Ori and the Will of the Wisps is generous about exploration, but it is not especially gentle about planning a clean 100% file. You can finish the story while leaving half of Niwen unopened, then spend hours wondering which Gorlek Ore, Spirit Shard, side quest, or no-damage achievement is still hiding from you. This guide is written for that real player problem: how to move through the game in a sensible order, when to stop for cleanup, and which achievements deserve their own save or run.
This is a 100% walkthrough and achievement guide, not a frame-perfect speedrun script. It covers the main route, key abilities, side quests, the Hand to Hand trade chain, Spirit Shard and Gorlek Ore cleanup, the Midnight Burrows puzzle, hard achievements, and practical save advice. Exact map pins vary by route, but the important rule is stable: once Hand to Hand is complete, every remaining secret appears on your map, so do not try to manually comb the entire world too early.
Spoiler note: this guide names all major regions, bosses, late-game abilities, and cleanup systems. It keeps story discussion light, but it is intended for players who want a full completion plan.
Recommended Completion Plan
If you only want one clean save, play normally until the world opens up, finish the big utility quests, then do a late-game cleanup before the final boss. If you also want the strict achievements, split them into separate runs. Trying to combine blind exploration, 100% collection, no-shard, no-spending, no-death, and under-four-hours in one file is possible for experts, but it turns a graceful metroidvania into paperwork.
| Goal | Best Approach | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First clear | Play on Normal, buy useful skills, explore naturally. | You learn boss patterns, movement, and region layout without self-imposed restrictions. |
| 100% map and collectibles | Complete Hand to Hand, buy maps, then clean up after Launch. | Late abilities and revealed secrets make the hunt dramatically faster. |
| Hard boss achievements | Use backup saves and Quick Access where available. | Mora no-hit, Kwolok under two minutes, and similar tasks are skill checks, not exploration tasks. |
| Shardless and Lightless | Do a separate Easy run. | You may collect shards and Spirit Light, but you must not equip shards or spend Spirit Light. |
| Look at the Time / Immortal | Separate routed runs with backups. | The under-four-hour and no-death achievements punish hesitation and accidents. |
Early Game Route: Inkwater Marsh To Wellspring Glades
The opening teaches you the most important habit in the game: mark anything that looks unreachable and move on. Will of the Wisps is built around returning with better tools. In Inkwater Marsh, focus on reaching the first story beats, learning wall jumps and combat spacing, and grabbing nearby upgrades that do not require late abilities.
Inkwater Marsh priorities
- Fend off Howl for the early story achievement. Do not overthink the fight; it is a tutorial pressure test.
- Finish The Missing Key when Tokk asks for help near the early gate. It teaches the game's small quest loop: find an item nearby, return it, open the way forward.
- Start A Little Braver after Howl if you find Mokk. The reward is a Gorlek Ore, which matters later for Wellspring Glades projects.
- Collect early Spirit Shards such as Magnet and Sticky when accessible. Magnet is especially comfortable for new players because it reduces missed Spirit Light pickups.
- Do the Inkwater Marsh combat shrine once you feel ready. Combat shrines add Spirit Shard slots, and slots are more valuable than most individual upgrades.
Once you reach Kwolok's Hollow, the game begins layering movement tools. Dash and Bash are not just traversal upgrades; they are the foundation of many later puzzles and achievements. Bash in particular changes how you read a screen: enemy projectiles, lanterns, bubbles, and some hazards become launch points instead of threats.
Kwolok's Hollow priorities
- Get Dash and Bash. These are mandatory for comfortable exploration and many optional pickups.
- Start Hand to Hand from the Moki in Kwolok's Hollow. You cannot finish it immediately, but starting early saves a trip.
- Do not panic about missed collectibles. Several are intentionally placed behind later abilities.
- Practice Bash aiming. If a projectile is flying at Ori, pausing to aim Bash is often safer than dodging away.
Wellspring Glades: Your Completion Hub
Wellspring Glades is more than a rest stop. It is where you buy skills from Opher, buy and upgrade shards through Twillen, spend Gorlek Ore with Grom, plant seeds with Tuley, check stats with Motay, and use several quest turn-ins. If you are aiming for 100%, return here often.
What to buy first
For a normal 100% file, the most useful early spending is practical rather than flashy. Spirit Smash opens some barriers and deals strong burst damage. Spike is excellent for bosses once you can afford it. Water Breathing removes a major exploration annoyance after water areas open. Triple Jump is expensive but worth planning around because it makes late cleanup smoother.
