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If players are looking to get certain sets of armor or a quest-locked weapon, this decision can make or break those wants if the right choice isn’t made.

Updated September 28, 2021, by Jacob Buchalter: Remnant: From The Ashes is one of those games that resurfaces in its popularity every now and again thanks to services like Xbox Game Pass or PS+, or even just when Dark Souls fanatics need something new to hold them over.

So, with that said, let’s take another look at the potential choices players can make with the Guardian Heart in this game, and what each decision eventually leads to.

4 How To Even Get The Guardian Heart In The First Place

Within Remnant’s “lore”, each Realm (including Earth) has its own Guardian with a “Dreamer” connected to them that stops the Root from being able to invade. And, due to a series of events that led to the current post-apocalyptic state of Rhom, their Guardian, Nui, is gone.

So, “for the sake of his people”, the Undying King (who was connected to Nui) asks the player to go to Corsus and steal the heart of their Guardian (an oddly difficult moth-creature named Ixillis) and bring it to him. First, players have to make it to the Undying King in the first place, wandering the wasteland of Rhom, likely encountering the Glowing Rods event, and maybe a difficult Dungeon Boss or two.

But, once they find him, there are three potential choices players can make:

They can go to Corsus, kill Ixillis for its heart, and bring it back to the Undying King in exchange for his Labyrinth Key that brings them to Yaesha. They can kill Ixillis, get its heart, and give it to the Iskal Queen in exchange for the Crossbow Weapon and Slayer armor set. Or, they can kill the Undying King either before or after Corsus and take his Labyrinth Key (and his heart) for themselves.

Each choice has its own pros and cons, but it isn’t an end-all-be-all decision, considering Remnant is a game built for replayability in the first place.

And, because players can just kill the Undying King to skip Corsus, getting the Guardian’s Heart is technically an optional objective that can be ignored altogether, leaving Ixillis to serve as the Guardian of Corsus as it was meant to do. In any case, let’s go a bit more into the specifics of each choice.

3 Give It To The Undying King

The Undying King asks for the Guardian Heart as a means of saving his world and protecting his people from the Root. His motives seem sincere but his methods bring those motives into question since he is quick to resort to violence and lashes out at everyone who might stand in his way.

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It’s implied through him having a Labyrinth Key and some NPC dialog that this Rhom King was using the portals in the Labyrinth to search other worlds for a Guardian’s Heart to restore Rhom’s Guardian so it’s very likely that he does actually want whats best for the kingdom.

If the player chooses to give him the heart, the Undying King will thank them and reward them with a few items before using the Guardian Heart on the pool of liquid behind him, which is implied to be the healing vessel of Rhom’s Guardian. Here are the exact rewards he gives:

Riven: The first item he gives seems to be his own personal weapon named “Riven”. It’s a fantastic scythe that has low damage and high attack speed, but players will receive a portion of the damage they deal back as health. The Labyrinth Key: Players will be getting this from the Undying King regardless of their Guardian Heart choice, as its a required item to progress the story. This is the Labyrinth Key the King used to travel between Realms, and it’s how players get to Yaesha. There are some other “rewards” players can get from the Undying King, but only from killing him, not from working with him.

This is the option most players opt-in for on their second+ run of the game since it skips Corsus entirely. Any, after playing through the Ixillis boss fight once, most people understandably choose to skip it from then on.

2 Refuse To Give It To The Undying King

This path is somewhat avoidable (at least for a little bit) because, if the player doesn’t talk to the Undying King after obtaining the Guardian Heart, he won’t fight them. But, until they do talk to him (and fight him) they can’t progress the campaign.

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That said, once the player refuses to give the Heart to the Undying King, the boss fight against him begins. It’s actually one of the more difficult mid-game boss fights, so a bit of preparation goes a long way. And, thankfully, this guide on the fight itself goes pretty in-depth too.

And, this battle is where the King sort of reveals how petty he is and that his intentions might not be incredibly “pure”, since he mocks the player’s battle prowess by only using two of his four hands for the first phase. Not only that, but when things get dire, the King even siphons from the healing pod of Rhom’s Guardian to keep himself alive.

In any case, once he’s dead and gone, players will receive:

The Undying Heart: It should be obvious, but this is the literal heart of the Undying King. Can be taken and turned into the Ruin , one of the best Long Guns with the amazing Undying Weapon Mod. The Kingslayer Trait: Inarguably one of the better Traits in the game, as it increases critical hit damage. A Simulacrum: Used to upgrade the Dragon’s Heart or Upgrade a Weapon/Armor to +10. And finally, The Gravedigger Emote.

1 Hand It To The Iskal Queen, Cessnya

Whereas Ezlan Nui, the Undying King and “Dreamer” of that Realm, likely hid sinister intentions behind a noble outer shell, the Iskal Queen is just purely sinister. She’s the Queen of the Iskal, obviously, which is a hivemind race of insect-like creatures that took over the entire Corsus Realm. She’s also the final choice players can make as for who they give the Guardian Heart to.

And, while players get nothing from her if they choose to give the Heart to the Undying King, if they give the Heart to her they’ll get her rewards and then eventually the rewards from killing the Undying King, making it feel like the most “rewarding” option.

Her rewards include:

The Slayer Armor Set: A set based around buffing players temporarily after they reload, making it perfect for high-damage, low ammo-count weapons like the Crossbow. The Crossbow: If it wasn’t obvious enough that the Slayer Set was meant for single-shot weapons, her giving the player the Crossbow is an even more obvious clue.

Talking to the Iskal Queen after obtaining the Heart has no impact on the campaign, even if the player refuses to give her the item. They will still be able to buy items from her shop (as she is an NPC of sorts). But, players can actually also fight the Iskal Queen as well in Adventure Mode thanks to the Swamps of Corsus DLC.

This fight requires finding her “castle” by re-rolling the Corsus Realm enough times, but it’s arguably a more difficult fight than the Undying King in just about every way.

Remnant: From The Ashes was released on August 16, 2019, and is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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