The Black Tower is the last gate between your group and the ending of Big Walk. When you first walk up to it, the tower hypnotizes one player, plays a short cutscene, and shows a key sitting on the roof that you cannot yet touch. The tower is not a dungeon full of rooms. It is a lock that opens only after you feed it six puzzle collectibles, hands you a key, and points you toward the black sphere in the distance.
Quick answer: Finish all four colored towers so the Black Tower door opens on its own, solve the six Black Tower puzzles and collect all six gourd-shaped rewards, place them at the tower to reach the roof key, then take the key to the barred wall. Passing through the wall and walking to the black sphere triggers the first ending (the Big Goodbye achievement).
What opens the Black Tower
You cannot force the Black Tower open early, no matter how many collectibles you are carrying. Its door stays shut until the four earlier towers are finished, then it opens by itself. After that, the tower needs six collectibles instead of the five that each colored tower asked for.
The full chain runs in one direction, and each stage unlocks the next:
| Stage | What it needs | What it opens |
|---|---|---|
| Four colored towers | Their puzzle rewards | The Black Tower door |
| Black Tower | 6 collectibles | The roof key |
| Roof key | Placed at the wall | The barred wall |
| The wall | Walk through | Route to the black sphere |
| Black sphere | Final co-op rooms | First ending (Big Goodbye) |
Note: you do not need purple collectibles for this. Purple and red pieces slot into the same sockets and are interchangeable, so six normal ones are enough. Purple challenges belong to the post-game and open only after the first ending. If your group is truly stuck on a single puzzle, the host can turn on challenge skipping from the accessibility menu so no puzzle blocks the finish.
Puzzles that block voice chat
Three of the six Black Tower puzzles deliberately take away your ability to speak. You have to agree on a signal system before you start, then communicate with gestures, lights, and movement. Decide what each signal means first, keep it simple, and never guess a switch, because a wrong input usually resets your progress.
Blue Locked Room Symbol puzzle
This one sits down and to the left of the Black Tower entrance, in a locked room with a set of switches outside and a meter above them. One player goes inside and one stays at the switches. Seven symbols light up at random inside, and the inside player cannot say which one is active.
Green Room Red Light puzzle
Head right from the Black Tower entrance and drop down near the two large green-grey pillars to find two rooms. One room shows a tile pattern, the other is where you rebuild it, and voice chat is disabled. The player rebuilding places a tile in front of a one-way blackboard, and the player who can see the pattern reads the tile’s position through it and answers with a red light.
Agree on the light code first. A common setup uses the number of flashes to mean the slot number, so two flashes means the second position. A burst of rapid flashes can mean the tile does not belong in the pattern at all. Place each tile, confirm it, then repeat until both sides match and the reward appears.
Double Green Barn puzzle
This barn sits near the Green Wall. From the Yellow Tower, head straight right until you reach it, with the collectible waiting out front. Inside, one room shows a sequence of physical poses, and your teammate has to recreate them with tiles, again without voice.
Have one player study the pose sequence, then move to the narrow chamber on the right and act each gesture out slowly with the character’s body. The teammate watches, matches each pose to the correct tile, and enters the exact order. Order matters, so if a gesture is missed, repeat that one instead of restarting the whole run. Finishing it releases the gourd-shaped collectible at the front of the barn.
Puzzles built on movement and positioning
The other three puzzles are about guiding a teammate, carrying pieces, or throwing an object upward. None of them have a timer, so accuracy matters more than rushing.
Golden Mask Obstacle Race puzzle
One player wears a golden mask that fully blocks their view, and the other guides them through an obstacle course. Voice is allowed here, so treat it like steering a remote-control car. Put the mask on one player, push them through the starting gate, and call out short, single instructions before each obstacle, telling them exactly when to move, jump, climb, or turn.
Red walls can block your line of sight, so keep moving around them to keep eyes on your teammate. Give one instruction at a time and let them react rather than stacking commands. At the end, the masked player presses the button to complete the run and hand over the collectible.
Chairlift Shape Sequence puzzle
This is the simplest of the six. One side of the chairlift shows a completed shape sequence, and the other side has loose shapes you must carry across and arrange the same way. Memorize the pattern first, then ferry the shapes over and place each one in the matching position, paying attention to both the shape and its exact spot. A backpack lets you carry two shapes at once, which cuts the number of chairlift trips in half.
Deep Well puzzle
The Deep Well is a tall vertical room, and the collectible sits at the very bottom. The catch is that grabbing it closes the stairs, so you cannot walk back up. Instead, you throw the collectible from platform to platform until you reach the top.
Bank all six collectibles and take the roof key
Solving a puzzle is not the same as claiming its reward. Each puzzle drops a gourd-shaped collectible, and these are easy to leave behind once the challenge clears. Before returning to the tower, confirm you are actually carrying six of them.
Bring all six back to the Black Tower and place them in their sockets. Once the sixth is slotted, the tower’s final progression opens and you can climb to the roof. The key you saw during the opening cutscene is now reachable. Pick it up to continue toward the ending.
Tip: progression trophies unlock when you personally cross, ride, or interact with something, not when the group unlocks it. Do the tower interactions together so nobody misses a credit while standing elsewhere on the island.
From the key to the first ending
The Black Tower is a key forge, so once you hold the key the real path opens up. Carry it to the large barred gate on the far western side of the island and use it to unlock the wall. Walking through pops the Big Wall trophy.
Beyond the wall is a long, bare stretch with the black sphere waiting on the horizon and no second key to build along the way. Head straight for it. Inside the sphere are the final co-op rooms, and you clear them until you reach a dark red chamber with a suspended mechanism and a button. Press that button, wait for the sphere to power down and open, then follow the red route across the water to the small ending building. Use Wave Goodbye at the sign, press the entrance button, and go inside as a group.
You will know it worked when the credits roll and the hidden Big Goodbye achievement unlocks. That is the point where a normal first playthrough is complete.
Why the key or ending won’t trigger
If the roof key is missing or the tower will not accept your progress, the cause is almost always one of a few things.
- The four colored towers are not all finished, so the Black Tower door has not opened yet.
- You solved a puzzle but never picked up its collectible, so you have fewer than six.
- Not all six collectibles are placed in the tower’s sockets.
- You hunted for purple collectibles first. They are a post-game item and are not required here.
Reaching the black sphere and rolling credits is only the first of two endings. Continuing on the same save opens seven purple puzzles, which are harder remixes of challenges you have already beaten. Clearing those, plus anything you skipped earlier, spawns a final key near the spawn area that opens a hidden room for the true ending and the Big Game achievement. For simply unlocking the ending through the Black Tower, though, the six collectibles and the roof key are all you need.
