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It’s typically seen as a faux pas to write about a videogame you haven’t even seen through to the end, but God of War Ragnarok has become my white whale. Two years since its inaugural launch on PS5, Sony Santa Monica’s epic follow-up is positively groaning under the weight of accolades for its narrative, score, performance, and so on. Sure, it fell short of the hallowed GOTY Game Award, but its only major failing was being unlucky enough to release in the same year as Elden Ring. I don’t need to tell you how beloved this sequel is – you only need a glance at its Metacritic score to see it. Last month, I set myself a goal: now that God of War Ragnarok is on PC, I’d finally, finally see it through to the end.
By rights, this should not be difficult. Critical acclaim aside, I am God of War Ragnarok’s target audience. 2018’s God of War was my last preorder, a purchase I don’t regret in the slightest. I was already sold on the bold new direction Sony Santa Monica had taken – the PlayStation male power fantasy, brought up short by the prospect of fatherhood. Ragnarok is a continuation of that pitch, kicking off with a revelation that cuts right to the heart of Kratos and Atreus’ relationship in the sequel: puberty, and all the chaos that comes with it. Most parents have to deal with weed in the bedside drawer and crusty socks under the bed. Kratos has to deal with his son turning into a bear and attacking him. This is everything I could have ever wanted from a sequel. So why can’t I stand playing it?
In a word, Ragnarok feels overproduced. Its beautifully rendered corridors occasionally dilate to combat arenas that are so perfectly staged they leave the impression that they’ve been designed by committee. There’s nothing technically wrong, but the spark is missing. This follows into general exploration. I lose time trying to work out how to reach a hidden chest, only to turn a corner and find an obvious path leading right to it. Everything, from puzzles to secrets, can be resolved by simply moving forward. This frictionless experience should make God of War Ragnarok easier to jump into; instead, I’m exhausted at the mere prospect of playing it. It feels transactional, where my inputs aren’t so much part of the whole experience but rather the plastic garnish on a beautiful tray of cutscene sandwiches.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite partial to PlayStation’s prestige titles. I appreciate them for what they are: interactive TV shows. I run a few gauntlets of low-stakes combat and quick-time events, then sit back and watch the drama unfold. I don’t consider them the pinnacle of action-adventure game design, but I’m also not viscerally opposed to the format. On the contrary, I think it has a place in the grand gaming landscape, and represents the perfect gateway to introduce new audiences to the medium. However, Ragnarok’s combat feels like a chore. Enduring criticisms of 2018’s restrictive camera go unaddressed, and I struggle to find enrichment with its lackluster skill tree.
This tug-of-war tension between gameplay and narrative is a problem inherent to the prestige videogame format at large – and when combat is God of War’s driving force for the latter, it’s no great surprise that my inclination to progress stalls when I find it lacking. My first crack at Ragnarok two years ago had me losing interest after reuniting Freya and her brother, which I’ve been reliably informed is only about a third of the way through. This time around, I barely made it out of Alfheim before losing interest. “You fool!” you’re probably thinking right about now, “why would you start again?!” The answer is simple: I couldn’t remember a damn thing. I’d clocked in around 16 hours on my original save file, but my memories of that first playthrough are nebulous. By contrast, I can recall the major beats of 2018’s God of War over half a decade later.
God of War Ragnarok isn’t really that much longer than its predecessor, but its pacing is so much slower that it feels ponderous by comparison. It certainly doesn’t help that Ragnarok’s opening hours include a surprise return to Alfheim, an area that outstayed its welcome six years ago. I’ll forgive it for one touching moment, where Kratos almost enters the Light of Alfheim to chase after Faye’s voice, just as he did before. This time, Atreus pulls him back from the brink with a hand on his arm and a gentle reminder that she’s gone. This moment represents Ragnarok’s motion capture at its best, but it also illustrates that a single touching moment between father and son can eclipse any amount of worldbuilding.
That said, Santa Monica’s bid for scale is completely undercut when everything is a thinly veiled reference to Kratos. The struggle between the Dark and Light Elves in Alfheim bares the futility of the cycle of violence and revenge he once walked; the enslaved Lyngbakr is a reflection of his lifetime of regret; even Freya herself is a direct parallel to Kratos, consumed by rage at the injustice of her son’s death and eager to enact revenge. This entire world, carefully crafted, is a symbolic prop for the story being told. Now, I’m not against symbols – far from it. I could write a whole dissertation on why the curtains are blue. But these particular curtains aren’t just blue; they’ve got “THIS IS KRATOS” emblazoned in eye-searing ultramarine. The result is an RPG that’s simultaneously too big for its own good but too small to exist without its characters.
I don’t mean to be a downer on the Ghost of Sparta’s latest outing, especially given there’s so much of it I haven’t seen yet. When I raise my criticisms with my PCGN cohort, I receive a reluctant murmur of agreement, with the caveat that “when it kicks off, it really kicks off.” And I want that. I remember being swept up in the drama of 2018’s God of War – seeing Kratos mellow from soldier to father; Atreus coming into his godhood; both struggling to process the grief of losing a wife and mother – and I know there’s more of that in store. I’m intrigued to see how Ragnarok delves into prophecy, to take Atreus’ pre-adolescent claim that “we’re gods, we can do whatever we want” and pit it against the inevitability of Ragnarok and all it entails. I can already anticipate a plot twist of epic proportions; once I reach it, perhaps it could sustain me through to the end. In the immortal words of AJR: “Can we skip to the good part?”