God of War Ragnarök (2022)

I realized a lot of people don't know about this so...

1. There's a secret area in Vanaheim called 'The Crater' that is practically a full game. There are at least 6 more hours of missions, exploring and killing bosses in there and you also learn something very interesting about an old fight between Thor and Faye.

2. After finishing the game, there's a new area in Niflheim near the Raven's Tree. You can find a very interesting surprise at the bottom.

What started in 2018 seamlessly continues 4 years later.

It's a bit disappointing that the game is a PS4 game first and foremost and as such it doesn't really shine as a PS5 title. But other than that, this sequel looks better, runs better, implements deeper combat and offers an expanded world and set of characters to explore.

The Nine Realms is such an interesting setting both because of the varied and colorful scenery and because of the gods and lore that give these games so much personality.

The only criticisms I can level at this sequel is that maybe the pacing isn't quite right at times and the lack of innovation, as this is just another solid entry for the series and the genre but doesn't really represent a breakthrough this time.

9/10.

Sometimes I feel like Mark Brown is inside my head, and while it almost creeps me out it is also very satisfying, lol (timecode for quote below is 7:23 to 7:50 in the embedded video).

[M]aybe I just need to rethink how I see these games. Triple A games are like Marvel movies — great fun if you just want to turn your brain off for a while and soak in the spectacle. And on those merits, God of War is an absolute gem. But if you actually want to engage your brain, you're probably going to to have to look elsewhere — most likely to indie games like Return of the Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds, Immorality, and Tunic.

Who's cutting onions?

Building on what made the first part so great and expending it in such a great way. The attention to visuals, audio, storytelling, gameplay and accessibility is outstanding. Switching up playable characters and companions more this time keeps things fresh. It took me about 38 hours to finish the main story with a lot of wandering off to do sidequests and look for collectibles. An absolute masterpiece.

PS: Make sure you play the funeral sidequest after finishing the main game. A deserved beautiful send off.

So I hear tell that this game might actually be worse than Horizon Forbidden West at spoiling the solution for every puzzle before you’ve had a chance to try your hand at it. I’m seeing lots of chatter in other places that both Mimir and Atreus will begin explaining puzzle solutions the moment you step into the puzzle space 🤦🏽

Update: it seems you can turn it off. Thank fuck!

All right, four big main quests down, first impressions are looking pretty nice. I'm glad I did one more section tonight, since I got to wrap up by playing as Atreus for a while which I found to be the best-feeling gameplay section so far.

I do have my typical complaints with this sort of game. Some boring puzzles and traversal put in here and there to fit the formula. A few too many basic enemies slowing things down at times. A not great upgrade crafting menu that I want nothing to do with.

I am ultimately here mostly for story and characters, though, and on that front the game is good so far and heading in interesting directions. It knows when to take it slow and let those characters develop and breathe, but also definitely knows when to throw a curveball right as you're getting comfortable. (You'll see what I mean very quickly.)

Fuck, now I guess I'm bumping this back up to purchase sooner:

God of War Ragnarök is what God of War is supposed to be

God of War 2018 tried to make Kratos more sympathetic by simply giving him a small child to care for without doing anything himself as a character to inspire sympathy. He frequently yelled at his son and refused to use his name for 85 percent of the game, so much so that it became a meme. The lengths Kratos went to for Atreus were supposed to represent his love, but it frequently reminded me of parents who make sure a child’s basic needs are met while emotionally neglecting the shit out of them. And yeah, Kratos is awful and doesn’t know any better, but if games want me to feel for their grizzled male protagonist in a sea of grizzled male protagonists, they’re gonna have to do more than make him a sad hot dad.

Ragnarök makes a better case for why we should root for Kratos because it actually shows him doing the work of being a better human, a better god, and a better father than the first game does. There are no gruff shouts of “boy” anymore. Kratos no longer demands complete obedience from Atreus but — with great and understandable reluctance — has allowed him to slowly grow into his own person while reining in the temper that made him Greece’s god of war.

The game’s treatment of women was also extremely refreshing. As my fellow Kotaku alum Gita Jackson pointed out, being a mom (or woman in general) in God of War sucked ass, and that’s been a throughline throughout the original series all the way up till this very day. Every woman Kratos has ever interacted with in the series has either directly been harmed by him or has died in service to his plot. God of War did not try to be different, killing off Kratos’ wife Faye before the game even started. When Freya was introduced, it felt like the game was finally going to have a female character of substance who does not die or sleep with Kratos, but then she was inevitably harmed when Kratos kills her son.

Ragnarök’s treatment of women feels like it took those criticisms to heart. For starters, and this is a bit of an achievement given the series’ history, every woman in this game lives! Hooray! The female characters, particularly Freya, feel real and not like caricatures to serve some part in Kratos and Atreus’ journey. I want people to be surprised by some of the game’s developments because they’re pretty cool, so I won’t go into further detail, but I’m really glad at the direction the story took with women.

One thing I should point out is that Ash Parrish and I were pretty lock-step when it comes to our opinion of the first game, and to read a critique championing the sequel from someone who I completely agree with means I have to reconsider giving this game a chance.