Somehow, it’s been almost two years since I reviewed and adored God of War: Ragnarok to the tune of 10/10. Embarrassingly, I’m now in a numerically difficult position. In the interim, you see, my affections for this game have only increased, and the reasons why are threefold…
The first is quite personal. Mere months after launch, I lost a loved one, and, by pure algorithmic chance, YouTube decided to feed me Bear McCreary’s soundtrack for Ragnarok. Specifically, I connected with a single track—a beautiful dirge named “Raeb’s Lament”—as a means to process my pain.
Initially, the cutscenes tied to this piece of music already struck me as poignant; during my replay, the on-screen losses hit like a truck. I now have a greater appreciation for how well-written and brilliantly scored this piece of entertainment is. Only Naughty Dog can target the feels better.
The second reason is simply a matter of extra content—a package that has expanded with Thor-levels of increased girth. On the lower end of that scale, Santa Monica Studios implemented a post-launch New Game Plus and a deluge of new equipment, armour cosmetics, enemy tweaks, and goofy AF photo mode expressions.
More substantially, there was also the generous free inclusion of the Valhalla DLC, a 6-10 hour roguelite dive into Kratos’ past. If you never caught it the first time, it’s almost worth the whole cost of re-admission alone.
Lastly, we get to my third reason—today’s reason—a PC port that is technically superior in every single way. What’s the only thing with the potential to mar it, depending on how your own personal rage meter fills? The need to sign up/in with a PSN account. It has some sections of the PC gaming community up in arms, though modding seems to have solved the problem, as modding almost always does.
Let’s tally up the tweaks that Jetpack Interactive has brought to this DX12-based port. Graphics-wise, you can mess around with the quality of Lighting, Shadows, Models, Textures, and in a more filmic fashion with Grain and Motion Blur removal. I’ve heard people complain of a lack of FOV, but it doesn’t bother me.
Ragnarok also supports NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 3.1 and Intel XeSS 1.3, technologies that help make some of the more impressive effects—animal fur and smooshy snow deformation—pop like never before. Sadly, there’s nothing going on in ray tracing here, either in the shadow or reflections department. A bit disappointing.
I was lucky enough to play this on a PC nearing the upper echelon of ‘Ultra’ requirements, and experienced visuals at or scaled slightly beyond those I saw on PS5. To give you a better idea on the scalability, if you have specs enough to hit the Low setting, you’ll be getting visuals and performance akin to a humble (but totally playable) “base PS4” console.
Better yet, I played this in the same fashion as I do all of PlayStation Studios ports—in glorious Super Ultra-wide 32:9. Having so much peripheral vision with the camera tucked tight behind Kratos’ shoulder is a bit of a trip, a culture shock that goes away. That being said, I can confirm that the dev has done a flawless job on handling the areas originally not intended to be seen in the bespoke-camera cutscenes with aplomb.
No weird objects will pop in from Stage Left or Stage Right. Likewise, the directors/animators intent of these moments in question get faithfully preserved with minimal distractions.
There’s also the inclusion of a Make NPCs Stop Spoiling My Puzzle Sections function. Once applied, Freya, Mimir, Atreus—whoever is kickin’ by your side at the time—will zip their lip instead of mentioning a point of interest a mere 10 seconds after you arrive. Though I already knew the puzzle solutions, I turned it on to reduce a bit of Freya’s bossiness (completely warranted as it may be, given what Kratos did to her family).
Honestly, the only sizable downside to this package is…well, the package size itself. At the time of writing, God of War Ragnarok is pushing beyond 190GB. According to Jetpack, this is due to the team not being able to find a decompression solution that wouldn’t also bring in performance and stability issues. Not a big problem for most dedicated PC users; potentially deal-breaking for Steam Deck users who are strapped for (more expensive) storage solutions.
When it comes to the actual gameplay experience and narrative journey, the long version of why I think God of War Ragnarok is a modern masterpiece awaits you here.
The short version for the click-averse: the already sterling, CQC-heavy combat in God of War (2018) was streamlined to be even more addictive, visceral, and kinetic, mostly thanks to the addition of DualSense haptics (which feature here on PC). I’ll not spoil the weapons and character switcheroos that await you; suffice to say that Ragnarok inched beyond its venerable forebear in every metric.
I’m inclined to say even less about the story, for obvious reasons. I will mention that Santa Monica Studios states its intent to (and impressive prowess at) heartstring strum from the opening 15 minutes onwards. Likewise, the action set pieces and drama from the previous adventure catch up with you almost as fast.
From there on out, trying to divine the reasons for some mob-family-esque infighting in Odin’s camp, along with his true intention for clan Kratos, quickly becomes the gaming equivalent of a page-turner. Essentially, this is one game I wish I could erase from my brain and experience anew. I’m envious of those of you who get to go into this fresh with tastier eye candy to munch on.
This review was made possible by a digital code provided by the publisher.
