God of War Ragnarok preview – smarter, faster, stronger
If God of War was a story about raising a child, God of War Ragnarok is about letting them make their own mistakes.
If God of War was a story about raising a child and trying to teach them to make the correct decisions, God of War Ragnarok is about letting them make their own mistakes. Mother bird feeds the babies by regurgitating food into their mouths, then it kicks them out of the nest and says, “Fly.”
Fimbulwinter has arrived in the land of the Norse gods, marking the beginning of the end by transforming the lands with blizzards and other apocalyptic phenomena. After completing his mission to spread his wife’s ashes at the highest peak in the realms, Kratos and his son, Atreus, are now in hiding. But it isn’t long before adventure calls.
At the end of the last game, Atreus found a prophecy that referred to him as Loki. Despite his deeper voice and calmer head all these years later, the knowledge weighs on him and he wants to find out who he is. Kratos, however, just wants him to be his son, but he knows that if he doesn’t bend a little, their relationship will most definitely break.
There’s a subtle shift in the power dynamics between Kratos and Atreus this time around. Kratos wants to spend as much time with his boy – a name he rarely calls him now that his son has proven himself – as he can before Ragnarok comes. Even if it means he’s no longer the one who’s setting the agenda.
That doesn’t mean Kratos has turned soft. He’s still as dry as ever. And despite Atreus being a battle-hardened warrior in his own right, he’s still a curious kid deep down. At one point when I’m exploring, we come across the remains of some long-forgotten beast – a massive skeleton stranded on a beach. “What is that?” Atreus asks. Kratos, without missing a beat, replies with one word: “Dead.”
After hands-on with the first few hours of God of War, I can confidently say that it’s the game you loved in 2018 with a bunch of improvements layered over the top. The story is more complex, the characters are more nuanced, the loot is more meaningful, the puzzles are more sophisticated, there are more boss fights and more enemy types, and your options in battle are wider. Oh, and there’s wolf sledding. Can’t forget the wolf sledding.
As with the last game, you start with just the axe, but it isn’t long before Kratos grabs his chain blades. Combat works largely the same, except you can now freeze your axe to perform a variety of different moves. As for the chains, you can spin them up at your side until they ignite, then use that to fire off another range of abilities. Combat arenas also have some verticality to them now, allowing you to hook up onto ledges and quickly change your position, or jump down from above with a powerful ground slam.
Armour, hilts, and shields can be made and upgraded, with each housing a variety of buffs and benefits, depending on your playstyle. And all of those can be upgraded along with the axe and chain blades.
When you’re out and about, you flit between linear areas and more open areas full of optional fights, puzzles, and loot. If you choose to explore the latter, you’ll be rewarded with useful items that will make the main path easier. But even outside of the power gains, there are some genuinely good moments – which I won’t spoil here – hidden in the corners of the world.
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It does an incredible job of putting an objective in your head – let’s explore that island! – before sidetracking you with another, which leads to another, which leads to another. All bite-sized, none of them outstay their welcome.
If there’s one small criticism I have of the first few hours, it’s that they retread a lot of the same ground as the last game. It’s clearly intentional – as George Lucas famously said, “It’s like poetry, it rhymes” – but it doesn’t start with its best foot forward. As for what comes next, we’ll be able to talk about that when our full review lands on November 3.
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
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