Tunic: What is the Golden Path?

The game's core purpose slowly unfolds as you build the instruction booklet in Tunic: follow the Golden Path. However, one detail missing from the guidelines is the definition of the Golden Path. Is there a physical location involved? Is there a link between this and the hidden save file? No. Neither. The Golden Path's secret is both one of Tunic's best-kept secrets and one that has been right in front of your eyes for the majority of the game.

You'll need to have collected all of the pages of the manual except the cover in order to interpret the Golden Path. After you've put the guide together, you might be perplexed by one page, which depicts a five-by-five grid made of gleaming gold. Each grid segment has a number on it, but the meaning of the numbers may not be immediately apparent.

Each number corresponds to a handbook page. When you inspect these pages, look for a series of 90-degree rotations that you will most likely identify as a code for the Holy Cross at this point (the d-pad or arrow keys depending on your input method.)

To decode the Golden road, take these small fragments of angles and paste them into their correct spots on the grid to create one massive path for your cross to follow. Then you take it to the locked entrance at the summit of the mountain and carefully follow it.

There are a few things to bear in mind: Nothing like a Golden Path piece can be found on one of the pages. This page explains the saving system in detail. You may have figured out the trick behind this page: navigating to the save screen, picking a file, then canceling results in a bizarre save file that merely places a grey fox on a gold path. It's a perplexing deception, but the underlying secret is that the angles of this path are designed to be slotted into the Golden Path grid.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you see a line splitting a path, you must press that way again.

It can be tough to get the path exactly perfect without creating any errors in page interpretation. So, if you need to double-check your notes, follow these steps:

Up, left, down, left, up, left, down, left, up, right, up, right, up, left, up, right, down, right, up, left, down, left, up, right, up, up, left, up, right, down, right, down, right, up, right, down, left, down, right, up, right, right, down, right, up, right, down, right, up, right, right, down, left, down, left, down, right, down, right, down, left, left, down, right, down, left, down, right, up, right, down, right, up, right, right, down, down, left, up, right, up, left, down, left, up, left, up, left, up, right, right, up, left, up.