You’re wandering through Yaesha and suddenly the trees look a bit too deliberate. That’s usually the first sign you’ve stepped into the Remnant 2 Imperial Gardens. It’s one of those maps that feels like a maze designed by someone who really, really loves geometry and really, really hates your free time. Honestly, most players end up here looking for the Crossbow or that specific Blood Moon Essence, but they get stuck staring at a giant stone dial wondering if they missed a memo. You probably did. The game doesn't hold your hand.
The Imperial Gardens is a static injection in the Yaesha world, meaning it’s not guaranteed to spawn in every single campaign or adventure roll. If you’re looking for it and see the Expanding Glade instead, you’ve got the wrong tile set. You need the one with the floating islands and the suffocating amount of greenery. It’s beautiful, sure. It’s also crawling with those annoying Root flyers that prick you from a distance while you’re trying to read a stone plinth.
That Giant Dial Puzzle in the Center
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: the central plinth. You’ll find this massive circular structure with four rows of symbols. If you try to brute force this, you’re going to be there for three days. Don't do that.
Basically, the solution is scattered across the entire map. You need to find four stone tablets hidden in small alcoves or ruins around the Imperial Gardens. Each tablet has a blue glowing symbol. Now, here is where people get tripped up—the order. There isn't a "first" or "fourth" tablet in a linear sense. You just need to find all four and then input them into the dial. The tricky part isn't the symbols themselves; it's the fact that the map layout can be a bit vertical. You'll often walk right past a ruin because you’re looking at the path ahead instead of the crumbling walls to your left.
Once you line up the four symbols on the dial and activate it, the floor opens up. It’s a very "Indiana Jones" moment. Inside, you’ll find the Crossbow. It’s a classic weapon from the first game, Remnant: From the Ashes, and it still hits like a truck. High crit chance, single shot, silent. It’s perfect if you’re running a Hunter build and actually have the aim to back it up.
The Secret of the Blood Moon Door
There is another layer to the Remnant 2 Imperial Gardens that most people miss on their first pass. You might find a room with a floor plate that looks like it should open, but it just... won't. This is the Blood Moon room.
It’s frustrating. You jump on it, you shoot it, you try to interact with it. Nothing. That’s because it’s tied to the world state of Yaesha. You need a Blood Moon to be active. You’ll know it’s happening because the sky turns a sickly, beautiful red and purple, and those little pink Wisps (Root Essence) start floating around the trees.
If the sky is clear, the door stays shut. You can try to "force" a Blood Moon by traveling back and forth between the Ward 13 world stone and the Gardens, but it's RNG. It's a gamble. Some players swear by the "two-zone" rule—walk through a yellow door into a different area and walk back—but honestly, sometimes the game just doesn't want to cooperate. When the moon finally shows up, go back to that room. The trapdoor will be open, leading you to the Full Moon Circlet. This amulet is a beast for ranged builds, giving you 3% Life Steal at full health and increasing damage when you're topped off.
Mantagora: The Boss That Won't Fight Back (Mostly)
Most bosses in Remnant 2 want to tear your throat out. Mantagora is different. Mantagora is a giant, flying, mutated manta ray that just kind of circles the Remnant 2 Imperial Gardens while you’re trying to do literally anything else. It doesn't have an arena. It doesn't have a health bar that pops up at the bottom of the screen immediately.
You have to pick the fight.
If you look up and see a massive shadow moving across the forest floor, that’s her. You just start shooting. She has a massive health pool and will occasionally fire projectiles at you, but the real challenge is just staying focused on her while the local mobs try to swarm you. It’s a test of patience. Every time she flies away, you have to wait for her to loop back around the floating islands.
When she finally goes down, she drops the Lead Prism. This is the crafting material for the Momentum Mod. If you’re a fan of high-fire-rate weapons like the Bonesaw or the MP60-R, you need this. It increases Crit Chance and Crit Damage every time you land a hit. It turns a submachine gun into a laser beam of death.
Why You Keep Getting Lost
The verticality of this map is a nightmare. Yaesha is already dense, but the Imperial Gardens uses a lot of "false floors" and hidden drop-offs. If you see a ledge that looks like you might die if you jump off it, there’s a 50/50 chance there’s a chest down there.
- Check under the staircases.
- Look for breakable walls that look like ordinary stone.
- Watch the map for "gray" areas you haven't stepped on; usually, there's a ladder tucked behind a vine.
A lot of players complain that the symbols for the dial don't show up. They do. They’re just tucked away in corners that require you to actually clear the enemies first. You can't really sprint through this area and expect to see everything. The developers at Gunfire Games love hiding things in plain sight. For example, some of the stone tablets are behind those annoying root-clump walls that you have to shoot to clear.
The Anatomy of a Good Build Here
Because the Imperial Gardens is so cramped, you really don't want to be caught with a long-range sniper rifle as your only option. The Root Flyers move fast and they move in packs.
I’ve found that the Enigma (the shock gun you craft from the Labyrinth) is basically a cheat code here. It chains lightning between the flyers, clearing out the trash mobs so you can focus on the bigger Elites—like those teleporting archers that Yaesha is famous for. If you’re playing on Nightmare or Apocalypse difficulty, those archers in the Gardens will one-shot you if you aren’t paying attention to the audio cues. That "shink" sound of an arrow being notched? Dodge. Immediately.
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Things Most People Miss
There’s an armor set called the Knotted Set that looks like you’ve been swallowed by a tree. It’s not actually in the Gardens, but the materials often relate to the Great Bole or the Summoner archetype quests that intersect with these forest tiles. People often confuse the two.
Also, keep an eye out for the Lithic Glyph. This is an item that sometimes spawns in a stone chest and is used to open a specific door further into the ruins. If you find a door that looks like it has a missing "puzzle piece" in the center, you probably missed the Lithic Glyph in one of the side tunnels.
Navigating the RNG
Since Remnant 2 is procedurally generated, your Remnant 2 Imperial Gardens might look slightly different from a YouTube video you watched. The landmarks are the same—the dial, the big tree, the Mantagora—but the connecting paths shift.
If you’re hunting for the Blood Moon and it just isn't happening, some community members on Reddit suggest changing your system clock, but that’s a bit extreme and can mess with your save files. The most reliable way is just to keep playing. Go clear another dungeon, come back. Yaesha’s "state" refreshes often.
Practical Steps for Your Next Run
To make the most of your time in this zone, follow this flow:
- Don't fight the boss first. Just ignore Mantagora. If you shoot her early, you’ll be dodging her bombs while trying to solve puzzles. It’s annoying.
- Clear the perimeter. Walk the entire outer circle of the map first. This is where you’ll find three of the four stone tablets for the central dial.
- Check the sky. If the sky is red, prioritize the Blood Moon room immediately. Blood Moons don't last forever, and you don't want it to end while you're halfway through a different fight.
- Listen. The sound design in Yaesha is top-tier. Hidden walls often have a slight "hum" or a different ambient sound.
- Look for the purple glow. The Full Moon Circlet and other high-tier loot in this area often have a very distinct purple glow that can be seen through some cracks in the floor.
The Imperial Gardens isn't just a place to get a Crossbow; it's a microcosm of why Remnant 2 works. It rewards you for actually looking at the world instead of just following a waypoint on a mini-map. It’s frustrating, it’s overgrown, and you’ll probably die to a stray arrow more than once, but it’s easily one of the most rewarding "secret" areas in the game.
Once you have the Crossbow and the Lead Prism, you're pretty much set for a heavy-hitting crit build that will carry you through the rest of the Labyrinth or even into Losomn. Just remember to look up—Mantagora is always watching.