If you are planning a Lightless run, remember the restriction: do not spend Spirit Light. That means no Opher skills, no Twillen purchases, no Lupo maps, and no upgrades bought with Spirit Light on that file. Do that in a separate run after you know the route.
Gorlek Ore priorities
Spend Gorlek Ore on projects that open access before cosmetic comfort. The glades rebuild chain is tied to completion, and several side quests expect areas of the hub to be repaired. If you end up at 39/40 Gorlek Ore, check whether you finished A Little Braver; community guides consistently flag that one as an easy-to-miss ore because it is a quest reward rather than a map pickup.
Main Story Route And Cleanup Windows
The broad story flow moves from Inkwater Marsh and Kwolok's Hollow into the Wellspring, then branches toward the major wisp regions. The exact order can vary once Niwen opens, but a comfortable completion route looks like this:
- Inkwater Marsh: learn movement, clear Howl, collect easy shards and early cells.
- Kwolok's Hollow: get Dash and Bash, start Hand to Hand, reach Wellspring Glades.
- The Wellspring: get Grapple, clear the watermill escape, finish The Lost Compass while you are nearby.
- Luma Pools: use underwater movement and bubbles; prepare for Kwolok.
- Baur's Reach: manage cold areas, Light Burst interactions, and the avalanche escape.
- Mouldwood Depths: get and use Flash, then fight Mora.
- Windswept Wastes and Windtorn Ruins: use Burrow, complete A Diamond in the Rough, and progress the late Hand to Hand steps.
- Silent Woods and Willow's End: obtain Launch, clean up the map, then finish the game.
The best cleanup window is after you have Launch and after Hand to Hand has revealed secrets. Launch resets under familiar movement-reset conditions and lets Ori solve many late platforming routes with far more freedom. Before Launch, some pickups are technically reachable through advanced tricks, but for a normal player that is wasted effort.
Hand To Hand Trade Chain
Hand to Hand is the single most important side quest for 100% completion because its final reward reveals every remaining secret on the map. Finish it before serious cleanup. The chain is long, but it is simple if you treat it as a delivery route.
| Step | Where | Trade |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kwolok's Hollow | Talk to the Moki and receive the map. |
| 2 | Wellspring Glades | Give the map to Tokk and receive the Wanderer's Pouch. |
| 3 | The Wellspring interior | Give the pouch to the Moki and receive herbs. |
| 4 | Baur's Reach | Give the herbs to Veral and receive Spicy Soup. |
| 5 | Baur's Reach | Give the soup to the cold Moki and receive a Comfy Hat. |
| 6 | Wellspring Glades | Give the hat to the Moki near Twillen and receive a Lantern. |
| 7 | Mouldwood Depths | Give the lantern to the Moki and receive Mouldwood Silk. |
| 8 | Luma Pools | Give the silk to the fishing Moki and receive a Spyglass. |
| 9 | Wellspring Glades | Give the spyglass to Motay and receive a Canteen. |
| 10 | Windswept Wastes | Give the canteen to the thirsty Gorlek and receive a Map Stone Fragment. |
| 11 | Windtorn Ruins | Place the fragment in the map stone to reveal remaining secrets. |
Two practical notes: first, you need access to several late regions, so do not try to force the whole chain early. Second, after the final step, still buy Lupo's area maps where needed. The revealed secrets are only useful if your map coverage is readable.
Side Quests Worth Tracking
Completionist requires every side quest, and several quests feed directly into collectibles or upgrades. Keep a simple checklist instead of trusting memory.
- The Missing Key: early Tokk quest in Inkwater Marsh.
- A Little Braver: starts after Howl and rewards a Gorlek Ore.
- Hand to Hand: the trade sequence that reveals secrets.
- The Lost Compass: Tokk quest around the Wellspring, after Grapple.
- Family Reunion: tied to rebuilding a Moki home through Grom.
- Into the Darkness: requires Flash and repaired glades access; rewards a large Spirit Light container.
- The Tree Keeper: starts with Kii in Silent Woods and leads to Ancestral Light through Tuley.
- Regrowing the Glades: plant mysterious seeds with Tuley as you find them.
- Rebuilding the Glades: spend Gorlek Ore on Grom's projects.
- The Silent Map: Lupo-related glades quest.
- Into the Burrows: the Midnight Burrows bell-flower puzzle.
- A Diamond in the Rough: starts in Windswept Wastes and unlocks the Secret shard after appraisal.
- Kwolok's Wisdom: Luma Pools quest line.
