God of War, Sony’s premier action-adventure title, has made its way onto PC, delivering all the over-the-top action, flowing combat, and great visuals that made the 2018 PlayStation 4 release so impressive. This entry reboots the franchise by streamlining the action and controls, while introducing a fascinating Norse setting and mythos. This PC version doesn’t offer anything new compared to the console release, but it has a graphical settings suite that takes advantage of your PC’s strengths. The visual options are nice additions, but God of War suffers from inconsistent frame rates. Still, Kratos' newest adventure is a lengthy, action-packed game that's filled with RPG-like customization, intuitive combat, and great puzzles. Priced at $49.99, God of War is a PC game that belongs in your library.
Old God, New Beard
God of War’s narrative shifts focus from wanton destruction and juvenile depravity to tell a tale of change and redemption. Series protagonist Kratos is older, more patient, and surprisingly more introspective. With his young son, Atreus, in tow on this adventure, Kratos is forced to confront and quell the supernatural rancor within the boy, all while keeping his own in check. Watching Kratos control himself for the sake of his son, while also steering Atreus away from a similar troubled path, makes for a fascinating juxtaposition.
As interesting as the new story is, God of War is a heavily cinematic experience despite being a dedicated action game. Walking and talking sections are peppered throughout every new area you visit to dump exposition onto your lap. Dynamic story scenes add to the drama, but they cannot be skipped or sped through in any way. As a result, the narrative feels a touch too intrusive compared to earlier games. The game is all too happy to wrest control from you during these moments, which can make replaying God of War a bit tedious.
The Northern Gods
God of War takes place in Midgard, the home of Norse mythology and the Asgardian pantheon. Kratos has traveled far from his homeland of Ancient Greece to retire in peace in the frozen wilderness. With the passing of his wife, Kratos and Atreus venture into the realm of Jotunheim to spread her ashes and honor her last wish. Their journey is fraught with dangers, and the pair must contend with gods and monsters who won’t peacefully suffer their presence.
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Thankfully, Midgard is also rife with treasures to make up for the dangers. God of War is much more open-ended than the games that came before it, though it isn't a true open-word game, either. There is only one right way to progress, but the game world is designed with plenty of detours and branching paths to make exploration worthwhile. Midgard is not without its moments of respite; Kratos is surprisingly social this time around, and there are a handful of NPCs that offer quests and support throughout the adventure.
There's a great balance between progress and optional content. There is always something to do, but never so much that you feel overwhelmed. For example, one optional quest sees you searching for a missing person, which ultimately leads you to a side-dungeon with puzzles, tough monsters, and a mini-boss to tackle before you can complete your objective. These diversions net you valuable experience and resources that make it easier to upgrade your gear and abilities.
Santa Monica Studios’ take on Norse mythology is fascinating. God of War is dense with gorgeous environments, impressive beasts, jaw-dropping set pieces, and some quirky representations of iconic deities. That said, God of War’s story was written with sequels in mind; in the grand scheme of things, Kratos and Atreus's adventure is merely a prologue for what’s to come. There are a handful of the major mythical players present in God of War, with the rest only mentioned in passing. God of War still has a satisfying story arc, and both protagonists grow considerably by journey’s end. I had hoped to see more of the Norse pantheon and of Ragnarök, but that isn’t the focus of this story.
Divine Viewpoint
God of War condenses the action, and deviates from the original games' arcade-like button-mashing action. The camera is pulled tight behind Kratos, giving the game an over-the-shoulder perspective that is relatively unique in the genre; God Hand and the upcoming Sifu have functionally similar cameras. The viewpoint gives you a tight, personal perspective of the action that makes the combat more intimate and engrossing.
This dynamic vantage point has its flaws, unfortunately. With a camera pulled in so closely it becomes very difficult, even frustrating, to keep track of multiple enemies. To make matters worse, the targeting system is very sticky, so you cannot switch focus between enemies as smoothly as other games with a similar control scheme, such as Dark Souls and Nioh 2.
To remedy this somewhat, Santa Monica Studios gives you a threat indicator—presented as arrows around Kratos—that point to enemies outside of his field of view. These arrows flash red when an off-screen enemy is winding up an attack. You can also spin around to face enemies behind you with the press of a button. Still, even with all these systems in place, managing the camera is a chore, and getting nailed in the back is commonplace. If the camera was pulled back slightly, or if enemies weren’t programmed to attack when off-screen, like in Devil May Cry, combat would be less frustrating.
