The Stellar Blade ladder and water puzzle explained
Stellar Blade has a confusing sequence where you have to leap to a ladder across a pond of water
Stellar Blade's first puzzle is about how to get to a ladder over a pool of water, all while exploring Eidos 7. It's one of those moments that's easy to get confused in, because crossing water is something that doesn't allow you to jump up to the ladder's level, and the puzzle itself uses mechanics that the game doesn't tell you about. I'll show you how to cross the water and get up the ladder in the early hours of Stellar Blade below.
How to get to the ladder over the water in Stellar Blade
The Stellar Blade ladder and water puzzle where you have to cross the pond has a very simple solution: you need to push the wooden planks in the water, as they act as platforms. Dive into the water, push one of the planks by simply swimming at it, and it will move accordingly. Then, once you reach the ladder, climb onto the platform by pressing the jump button and you can leap up onto the ladder, letting you climb up to the next area - which happens to be a camp/checkpoint that you can use to heal at.
It's also worth mentioning that before you complete the puzzle, you should dive beneath the water and swim through a hole in the chain fence, as there's a chest with some resources on the other side - resources that aren't going to be very helpful at this very early point in the game, but you'll be glad that you grabbed them later on as your options expand and more.
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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.