The latest title from studio Santa Monica, God of War Ragnarök arrives November 9, 2022 on PS4 and PS5. Four years separate us from the previous opus, where we all left Kratos & Atreus on a terrible cliffhanger. As the release approaches, the question everyone is asking is "will it be as good as its predecessor?" ". We've had the game in test on our side for a while now, which allows us today to answer this question.
We are lucky to be able to offer you this test almost a week in advance. God of War Ragnarök is the most important release of this year 2022 on PS4 and PS5 and it is the kind of game to discover the controller in hand that you do not want to be spoiled by unfortunate spoilers. We will therefore remain very evasive on certain points in this test. The goal is to allow you to read it entirely without spoiling any surprises (and believe us, the game has plenty of them!).
Three years have passed since the end of the events of God of War (2018), we find an older Atreus with a questionable haircut, a Kratos who seems to have aged again and who shows some signs of fatigue (don't worry, he has lost none of that inner rage that animates him). Fimbulvetr ("the Great Winter") has settled over the nine realms and the announced Norse apocalypse, "Ragnarok", seems more imminent than ever. From the first minutes, we discover that Midgard is covered with thick powdery snow, while the lake of nine offers an almost unrecognizable landscape, very far from the shimmering setting of the previous opus.
If Kratos seems to want to live in hiding and keep a low profile, Atreus' ardor pushes him to try to understand what role Loki must play in the Jötnar prophecy, as he discovers new information in the frescoes. If you remember, 2018's God of War ending set us up for an explosive encounter with one of Odin's sons. This meeting is inevitable, just like the vengeful spirit of an angry woman and the consequences of the disappearance of certain Aesir gods who will soon catch up with our duo to give the player moments of unequaled intensity. From the first scenes highlighting the different protagonists and antagonists, we can see all the care given to the motion capture and the facial animations of the characters which make these moments more real than life. We salute in passing the work of the French actors who lend their voices to the characters, they have done an extraordinary job to make the player feel the full power of the story.
Right off the bat, Kratos has access to his two weapons of choice, namely the Leviathan Ax and the Blades of Chaos. With different compositions of enemies, the game pushes us to switch between the two weapons to take advantage of their elemental effects. Ax throwing can cause fearsome blasts of frost while the blades are imbued with the fire of chaos to ignite enemies. As before, the player can change Kratos' set of equipment and upgrade all aspects of it to increase his stats, which will have the effect of strengthening him in combat. You can equip and upgrade weapons, weapon shafts, armor pieces, your shield as well as other things. There's a wider variety of crafting materials to upgrade all of this by heading to the workshops of the Huldres brothers, Brok & Sindri, who are always ready to help the duo in their quest. Note that you will not be able to transfer your end equipment that you had in the God of War of 2018, we start from scratch like a new adventure.
The indications given by Mimir and Atreus in combat are still useful to keep the player constantly alert. Kratos' field of vision being quite small, it allows you to know the position of enemies in the environment and anticipate a blow that could happen in the back or on the sides for example. There are also visual indicators in case you didn't take in the information correctly in the heat of the moment to let you know you're going to take a hit if you don't move away quickly. This data is more than ever to be taken into account, especially since there are new mechanics in combat such as the dangerous status alteration of Bifröst (we let you discover its effect while playing) and other things that arrive gradually over the course of the adventure.
We won't dwell on the new features to keep you completely surprised, but we can tell you, if you found that the previous opus could be complex in terms of its fights with its profusion of options, it's even more pushed with this sequel. Towards the end of the adventure, we had a hard time remembering half of the range of moves that is accessible to Kratos while taking into account the options of the accompanying character, Atreus, who is always very useful in his role as support. And the enemies them, do not wait wisely in their corner that you find in the bottom of your memory all the possible combination of keys on your controller to attack you in group.
We are still on a software that mixes RPG and adventure game elements with a few puzzles to solve along the way in a semi-open world. This God of War Ragnarök does not intend to reinvent the wheel already established by the previous opus, but improves most of its aspects. If the first six hours of play have a classic unfolding and remind us that we play above all the second half of a story divided into several parts, the novelties end up arriving in number and comfort us in the idea that the 'we are ultimately not playing what could have been a big extension or a “God of War 1.5”, but that we are indeed dealing with a sequel in good and due form.
As is the case with many games released on consoles today, God of War Ragnarök offers several display modes (we play on PS5), one in "fidelity" allowing to play in 4K resolution at 30 frames per second, and another in "performance" which dynamically adjusts the resolution of the game to maintain as much as possible the 60 frames per second. For those who would prefer to have modes that balance the finesse of Fidelity mode and the fluidity of Performance mode, the software also offers to play with a variable refresh rate or at high frequency. But to access it, you need a compatible screen (HDMI 2.1 and 120hz screen).
