As many of you with a PlayStation console know, God of War Ragnarök is releasing on Nov. 9. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been anticipating its release for months. It has been over four years since the series’ reboot in 2018, and most people would agree that it’s one of the best games in recent years. Since so much time has passed since the last game, a refresher on the story seems in order, as well as reviewing what the new game could improve upon.

The God of War series follows, Kratos, a Spartan general who is deadset on conquering and expanding Sparta’s reach. Then, during a losing battle, Kratos pledged his allegiance to the god of war, Ares. In doing so, Kratos was able to defeat all of his enemies, but at the expense of his family. Enraged by this betrayal, he swears to enact his revenge upon Ares.

After defeating the former god of war, Ares, he claims the mantle of godhood and rules alongside the other Olympian deities. This leads to the events of the second game where Kratos is tricked by Zeus, the ruler of Olympus, to get rid of his godly powers, thus making him vulnerable. Zeus takes advantage of Kratos’ vulnerability, and kills him which sends him to the underworld. Kratos then escapes and sets out to destroy Zeus. This leads him on a quest to find the sisters of fate and go back in time to before Zeus killed him.

Kratos is unsuccessful in enacting his revenge upon Zeus by the end of the second game which leads him to raising an army of titans to attack Olympus in the third game. By the end of the entire third game, Kratos has demolished Zeus and the entire Greek pantheon, leaving the world as he knew it in complete chaos.

The latest iteration of the games takes place in a completely new setting. Kratos has aged considerably and has a new family, presumably is Scandinavia. At the beginning of this game, we find out that Kratos has renounced his violent ways and is attempting to lead a good example for his son, Atreus. Kratos’ wife has unfortunately died before the player gets a chance to interact with her, but the whole game essentially follows this quest that she wanted Kratos and Atreus to go on so that they could spread her ashes at the highest peak in the world. In doing so, however, they anger the Norse gods who become the new antagonists of the series.

That essentially encompasses the story of the last four games, but what could the new game do better? The combat within the first three games came to be known as “hack-and-slash,” meaning that a lot of emphasis was placed on taking down hoards of enemies in a brutal fashion instead of using strategy. This is in sharp contrast to the latest game which focuses more on one-on-one fights and requires you to use different skills to defeat certain enemies.

“The combat in God of War 2018 was very methodical and focuses a lot on parrying enemies,” senior Michael Kuzma said.

Although the combat in the newest game was very good, there wasn’t a great amount of enemy variety. You end up fighting a lot of reused bosses, which was a major problem for me in the latest game. You also couldn’t explore all of the different “realms” that were presented. Since the new game is based around the Norse gods instead of the Greek ones, you were able to see different areas called realms which were the homes of the different mythological beings of Norse mythology.

All in all, the last game was extremely well-made, but would have been even better if they did not reuse so many of their assets. From what we know about the upcoming game, it is even longer and has improved upon most, if not all of the complaints previously mentioned. With only one more day of waiting, will you stick around to see how Kratos’ story ends?