with scaffolding in every direction, and the instinct is to look for a tunnel at ground level. The route is the wooden scaffolding
The path to the bridge	It is blocked rather than hidden, so it reads as a dead end and people turn around and re-sweep ground they have already cleared
The Military Camp gate	Shut when you arrive. Opening it also gets you the Dominatus amber, the fourth of the chapter's six
The Oathbound, side quest	Drop the ladder from the top first. Come at it from below and you are looking at a wall with nothing to interact with

The Oathbound is the clearest example of the no map problem. The quest is perfectly doable and the order is the whole difficulty: approach from above, drop the ladder, then come back to the area and clear the enemy. Nothing on screen tells you the approach is the puzzle.

Pick the pistol up early

The pistol is in Chapter 2 on the Demolished Path, and you walk straight past the turning for it unless you know it is there.

It is worth going out of your way for. The game is first person with a sabre in the right hand, and the pistol is the ranged option you otherwise do not have. It matters most against General Lothaire, who is on you within ten seconds of the arena, and it is the thing people most often reach that fight without.

An Unheard Farewell pays a collectible

An Unheard Farewell is the Chapter 2 side quest worth doing before you go hunting ambers, because finishing it hands you the Sleight of Hand amber, the second of six, and crosses one off the list without a separate trip.

It starts from a conversation rather than a marker, which is why it is easy to walk past the whole thing.

Why this page stops where it does

A written route is close to useless in a game with no map, and that is not us being modest. There is nothing to orient against, no street name, no compass bearing, no marker to walk toward. "Head north past the second ruin" means nothing at the bottom of the Quarry.

So every route here is filmed from the Lantern it starts at, in one take, with nothing cut. The mistake each one punishes is above, because that is the part you can carry in your head. The walk is the part you need to watch.