GOW Ragnarok: The Desert Door Walkthrough

A definitive guide to get you through the Desert Door Favor in God of War: Ragnarok.

GOW Ragnarok Desert Door Favor Cover
The Desert Door Complete Walkthrough

The Desert Door Favor is a side quest in Alfheim in the middle of The Forbidden Sands region. God of War Ragnarok contains many favors that require much less time and effort.

The side quest is very straightforward and can be completed by following this simple guide. Read till the end to get the most out of it.


Key Takeaways:

  • To start the Desert Door Favor, you need to complete the Freyr’s Gift Favor first.
  • Firstly, gather the key parts from The Forbidden Sands area for opening the Desert Door.
  • After collecting, head North to find the Desert Door.
  • Opening the door will unleash a Drake called the Gravel Belly.
  • Use strategies against Gravel Belly to successfully defeat it and collect valuable items.

Favor Description

As mentioned, you will stay entirely in The Forbidden Sands area for this Favor. Briefly summarize, you are to find a door somewhere in the desert. To open the door, you require two key parts that you will find in the lower half of this region.

After you have collected the key parts, head straight towards the door to open it. On the other side, you will find a massive beast known as Gravel Belly that needs to be defeated.

To get to The Desert Door Favor, you must complete Freyr’s Gift Favor, as it allows you to gather any item from the crystal circles. We suggest you also complete Song of the Sands Favor, which will help you find key parts easily.

How To Find The Key Parts

To acquire these parts for unlocking the Desert Door Favor, you must travel South on your sled along with Freya. The exact location of these keys is marked here for you. 

The First Part is a little to the West of the Forbidden Sands.

Key part location on Alfheim map
First Part of the Key

With reference to the first part, the second part is directly at its East.

exact location of second part on Alfheim map
Second Part of the Key

Note that the key parts are inside blue crystals containing crystals; we will call these crystal circles. You will find more than two crystal circles, so if they do not include the parts, they will contain some other valuable collectible for you.

First Part

Let’s start with the left key first. After you have reached the marked location, you will see a crystal circle like this.

crystal circle number 1
Collecting the First part

Get off your sled and collect the first key part. The Desert Door Favor will unlock as soon as you grab it, and the objective will tell you to find the other half of it.

the desert door favor has been started
Starting The Desert Door Favor

Second Part

Standing in the exact location, you should move East. All the Crystal Circles are located in a straight line. You will see that the successive crystal circle might not have the second key part, but it will contain some valuable items like the Honed Metal.

crystal circle number 2
Collecting valuable items from second circle

Keep moving East to find the next crystal circle, which will contain the second key part if the previous one doesn’t have it. Grab it to have the complete key to yourself, and you will be ready to open the Desert Door.

crystal circle number 3
Collecting the second key part

Note that there are more crystal circles in the Forbidden Sands area. You can collect items from them if you like.

Also Read: God of War Ragnarok Voice Actors

How To Find The Desert Door

Standing at the last crystal circle, move directly toward the North to get to the desired location. Break the crates and barrels on your way for some bonus items. After traveling not too far, you will see a wooden gate at some height just like this. 

We have to break this wooden gate
Desert Door is on the other side of this wooden gate

To break it, you will have to get on the wooden rock to its left, and then by using your Blades of Chaos, you should break the wooden door to move forward.

breaking the gate
Aim at it to jump

Furthermore, you will have a short battle with multiple opponents.

Kratos vs Opponents
A short battle before the Boss fight

Your enemies will have long swords that they will frequently use to lower your health bar. Moreover, they can also use a snowball attack; a snowball will be generated by any opponent that travels in the air and explodes when it reaches you.

Save as much health as you can from this battle because the next one will be a lot harder than this.

An extra suggestion: move to the left of this open area before opening the gate, where you will see a bright yellow spot.

Collecting valuable items before the battle
Useful items for Treasure Map

Collect a valuable item from there for your Treasure Map. Adding to this, move to the right of the open area to find a narrow opening.

completing optional tasks
Go through the narrow opening to progress forward

Please go through it and collect a new artifact called Tributes to Freyr. A little close to it, you will also see a black hole. Two Vikings will come out to fight you when you get close to inspecting it.

kratos defeating the vikings for items
An optional fight against couple of Vikings

Defeat both of them with the help of Freya and collect Dust of Realms.

After that, go back and open the Desert Door with the key you collected. Upon opening it, a gigantic and scary monster will crawl out. Your next and final task is to defeat the Gravel Belly Drake.

How To Defeat The Gravel Belly

Gravel Belly is included in the list of Toughest Bosses.

Kratos vs Gravel Belly
Drake unleashed after opening the desert door

His attacks are confusing to read, so you should have the knowledge of them and also know what to do against these beforehand. Gravel Belly has a long list of attacks that may damage you more than expected.

Attacking Techniques By Gravel Belly

A standard attack is when he moves his paw toward Kratos’ face and deals minor damage. He can also swing his face when you are close to hitting Kratos with sharp horns. When you see a red circle around its face, that is when he will open its face and hit you with it.

A high damage attack the Gravel Belly uses is when he turns around to swing his tail on your face, and if that hits you at the perfect timing, it can be fatal for you.

Another severely damaging attack is when the Gravel Belly charges himself and shakes the ground in its line of sight. If you are caught in it, you will face severe health loss.

Furthermore, after you drain half of his health, the Gravel Belly gets more aggressive and start using his attacks at double speed. Now let’s see how we can counter these attacks.

Attacking Techniques Against Gravel Belly

A considerable drawback of Gravel Belly is the loading time. He will take too much time to load up his attack before he uses it. This gives you the time to dodge it before you get hit by that. Attacks like hand and face sweeps can easily be avoided by moving away from its line of sight.

Attacks like the ground shaker and the tail sweeper take much time when loading, so wait and do not dodge them instantly after they are initiated, as they will eventually damage you. Always keep in mind to take your time before you counter any Gravel Belly attacks.

Use your Leviathan Axe combined with the Blades of Chaos to damage the Gravel Belly. You will see weak spots on the front legs of the monster marked with yellow color.

Hit here to win faster
Hit these spots to deal more damage

Your main aim should be on these spots, as hitting them deals three times the typical damage.

Stay aware of all the mentioned attacks, as they are not used linearly. Your dodging key binds will be frequently used, so keep your fingers on them. Getting out of sight of Gravel Belly is the easiest way of saving maximum health. Always stay close to it to hit the counterattacks.

Related: Nornir Chests in Alfheim

Ending The Favor

The Desert Door Favor will be completed just after you have defeated the Gravel Belly.

After winning the boss fight
Aftermath of Defeating the Gravel Belly Drake

Make sure to collect all the dropped items on his body. After completing the Favor, players will receive the following:

  • Kratos 1000 XP.
  • Freya 250 XP.

The dropped items will include the following:

  • Skirnir’s Gambanteinn.
  • Amulet Enchantment.

After all, you can head out to continue your other remaining story missions in Alfheim.

Summing It Up

This is it for the guide on The Desert Door Favor. We hope you found it helpful. Keep in mind the attacking strategies against the Gravel Belly that will help you in defeating it. Keep visiting VeryAliGaming to find more helpful walkthroughs on God of War Ragnarok.

Up Next: God of War: Ragnarok Tips and Tricks.

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