A few months ago, I wrote an article in anticipation for God of Ragnarök. After playing through it a few times, I have a pretty good understanding of what the game did well and what it needed improvement on. Allow me to first start off by saying that this game far exceeded my expectations.

If you read my previous article, you may remember that one of my biggest complaints was that there was a lack of boss variety in the first iteration of the game. Anyone who played the previous game will be delighted to find out that no such problem is present in this game. Without getting into too many spoilers, the game makes many of the bosses optional. This encourages a lot of exploring within the world. Furthermore, entire portions of realms are completely optional as well, which encourages a lot of world exploration. Where this game really shines, though, is the story.

From the moment you start the game, you are immediately thrown into the action. As the end of the first game alluded to, you are being hunted down by Freya, one of the primary Norse gods you encounter. This is quickly followed by appearances from both Odín and Thor. For the remainder of the game, Kratos and Atreus are pursued by these two characters. In terms of actual manpower, the duo are a fair match for the Norse gods, but the problem lies within Odín. Throughout the entire game, all of the characters paint Odín out to be a trickster and schemer, and rightly so. He preys on Atreus’ impressionable mind and tries to turn him against his father by telling him that he only seeks peace. This could not be further from the truth. All of these elements combined make for an extremely exhilarating story.

Now, in terms of the actual gameplay, I thought it was phenomenal. There are what seem to be endless combinations of armor sets and magic attacks which you can use against the hoards of creatures you will face. What I will say is that there is an extremely noticeable drop in visual quality from the PS5 version of the game to the PS4 version. This is unfortunately just a result of it being a game intended for the newer generation console. I would recommend to anyone that if they wish to get a fully immersive experience that they try to play it on PS5 by whatever means necessary.

Another issue I have with the game which may just be a personal preference is that I did not find any of the sections that you played as Atreus to be very fun.

I feel as though I may not be the only one who feels this way, however, as senior Michael Kuzma also stated that “The portions of God of War where you played as Atreus were far too drawn out. The combat wasn’t nearly as fun, and many of the levels just consisted of the player trying to find useless items around the world.”

All in all, the game is extremely good and far surpasses its predecessor in almost every way imaginable. Aside from the two small complaints mentioned, this game is one that any God of War fan has to play for its amazing conclusion to the story.