Spoiler warning: this guide may discuss puzzles and story details. Hints stay hidden until you choose to reveal them.
This is Part 5 of GameClue's seven-part Order of the Sinking Star walkthrough. After the four cardinal campaigns (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4), gold rooms are the second layer: six pair rooms that fuse two worlds across a glowing seam, then unlock surface crossover zones. Part 6 covers Antipode High and Low once enough Antipode teleporters are live.
Soft gold-room rules
- Each gold room joins two rule sets on one board. A seam splits the halves; heroes must help each other across it.
- HxM, MxS, and MxB use Mirror Isles teleport rules: a right-angle mirror beam can cross the seam. A red beam means the landing tile is blocked.
- HxB and SxB lean on Beamcasters gems, emitters, and (often) the Rod. HxS mixes Hauling heroes with Skipping Stones paving.
- Opening a room usually needs meaningful progress in both parent worlds, then a gold object (mirror, stone, path) parked into the room.
- Each cleared gold room also hosts an Antipode teleporter (Steam achievements such as Gold HxM). Four active teleporters unlock the Antipode route for the first ending - details in Part 6.
- Crossover areas beyond the rooms are large. This part opens the rooms and maps which zones they unlock; full board dumps belong to dedicated area guides and may shift with patches.
Structure below follows GameRant's Gold Rooms table and open guides (HxM, HxS, MxS, plus HxB/MxB/SxB sections inside connected-area walkthroughs), cross-checked with sinkingstarwalkthrough's all-six Gold Rooms page and crossovers index, WikiTactics area pages, and Gamer Guru gold-room companions. Where video routes disagree on order or an item name is unclear on camera, that is called out as unknown or patch-sensitive.
Six gold rooms and what they unlock
- HxM (northeast): Heroes and Water, Heroes and Mirrors.
- MxS (southeast): Mirrors and Stones.
- HxB (northwest): Heroes and Light, Heroes and Light Advanced, Heroes and Artifacts.
- SxB (southwest): Stones Illuminated.
- HxS (far north and south): Heroes and Stones West/East, Heroes and Water North.
- MxB (far west): Reflected Beams and Beams Reflected.
HxM - Heroes and Mirrors
Soft tip: unlock a golden mirror deep in Mirror Isles, clear a south path in Heroes 3: Bard, Druid until you face that mirror, then chain yellow crystal barriers through the green-robe opening into the gold room.
MxS - Mirrors and Stones
Soft tip: from Skipping Stones screen 2, shove the gold skipping stone into Mirror Isles water, then from the southwest gold mirror ferry and submerge that stone until you can stand on it and enter MxS.
HxB - Heroes and Beamcasters
Soft tip: needs deep Heroes of Hauling plus Vault of the Beamcasters progress. The room sockets one gem for a cyan beam across the seam so the Cleric can herd goblins; a spare gem is the shove tool for a corner-wedged goblin.
SxB - Skipping Stones and Beamcasters
Soft tip: Sailor sinks a stepping column so the Explorer can grab a ledge gem (and Rod-like item), lights a green through-wall beam into the Sailor hut, frees hut stones, then the pair swaps exits - Explorer to the Sailor dock, Sailor through walls to the Explorer pad.
HxS - Heroes and Skipping Stones
Soft tip: drop a Heroes 3 barrier, clear Heroes Together, push a gold skipping stone from the bottom of South into the room so it pins a monster, then solve the swapped-exit gold puzzle.
MxB - Mirrors and Beamcasters
Soft tip: far-west room after serious Vault and Mirror Isles progress. Mirrors ferry the Explorer into ruins to free a purple beam; a bent beam becomes the mutual ride home.
Surface crossovers after the rooms
Soft tip: each gold room is a door, not the whole second layer. GameRant and the sinkingstarwalkthrough crossovers index point to large mixed-rule zones. Do not expect this Part 5 to list every board - several areas exceed twenty puzzles and WikiTactics still marks occasional solutions as build-sensitive.
- From HxM: Heroes and Water; Heroes and Mirrors (WikiTactics lists ~30 Heroes and Mirrors boards).
- From MxS: Mirrors and Stones.
- From HxB: Heroes and Light (multi-screen), Light Advanced, Heroes and Artifacts.
- From SxB: Stones Illuminated (multi-screen laser/stone hybrids).
- From HxS: Heroes and Stones West/East; Heroes and Water North (split sections).
- From MxB: Reflected Beams; Beams Reflected.
- Other surface mixes (Squeeze/Dragon, duplicated heroes, endpoint hybrids, etc.) appear on the crossovers index as you open more of the map.
Unknowns and patch-sensitive notes
- Exact open prerequisites for every gold object can depend on which cardinal campaigns you finished first; if a gold mirror/stone is missing, finish more of the parent world before assuming a soft-lock.
- SxB ledge item: behaves like the Rod but is not always named in footage.
- MxS final mirror/stone parking and HxS crystal order differ between English and Chinese reference videos.
- WikiTactics (Nov 2026 notes) still lists version notices on a minority of puzzles, including some beam/crossover boards - re-check if a published step fails on your build.
- Full crossover solution dumps are deferred; use the linked area guides when you enter each zone.
Next: Part 6 Antipode
When four gold-room Antipode teleporters are active, Part 6 covers Antipode High and Low through the first ending and related finales.
