10. Established IP – You know you are in for a good time
When you play a God of War game, you know it’ll be a gory, tear-jerking adventure. It’ll be about an angry god of war that fights back when pushed too far. The series has always been about circumstances: Kratos doesn’t kill because he wants to; he kills for vengeance after being wronged.
The story will be along the lines of exacting vengeance on someone who wronged you, and you, as Kratos, go out on a quest to deliver justice and vengeance—to protect those who want to harm those that you care about. It’s always a satisfying and epic adventure that is entertaining and enjoyable to experience.
It’s definitely worth playing God of War: Ragnarok if you are a fan of hack and slash IPs. God of War: Ragnarok is probably one of the best hack and slash games of 2022.
9. Fluid Combat, everything flows perfectly
God of War: Ragnarok builds on God of War (2018)’s already refined combat systems. Featuring new skills, abilities, armour sets, customization options, and a new weapon. There are multiple builds you can end up using, which will impact your playstyle. From a build focused around applying status ailments to doing more raw damage to having quicker ability cooldowns, or if you enjoy a ranged combat-focused build, you can also do that.
The core combat itself is satisfying, with well-tuned timing on combat animations and responsiveness; you never feel like you are unfairly punished due to game mechanics or limitations. There are multiple points of contact with enemies; you will find yourself surrounded from multiple angles, which makes the combat very attentive and active to play. You are in full control of Kratos, and you are as unstoppable as you are skilled.
If you’re a fan of fluid action combat, God of War: Ragnarok is probably one of the best in its class.
8. Audio & Music – Sound Design Mastery
Music might be overlooked for most games, but it’s hard to ignore it in God of War: Ragnarok. The game has complementary music that suits the situation, be it tense, relaxing, or a character-bonding moment. Soundtracks build atmosphere, be it tense or soothing; having a fitting soundtrack does a lot to help strengthen the impact of the scene.
Good audio design is an important element in games, as it helps make the experience immersive. Essentially, it’s not too far-fetched to say that a great game needs to have great audio design to be successful, because it really helps with bringing the player into the game and exponentially elevates the experience. Audio design, of course, includes the metal sounds of weapon impacts, ability sounds, and all the little bits of detail that make the experience amazing.
The music and sound design in God of War: Ragnarok are extremely enjoyable; every little bit and timing on when sounds should trigger are designed so intrinsically that you can feel the amount of care and love that was put into crafting this masterpiece.
7. Graphics
Graphics are always a core component of a game. When a game doesn’t have enough beautifully crafted visuals, it usually makes the world feel very dull, and it becomes difficult to devote time to it.
Luckily, God of War: Ragnarok does not have that issue. Building on the already outstanding visuals from the first game, God of War: Ragnarok introduces a post-ragnarok version of the nine realms, featuring vastly different worlds that are bound to "wow" you the first time through. Each world is carefully crafted to ensure that it looks familiar but is also vastly different, so it doesn’t feel like a reskin or replacement of old assets.
There are no low-texture details in this giant open-world experience. Unlike recent AAA games like Gotham Knights and Redfall, which are plagued with low-texture, lazy graphics, or graphical pop-ins, God of War: Ragnarok is carefully crafted. Developers have paid so much attention to detail that every tad bit is near flawless.
6. Lore
There are few games that cover Norse mythology, so it’s been a delight since God of War (2018) to delve a bit into this rarely explored medium. Seeing parallels with Norse mythology retold in a different way while injecting a Greek god of war into the story made the experience very refreshing.
Even more so in God of War: Ragnarok, where the events of Ragnarok become intertwined with Kratos. God of War: Ragnarok tells the Norse mythology in a way that retains the original story while injecting a foreign element into it, and that is one reason why God of War remains such a popular franchise because the story is always so nicely crafted, paying homage to the source while introducing a new take that doesn’t disrespect the original.
Lore is always subjective; I really enjoyed God of War: Ragnarok and their different take on Norse mythology. It’s a well-written story that is well thought out, albeit a bit expected.
