The BIG WALK black tower, also called the Black Obelisk, is the thing your group stares at from across the island for hours without being able to get into. It’s the last gate before the ending, and it confuses more players than any other part of the game. Here’s how to open it and whether reaching it means you’ve finished BIG WALK.
Spoiler note: everything above the ” Is the Black Tower the End of BIG WALK ” section is safe. That part describes the final stretch.
What You’ll Find in This Guide:
What the Black Tower Actually Is
The black tower is more of a lock than a place. A lot of guides make it sound like a puzzle dungeon full of rooms. It isn’t. You feed it six blorbs, it hands you the Black Key, and that’s the whole job.
The chain goes like this:
Four colored towers → black tower opens → 6 blorbs → Black Key → the Wall → the giant Sphere → ending
The tower gates the wall, the wall gates the long walk, and the sphere holds the real puzzles.
Where the Black Tower Is on the Map
It sits in the middle-western part of the island, and you can spot it on the horizon very early from the big open grassy area.
Two things make the trip easier. The Map Room flags your completed puzzles on the big map, so you can see what you’ve missed. The chairlift, your reward for the Green Tower, cuts a lot of walking out of reaching the Blue, Yellow, and black towers.
How to Unlock the BIG WALK Black Tower
You can’t open the black tower early, no matter how many blorbs you’re carrying. The door stays shut until the four earlier towers are done, and then it opens on its own.
| Stage | Blorbs needed | What it unlocks |
| Starting Area | 4 | Red Drawbridge |
| Red Tower | 5 | Map Room |
| Green Tower | 5 | Chairlift |
| Yellow Tower | 5 | Tunnel system |
| Blue Tower | 5 | Monorail |
| Black Tower | 6 | Black Key |
You Do Not Need Six Purple Blorbs
This is the worst bit of misinformation going around. Some players swear you need six purple blorbs. You don’t. Purple and red blorbs go in the same slots and are interchangeable, and plenty of groups filled the black tower with normal blorbs before finding a single purple one.
Purple blorbs belong to the post-game challenges on the eastern ridge, which normally open after you beat the game. Don’t go hunting for them before the tower.
Stuck? Any Challenge Can Be Skipped
Almost nobody mentions this. The host can turn on challenge skipping from the accessibility menu when starting a session. If your group is hard stuck and can’t reach six blorbs, that’s your escape hatch.
Keep in mind that this feature is there so no puzzle stops you from finishing the game, including ones that require hearing, speaking, quick reactions, or fine motor control. It’s not a shortcut for puzzles that are just hard.
What’s Inside the Black Obelisk
Honestly, not much. It’s a key forge. The real puzzle content is in the sphere later, and those are the hard ones, because you can’t talk to your teammates while you solve them.
There is one odd extra, though. Some players report that activating the black tower door makes one member of the group see a strange vision the others don’t get. Multiple groups describe the same thing. Nobody knows how the game picks that player or what it means, so if it happens to you, nothing is wrong.
Is the Black Tower the End of BIG WALK?
No, but you’re close. House House say the game has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and most players reach that end around seven to ten hours in.
Here’s what’s left. Take the Black Key to the big gate on the far western side of the island and unlock the wall. Passing through pops Big Wall. Beyond it is a long, bare stretch with the black sphere on the horizon as your target, and no second key to build along the way. Inside the sphere are the voice-restricted puzzles. You come out the far side, pass a final turnstile and a white door, and the first ending plays.
The Ending Confusion, Explained
Credits are not the finish line. After the first ending, the game tells you there’s more, which is why so many people go searching for answers. Seven purple challenge puzzles open behind a purple door at the far eastern chairlift station, and they’re harder versions of things you’ve already done. Clear those, plus anything you skipped, for the true ending.
You also don’t need every puzzle for the first ending. The world holds more blorbs than you need.
Black Tower Achievements and Trophies
- Big Wall: pass through the wall gate.
- Big Goodbye: reach the first ending (secret trophy).
- Big Game: finish absolutely everything (secret trophy).
Only around 1.9% of tracked players have the platinum, so it’s a rare one.
There’s a real co-op trap here. Progression trophies are given when you personally cross, enter, or ride something, not when the group unlocks it. If one player builds the key and rides the monorail while the rest of you are elsewhere, the others can miss the trophies. Do these interactions together.
Crossplay works, but there’s no single-player mode and no matchmaking.
Have you made it past the wall yet, or is your group still stuck one blorb short? Let me know in the comments.
