The castle is seen covered in organic thorns and pockmarks, signs that it is being consumed from beneath by Godwyn, a former demigod who has become the "Prince of Death" in his undead state.

While the castle can be skipped using a hidden route, defeating Godrick is necessary to claim one of the Great Runes, items that bestow power on the player character and are needed to continue the game's storyline.

Should the player choose the standard, longer path, which functions akin to a linear tutorial, they must fight through several bladed Warhawks, and then climb upwards while navigating one of the castle's broken walls.

The player encounters and can choose to fight an Ulcerated Tree Spirit miniboss,[3] after which they find the misshapen corpse of Godwyn that has been slowly infecting the castle.

[4] Stephen T. Wright of GameSpot noted that Stormveil Castle was one of the site's best overall video game levels of 2022, describing it as "a celebration of how far FromSoftware has come since the days of Demon's Souls".

He called Stormveil "special" amongst other castles in FromSoftware-developed games, due to its "genuine, good faith effort to create an entire vast medieval living space for your Tarnished hero to smash their way through", and described its layout as "logical".

He described the first quarter of the level as "designed to encourage and teach verticality" by placing both rewards, in the form of items, and enemies such as birds above the player's head, forcing them to look up and carefully observe the environment.

However, he called the level's tutorial techniques overly hands-off, describing it as "incredibly linear and punishing" if players did not understand how to properly navigate the castle.

[7] Hilton Webster of TheGamer said that Stormveil "feels like a full castle", noting that it "surmises much of what Elden Ring excels at", and calling it "something that could've never worked in a previous Soulsborne game".

[8] Cass Marshall of Polygon stated that she did not "care" for Stormveil Castle's bomb-wielding Warhawks, saying that they made her " feel less like a legendary hero and more like Wile E. Coyote", furthermore saying that she died to one of them more than she did to Margit".