5. Puzzles
Puzzles have grown to become an integral component of a game, which keeps the gameplay from getting too monotonous. God of War: Ragnarok has a lot of puzzles, but it never really gets boring or overly complicated because it’s a nice mixture of difficult and really straight-forward puzzles.
Some may complain that the NPCs ruin the puzzle-solving experience, but typically the NPC line triggers are for the straight-forward puzzles; for the more complex ones, which require multiple steps, there’s far less intervention from the supporting NPC, so there’s definitely an opportunity to work for.
The game is no Zelda; the puzzles are straight-forward most of the time, but there were some that required some thinking. First and foremost, God of War: Ragnarok is an action hack-and-slash RPG game, not a puzzle game.
4. Characters
Characters are always an important part of a game. In order for gamers to relate to the character, a character’s reaction to events that happen in the story needs to be relatable and reasonable. For God of War: Ragnarok, the story follows Kratos, and you observe his changes and his worries about the unknown future.
Character development is an essential part of a good story; no one enjoys a flat story where the character doesn’t have any buildup or revelation and ends up with a lame delivery. Fortunately, God of War: Ragnarok can be considered an epic, with a rich series of games backing the main character and multiple supporting characters to build character dynamics. The whole experience is wonderful, fun, exciting, and a blast to play through.
Each God of War has character development, and God of War: Ragnarok is no stranger to that. I enjoyed the character buildup and tensions between them and found the delivery to be flawless.
3. Voice acting
While voice acting isn’t always a core component in determining how great a game is, it’s definitely a factor in God of War. There are amazing games with a silent protagonist, such as Link from The Legend of Zelda. However, if a game has a voice actor to help complement the character and script, it can add a lot of value to the game itself.
AAA games are putting a lot of value in voice acting, with games like God of War: Ragnarok and Death Stranding having industry favourites as voice actors and actors playing the roles of their characters. It’s transforming games into mainstream forms of entertainment because AAA games nowadays take many hours to beat—much longer than the time needed to complete a movie—and so it makes sense to transform and enhance the experience with high-quality performance.
I put a lot of emphasis on sound and voice acting; the game needs to sound good and feel right. God of War: Ragnarok does this very well; the lines, the tones, and the emotions were conveyed very well during cut scenes and during idle banter, making the entire journey never dull and always enjoyable.
2. Closure - End of a story arc
If you’ve been a fan of the God of War IP, you’ll know he went through Greece in the first few games, and the series had a reboot in 2018 that introduced us to Kratos in Norse. God of War: Ragnarok is the end of Kratos’s journey in Norse mythology, so if you’re a fan of God of War, it’s a must-play; otherwise, the next game might not make sense.
God of War: Ragnarok is a very nicely full-fledged game that answers a lot of questions and closes off the story well while keeping in line with Norse mythology. The events that happen follow the sequence of Norse mythology, but with Kratos making it interesting and enjoyable to experience, you want to find out how everything turns out.
I like finishing stories and completing them. Closure is really important, and so I value an ending to a well-written story. God of War: Ragnarok does this well; all loose ends are mostly tied up, and some questions are presented, so you’ll look forward to whatever comes next for the God of War.
1. Equipment/build customization
One of the biggest things that were introduced to God of War: Ragnarok were the customization options. There’s the armour system that you know and love from God of War (2018); Ragnarok added runes and shield attachments, which add further customization to your playstyle.
As mentioned earlier, the customization option to change how you want to play the game is a key feature that most games need to start adopting. A single build or one way to play the game grows stale, and flexibility to customize playstyles is needed to make the experience interesting. God of War: Ragnarok addresses this, and with the recent New Game+ update, the armour abilities can be collected as a rune, which adds further customization to the gameplay as you can stack multiple armour abilities. This is definitely the best feature in God of War Ragnarok because it can change how crazy the game gets (in a great way).
Customization and the freedom to play how you want are becoming increasingly important to me in video games. With great games like Elden Ring and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where they introduce a "100% freedom" design format, games without the same degree of customization become a vastly inferior experience. Luckily, God of War: Ragnarok does the combat experience very well and gives you the freedom to customize how you want to play the game to your liking. So while puzzles and transversal means are very linear, combat is very dynamic.
