Bias upfront, I’m fully in the bag for this franchise! (My review of the previous installment, here.)
With the latest installment of God of War, Santa Monica Studios confidently doubled down on what made the last installment such of a success. This game knows exactly what it is, an epic an immersive adventure campaign. It breaks with trend from other game studios to try to emulate large-arena online multiplayer or throw too many modes into a game with too little QA. (cough, Halo Infinite, cough)
The game picks up 3 years after the events of the last installment. Fimbulwinter is in full effect, ostensibly set in motion by the death of Baldur. A realm-hopping adventure ensues with surprising twists and turns; including both familiar faces and well-imagined new characters. It is a father-son adventure. It is a coming of age story. It is an epic throw-down of cosmic proportions. Its just damned fun. Honestly, this game has a better story than most recent Marvel movies. The story is well done, the voice actors are well cast and the gameplay never felt like a grind. Most importantly - they stick the landing.
My son and I played through the campaign over a few days, with him occasionally taking the controls from me in frustration of my old-guy reflexes and persistent stubborn refusal to turn-down the game difficulty. The game doesn’t include an official co-op but it isn’t really a detriment, in my opinion. Having a game where you can hang on the couch and pass the controller back and fourth is such a refreshing change from the high-fps-multiplayer focus of most modern console fighters and battle sims.
Pro-Tip: When the friendly NPCs suggest you take some time to explore, take that hint and use the opportunities to buff the character by completing favors or exploring the realms. These prompts are well-placed throughout the storyline.
Collector’s Edition
I put a not-insignificant amount of time into trying to find the Jötnar Edition but I refuse to buy from scalpers. Eventually, I found a Collector’s Edition (which is a slight step down from the Jötnar Edition) at Best Buy.
Funny, the God of War Ragnarök Collector’s Edition Box is larger than the PS5 box.
I do appreciate that the interior box riffs on the Jötnar shrine motif from the game. That’s a nice touch. The included Mjölnir toy/prop is larger, heavier and nicer than I expected though I suspect it wouldn’t survive a great amount of rambunctious playtime.
I did find it a little strange and disappointing that even the Collector’s Edition failed to come with an actual disc but instead a steel case with placeholders for two discs and download codes.
W.T.F.
Performance Observations
We played on both the PS4 and PS5. While the PS5 edition looks great, the PS4 edition looks great, too and performs surprisingly well. The game-load times aren’t punishing on the older console. I suspect they targeted the lowest common denominator for performance benchmarks and allowed the PS5 GPU to do some basic environmental effects and lighting enhancements through #if-[env] type directives or target-conditional compilation.
In this, I think they found the right balance; especially considering PS5 rollout and inventory challenges. All this to say it looks great but I don’t think it ever actually challenges the PS5 hardware. Our PS4 is on a 4k QLED Samsung and the PS5 is on a 4k OLED. The inky-deep blacks of the OLED/PS5 combo really made some of the scenes pop but if you are rocking an older setup - you will still find some jaw-dropping visual set-pieces.
Video Clips
The video clips below might serve as mild spoilers. You have been warned.
Scope and Scale
It took several multi-hour game-sessions to complete the main storyline while taking time to complete 2-3 side quests per opportunity in order to buff the characters. Figure about 30 hours to complete the main storyline. At conclusion, I found that I’d only completed about 35% of Vanaheim, less than half of Svartalheim and Alfeim. Like the last game you are encouraged to continue playing through a number of side quests and explorations that are also quite fun. My only complaint is that at times you can feel that you are after-the-story because your NPC traveling companions have little to say or are repetitive. The challenge of filling 60+ hours of relevant and entertaining dialog isn’t lost on me.