Our choice naturally fell on the “performance” mode, we find it more and more difficult to accept playing with the 30 frames per second which too often gives us the impression that the action is not fluid. When playing a fast-paced game like God of War, it's important to enjoy a smooth display at all times. This mode is perfect with the PS5, apart from rare dropouts, the frame rate always remains high.
On the image side, the performance mode displays something decent, be it characters or environments, everything is very detailed without necessarily feeling any drops in resolution which varies between 1440-2160p on PS5 anyway. We may have sometimes noticed drops in quality on shadows during certain passages. Apart from that, this God of War knows how to be surprising in many ways and fully exploits the hardware of the PS5. It must be said, some landscapes are so beautiful that you can spend several minutes contemplating the work done on these sets that seem so real. Without telling you too much, Fimbulvetr does not have the same effect on the nine kingdoms. If Midgard displays a frozen landscape frozen in time, a place like Svartalfheim on the contrary offers a resplendent view. The contrast between the two is quite destabilizing for the player when he goes from one place to another.
The previous God of War had been strongly criticized by the players for its lack of bosses, it is true that we lost the epic side compared to the previous adventures of Kratos and the old formula where we killed the monsters in packs of ten . God of War Ragnarök does better on this point and does not lack very surprising creatures to fight (not to mention the main antagonists who are at the center of the adventure), however some of these creatures return several times during the adventure as well than certain enemy compositions, which can cause some weariness. But rest assured, next to that the adventure is not lacking in very epic moments (which will certainly remain in the annals of video games) with boss clashes that benefit from a spectacular staging. Another criticism that could be made to the previous God of War is the fact that it shows us a number of realms, some of which were actually inaccessible in the game, which caused a lot of frustration for some …Ragnarök doesn't make this mistake, everything he shows you, you have access to!
Note that just like for the previous opus, the development and creative teams of the Santa Monica studio have redoubled their efforts to make us feel an adventure that takes place on a single camera plane, cleverly camouflaging the loading times and the transitions of 'screen. It's something very pleasant since it allows us to always have an eye on the protagonists without looking at loading screens or transitions on a black background. The SSD of the PS5 also performs very well at this level since when you die and reload the last checkpoint, the action resumes almost instantly. However, there is something that bothered us. As we progress through the different realms, we have seen the protagonists pass numerous times under narrow passages, between two cracks or advance along a ledge.
Everyone now knows that this technique is mainly used to camouflage elements that are loading in the background so that they are ready when you get to the other side. With Ragnarök, the Santa Monica teams have really abused it too much. It's not really annoying the first time you explore the different environments of the game, since the characters make the conversation, but it becomes so when you come back, especially for the additional content. It happens that following a fight that went badly, you go back again and again between these two walls without any other possibility until you have managed to overcome this confrontation (in the post-game some enemy compositions are tricky ). This process is certainly explained by the existence of the PS4 version which suddenly limits the PS5 version.
In a straight line, the adventure is complete in 20-25 hours (varies depending on the difficulty mode chosen at the start of the game), but there is so much to do next and see in the realms you explore that you are naturally tempted to take a look. When you finish a main quest, Atreus and Mimir do not fail to push you to go explore, to verbally guide you towards the potential new paths available to you, instead of rushing headlong towards the next quest. will move the story forward. The way the characters have to break the imaginary screen that separates them from the player is quite remarkable and works very well. More than once, we let ourselves be carried away by the simple information provided by Atreus and Mimir without opening our map or looking at other indicators on the screen. By talking to Kratos, your companions actually give you directions behind your screen. With all its side content, God of War Ragnarök has so much more to offer in hours of fun.
★ In conclusion, is God of War Ragnarök the great adventure game everyone was waiting for?
If you thought 2018's God of War, with its "Reboot" formula, was a great game, wait until you see Ragnarök surpassing it in almost every way. With this direct sequel, the Santa Monica studio manages to tell us more things, introduce us to more characters while clearly enriching the gameplay and without losing the key elements that made the previous opus so good. The adventure is savored from start to finish until you feel the great final thrill. There's no denying that PlayStation studios are very good at creating unforgettable narrative experiences and that's a pleasure. God of War Ragnarök is once again proof of this! However, we will issue some reservations about the many loads hidden by narrow passages in which the characters slip far too often.
God of War Ragnarok
Game rating
9.5 
