Just over a month and a half in, we’ve received perhaps one of the strongest candidates for this year’s Game of the Year award. The same title found itself nominated for best game of the year, as well as in categories for best creative vision, best narrative, best art design, best music and audio content, best innovation in accessibility regarding content and technology for a wider audience, and best action game. A quite long list for potential awards that the same PlayStation exclusive can take, but given that the title already won the same award in 2018 when Santa Monica Studio released the previous title, there is no doubt that this time the adventures of our favorite Spartan, god of war, son of Zeus, will delight the audience through Scandinavian adventures.
God of War has thrown almost its entire arsenal at the well-known protagonist Kratos. Kratos and his companions are thrown into the middle of an all-out war, a battle reminiscent of epic cinematic ones, and the adventure stands side by side with the first titles when we climbed Olympus and fought in the terrible underworld. An outstandingly interpreted Norse mythology, along with the always interesting combat mechanics, which did not disappoint this time either, promises a lot of fun, and with new intrigues and puzzles, it offers even more content than the title published a few years ago. Since we have mentioned the 2018 title several times and warmly recommend you play it for understanding the story, as well as for fun, cinematic moments, excellent camera moves, and of course the story, the studio has made sure there is a video that informs you and gives you context of previous events, in case you are among the unfortunate ones who did not play the previous part.
The journey through the nine realms
Without revealing too many details, as we hope you will play the title yourself, Kratos and Atreus travel to each of the nine realms in search of answers, while Asgardian forces prepare for the prophesied battle that is to end the future of the world. Challenging even for our protagonist Kratos, but through the underworld and Olympus, we have hardened our, it seems, unbreakable bones. Each of the nine realms is full of different design and looks, full of Norse gods, mythological monsters, but also fights with some already well-known names. Everything is in the sign of the struggle to save the planet and protect the son, a father to wish for!
During the entire gameplay, you play as Kratos, and you have help from Atreus – a computer-controlled assistant in your adventures, and this time we have access to a much larger number of weapon upgrades than before. The Leviathan Axe or the Guardian Shield are just some of the weapons in combat that return and with which combat is even more of a joy, especially if you play the title on a new console, along with the excellent DualSense controls, which provide a fantastic feeling and lively feedback. As we are used to from before, but also what is a trend in many today's games, boss fights, meaning the battles with the main opponents of the stages, are definitely the peak of the title. For each of these battles, it is necessary to realize the opponent's weaknesses, attack patterns and to avoid them at the right time, or use them for your counterattacks.
Visual perfection and minor flaws
The animations are beautiful and run smoothly, the dialogue is cinematic and improves the overall atmosphere in the game, the graphics are among the better ones, and all of that combined and polished in the way it is, gives an unforgettable gaming feeling. God of War – Ragnarök doesn't have many flaws, although the game is longer, at times it seems as if some of the tasks are perhaps unnecessarily there, at least for someone like me, who is used to passing through games relatively quickly. There is no time to explore every corner, because gotta catch-them-all. Although an overview of previous events is enabled in the game, that might not be enough for completely new players to get acquainted with the story, but that is also quite reasonable considering that the game is actually a sequel to the previous title.
Our conclusion would be that Ragnarök is one of the best games of this year, and probably one of the higher quality titles we will see in this PlayStation generation. We certainly recommend that you play it, and our final score for the game is 9 out of 10. You will be able to follow reflection on all the nominations from the beginning of the video on our Respawn.ba podcast, where we will talk in detail about the results and express our opinions on the ranking of this and other nominated titles.
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