Big Walk: How to Get the Map

The map in Big Walk is locked behind the Red Tower, and reaching it opens both a room-sized model of the world and a foldable map you can carry. Walking into that room is also what earns the Big Views achievement, so it is worth prioritizing before you wander deeper into the world.

Quick answer: Finish the starting area, cross the red drawbridge, collect five puzzle items to release the key at the top of the Red Tower, run that key through every key cutter along the path back toward the gym, then slot it into the terminal at the blue tunnel with the red stairs to open the map room.

What you need before the map unlocks

Nothing about the map sequence works until the starting area is cleared. Solving those first puzzles opens the wider world and gives you access to the red drawbridge, the large red bridge on the ocean side. Crossing it is the gate that leads toward the map room.

Once the drawbridge is down and you follow the path around the cliff, you reach a shortcut back to the starting area and a large blue doorway set into the hills. That doorway stays locked until you bring it a fully cut key.

Map room doorway — The blue map room doorway in the hills.

Get the key from the Red Tower

From the starting area, head uphill toward the Red Tower, the tall upside-down cone shape that dominates the skyline. Take the path directly opposite the gym to reach it.

Red tower key location — The Red Tower holds the terminal and key that lead to the map.

Climb to the roof of the tower. You will find a terminal with a locked key and five empty slots, much like the puzzle used to lower the drawbridge. From the top, look toward the shoreline to spot the five puzzle locations you need to solve.

Solve each of the five puzzles to collect its reward item. These are the yellow maze, the green button room, the train station timer cannon, the basketball court, and the mountain overlook gesture puzzle. Several are built around cooperation, so a partner and a walkie-talkie make them faster.

Bring all five items back to the top of the tower and place them in the slots. The terminal releases the key you need for the map room.

Map Room key — The key appears once all five slots are filled.

Note: Some sources describe the Red Tower items as five gourds. Whichever form they take, all five slots must be filled before the key is released.

Cut the key and open the map room

The key does not work straight from the tower. It needs shaving down at a series of key cutters lined up along the path leading back toward the gym.

Head to the bottom of the tower and use the first key cutter just outside the entrance to start filing the key.

Follow the marker that appears above each cutter to the next one, cutting the key at each stop as you work back down toward the starting area. Do this at every cutter in order. Skipping ahead does not work, because each cut has to be applied before the tunnel appears.

After the final cutter, look for the blue tunnel building with the red staircase near the large red circular platform. This is the map room. It is not the blue tower higher up in the mountains, even though the buildings share a color. The map room sits in the red area.

Walk up the red stairs and place the finished key in the slot at the terminal. The door opens, revealing the room inside. Reaching this room is the condition for the Big Views achievement, so you will see it unlock as you step in.

The two maps and how to use them

Inside you get two separate tools. One is a large model that fills the room and cannot be moved, and the other is a foldable map on a nearby table that you can carry with you. Together they cover both planning and on-the-go navigation.

The Map in Big Walk — Both the full-scale model and the portable map live in the map room.

Map	What it shows	Best use
Room-sized model	Full 3D terrain of the world, flags on completed puzzle poles, radio stations and backpack spots	Scouting unexplored areas and tracking what is left to finish
Foldable map and compass	Zoomable sections with a subsection label in the top corner	Following coordinates and solving direction-based puzzles on the move

On the model, a puzzle marked with a flag is finished. A bare pole with no flag still needs doing, and a reward lying down means you have collected it but not yet submitted it. The portable map, along with the compass, is on the table to the right of the room entrance, next to a few laser pointers.

The handheld map does not track your live position. It only zooms and labels the current subsection, so you cross-reference that label to work out where you are. Coordinates read as four-digit pairs such as 3420, 1250, where the first two digits of each number give the grid square and the second two tell you how far across or down within it. You need the compass to sort out direction.

With both maps in hand, the rest of Big Walk becomes far easier to navigate. There is no fast travel or slide, so getting between the tower, the cutters, and the tunnel takes real walking, and having the foldable map on you saves plenty of backtracking once you are exploring the wider world.