Midnight Burrows Puzzle Solution
The Into the Burrows puzzle is one of the few places where a direct code is useful. The stone tablets show heights, and the hanging flowers match those heights. Bash through the flowers in the shown order to open the path.
| Goal | Flower Order |
|---|---|
| Open the lower path | Left, Center, Right, Right, Left, Center, Left |
| Open the path to the Ancestral Tree | Left, Center, Left, Right, Right, Center, Left |
The second sequence is the first one read backward after you bring the Curious Tablet clue back to Tokk. If the flowers do not respond as expected, reset your position, make sure you are bashing from flower to flower rather than merely touching them, and repeat the sequence deliberately.
Collectibles And 100% Cleanup
For a full file, expect to collect Spirit Shards, Life Cell fragments, Energy Cell fragments, Gorlek Ore, Spirit Light containers, mysterious seeds, maps, and combat shrine rewards. The game is much less frustrating if you separate collection into three passes.
Pass 1: natural exploration
During the story, pick up anything close and obvious. Buy maps from Lupo when you can afford them on a normal file. Do combat shrines as you find them because extra shard slots help everywhere. Do not spend twenty minutes on a pickup that seems one movement tool away; it probably is.
Pass 2: post-Launch cleanup
Once you have Launch, return to older regions. Launch, Bash, Burrow, Grapple, Flash, Light Burst, and water access cover almost every secret route. This is also the right time to finish late side quests, plant remaining seeds, and complete combat shrines you skipped.
Pass 3: revealed-secret cleanup
After Hand to Hand reveals secrets, sweep each map area methodically. Start at a Spirit Well, clear every visible marker, and avoid hopping randomly between regions. If one Gorlek Ore is still missing after map cleanup, check quest rewards, especially A Little Braver. If a Spirit Shard is missing, check whether you bought the purchasable shards from Twillen and completed A Diamond in the Rough for Secret.
Boss And Escape Achievements
Many story achievements unlock naturally: Close Call for Howl, Take the Bug by the Horn for the Horn Beetle, Let the Waters Flow for the Wellspring escape, Icy Escape for Baur's Reach, Dark Triumph for Mora, Guardian's Rest for Kwolok, Quick Sand for the ruins escape, Stone Cold for Shriek, and Destiny for the ending. The ones below need extra care.
High and Dry
High and Dry asks you to avoid touching corrupted water during the Wellspring escape. Treat it as a clean-run challenge. If you hit the purple water, use a backup save instead of hoping the achievement still counts. Community notes suggest some water-wall moments may not count the same way as standing water, but the safe advice is simple: touch none of it.
Untouchable
Untouchable requires defeating Mora without taking damage. Do this after you understand Mora's patterns, preferably on Easy if you are not proving a point. Useful shard choices from community testing include damage-boosting setups such as Lifeforce, Reckless, Overcharge, Finesse, and Spirit Surge when you have enough Spirit Light to make it matter. Extra shard slots from combat shrines make the setup more forgiving.
During the fight, prioritize survival over greed. Bash projectiles, keep space when Mora climbs or repositions, and use ranged damage when close contact is too risky. If you take a hit, restart immediately instead of finishing a failed attempt.
Timely Demise
Timely Demise is the Kwolok under-two-minutes achievement. Spike is the common recommendation because it delivers heavy burst damage. Use damage shards, practice the fight through Quick Access if available, and route your energy use so you do not spend the final phase scrambling for resources.
Damage Spike
Damage Spike requires defeating three enemies with a single Spike. The easiest setup is a clustered group in a combat shrine or a region with small flying enemies. Use Exploding Spike if you have it, group enemies first, then fire once into the center of the pack.
Bring It On and Juggling Act
Bring It On asks you to defeat five enemies without touching the ground. Combat shrines are ideal because enemies spawn quickly and you can chain Bash, Dash, Launch, Glide, and attacks. Juggling Act is less predictable; look for enemies or arenas with multiple slow projectiles, then keep bashing them upward instead of trying to kill everything immediately.
Restriction Runs: Shardless, Lightless, Speed, Immortal
These achievements are where save discipline matters. Make manual backup saves before risky bosses, escapes, and late-game platforming. On PC, many players use backup files for practice; if you do, keep your own clean backups and do not rely on downloaded saves for a guide-worthy completion.
Shardless
For Shardless, you may collect Spirit Shards, but you must not equip them. The danger is muscle memory: opening the shard menu and slotting a convenience shard can ruin the run. Start the file with a clear rule and leave the shard screen alone unless you are only checking inventory.
Lightless
For Lightless, do not spend Spirit Light. That means no buying abilities from Opher, no purchasing or upgrading shards from Twillen, and no buying Lupo maps. Because Lightless removes so much comfort, it pairs naturally with Shardless on Easy, after you already know the required story path.
Look at the Time
Look at the Time requires finishing under four hours. Do not combine this with 100% collection. Your route should prioritize mandatory abilities, required bosses, and direct travel. Optional pickups are only worth it if they save more time than they cost. Spike and strong damage options can shorten boss fights, but only if your run allows spending.
Immortal
Immortal requires completing the game without dying. Community testing around death counting is not perfectly uniform, especially around chase sequences and boss attempts, so the safe standard is stricter than the minimum: avoid all deaths, keep backups, and reload immediately after any fatal mistake. Motay's death count is useful, but do not treat ambiguous deaths as harmless unless you are willing to redo the run.
Advanced Movement: Useful, Not Required
Several community guides document advanced movement such as Sentry Jumping and Hammer Boosting. These can reach areas early, save time, or make challenge routing more stylish. They are not required for a normal 100% file, and new players should not learn the game through sequence-breaking first.
- Sentry Jumping: uses Sentry with an attack such as Spirit Edge or Spirit Smash at tight timing to gain extra height.
- Hammer Boosting: chains jumps with Spirit Smash momentum to climb or move farther than expected.
- Light Burst Bash: charge Light Burst on the ground, then Bash off the projectile for height or positioning.
- One-sided wall breaks: some barriers can be manipulated from unexpected sides, but this is cleanup tech rather than core routing.
Use these tricks if you enjoy movement tech or speedrun-style routing. For a readable first 100%, the intended ability order plus Launch cleanup is cleaner and less error-prone.
Suggested Shard Setups
There is no single best build because achievements ask for different things. Think in loadouts.
| Situation | Good Shard Logic |
|---|---|
| General exploration | Comfort and economy: Magnet, Sticky, Triple Jump, Secret, or utility shards that reduce missed pickups. |
| Boss damage | Damage multipliers and crit-style shards; pair with Spike or another strong ranged option. |
| No-hit practice | Damage is useful, but only after you can survive patterns. Do not equip risky shards unless you know the fight. |
| Cleanup | Secret plus movement comfort. The goal is seeing and reaching hidden routes quickly. |
| Shardless | None. Collecting is allowed, equipping is not. |
Video Walkthrough
If you want visual routing beside this written guide, the video below was verified through YouTube oEmbed as 100% Walkthrough Ori and the Will of The Wisps by Carrot Helper – 100% Walkthroughs. Use it for map movement and collectible timing; use the written sections here for planning, achievement separation, and cleanup priorities.
Common Mistakes
- Cleaning too early: wait for Launch and the Hand to Hand reveal before doing a serious collectible sweep.
- Forgetting quest rewards: not every Gorlek Ore or completion item is a visible pickup.
- Mixing restriction goals: Shardless, Lightless, Immortal, and speedrun goals are much easier as planned separate files.
- Ignoring combat shrines: extra shard slots make boss and exploration builds stronger.
- Spending on a Lightless run: even one purchase can invalidate the achievement attempt.
- Trusting memory during Hand to Hand: write down your current trade item, because the chain crosses nearly the whole map.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I keep playing after the final boss?
Yes, you can return for cleanup, but it is still smarter to make a backup before the ending and finish major collection work once Launch and secret reveal are available.
Do I need advanced tricks for 100%?
No. Sentry Jumping, Hammer Boosting, and wall-break tricks are useful for challenge routing or early access, but a standard 100% file can use intended abilities.
What reveals all secrets on the map?
The final reward from Hand to Hand reveals remaining secrets. Pair it with area maps so the markers are easy to use.
Why am I stuck at 39/40 Gorlek Ore?
Check quest rewards, especially A Little Braver in Inkwater Marsh. Also confirm Hand to Hand is complete so hidden map markers are revealed.
Should I play on Easy for achievements?
For strict achievements such as Untouchable, Look at the Time, Shardless, Lightless, and Immortal, Easy is the practical choice unless you specifically want a harder personal challenge.
Sources & Credits
Official game metadata and screenshots are from the Steam store page for Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Side quest and achievement planning was cross-checked against Rock Paper Shotgun's side quest guide and multiple Steam Community walkthrough, achievement, and movement-tech references. The embedded video is credited in the video section.