Fighting Like a God
God of War still uses a two-button attack system to dish out light and heavy attacks, but the overall combat is much more grounded and simplified than in the previous games. Kratos cannot jump or perform aerial feats, for example. To make up for this, Kratos can lob his axe, dealing heavy damage from range. With good timing, these throws can be chained into his melee attacks. Despite the lack of aerial capabilities, the combination of meaty strikes and chunky axe throws make for a simple and satisfying combo system.
To further diversify your onslaught, you have a supplementary ranged attack available to you through Atreus; you can command him to shoot at your target with his bow and arrows. Unless he is getting swamped, you can direct Atreus to shoot fairly reliably with the press of a button. Repeated shots distract the targeted enemy or keep them stunned for longer if they are getting tossed around.
God of War’s brutal finishers make their return, this time with a new grapple mechanic. Enemies have a stun gauge under their health that fills as you deal damage. Enemy's stagger when their meters are maxed out, letting you grab them and rip them to pieces. Atreus’ arrows and Kratos’ fist strikes deal bonus stun damage, incentivizing you to use these attacks to supplement your mighty axe swings. As you unlock new abilities, you can charge your melee attacks to unleash new finishers on hapless enemies, accentuating the brutality.
Unlike the Ninja Gaiden games, God of War lacks a strict combo system, so you can combine all of these skills throughout the adventure. God of War preserves the older games' free-form essence, but with a brand new kit to work with to topple enemies. On top of all that, God of War features a beefy upgrade system that lets you purchase new abilities with the experience you earn through fighting, or craft new gear with the materials you scavenge through exploration. Yet, even with this degree of RPG-like customization, the game remains relatively simple and easy to play.
Enemy Smorgasbord
Provided you undertake a few side missions for resources as you chip away at the main storyline, you should be able to improve your abilities with relative ease. Granted, enemies are organized by level, as well, which means that no matter how much grinding you’ve done, there are always challenging, high-level enemies. Those high-level opponents can punch through Kratos’ shield, and can drop him in a single blow, in extreme cases. These tough cookies make for fun and tense situations, though the bruisers' massive health pools drag fights a bit too long.
There’s a decent selection of enemies to fight, including undead warriors, magical hags, beast-men, ape-like ogres, rock golems, and hulking trolls. How you tackle these foes really depends on how resistant they are to your attacks. Undead warriors can be stunned and juggled to death with ease. Heavier enemies resist flinching, so hit-and-run tactics work best against them. The third type of foe is usually a gimmick enemy that's vulnerable to projectile attacks, such as Kratos' axe-throws or Atreus’ arrow volley.
The only combat irritant comes in the form of the Hel foes, an uncommon blue enemy type that resists your ice-based axe attacks. Axe-strikes glance off of them, so they can only be damaged with unarmed combat, or with your second weapon type that's unlocked later in the game. The problem with enemies like these is that their resistance immediately undermines half of your kit; an entire weapon’s worth of abilities are rendered useless when fighting against them. It’s a frustrating limitation that makes these foes much less fun to fight than any other. DmC: Devil may Cry and Bayonetta also have a handful of these obnoxious enemies, and they’re just as annoying in those titles.
Can Your PC Run God of War?
God of War was a visual powerhouse on the PS4, and it's just as beautiful on PC. The game is gorgeous, and packed with details in virtually every facet of its world. Kratos' newest adventure has smooth and seamless animations, and superb character models and motion capture.
On PC, God of War supports 4K resolution, Nvidia DLSS and Reflex, fully customizable controls for keyboards, mice, and gamepads, and 21:9 ultra wide-screen monitors. To play God of War on PC, your gaming rig needs at least a four-core, 3.3GHz Intel i5-2500k or four-core, 3.1GHz AMD Ryzen 3 1200 CPU, 8GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce GTX 960 (4GB) or AMD R9 290X (4GB) graphics card, DirectX Version 11, and 70GB of free space. The recommended specs bump the CPU and GPU requirements to a four-core, 3.5GHz Intel i5-6600k or four-core, 3.6GHz AMD Ryzen 5 2400 G processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) or AMD RX 570 (4GB) graphics card, respectively.
I tinkered with the settings quite a bit to get as much visual bang for my buck from a desktop PC that houses a Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and 16GB of RAM. In my experience, God of War has a somewhat erratic frame rate, with the occasional loading stutter (much like Horizon: Zero Dawn did when it launched on PC). When displayed at 1440p, the framerate fluctuated between 120 frames per second when idle in certain areas and 60 frames per second during hectic action sequences. I ultimately locked the framerate at 60fps (with Vsync turned on) to overcome the inconsistent framerate, but I expected better from God of War than what was delivered, especially given the system requirements.
Why You Should Game on a PC
Face of a New God
God of War establishes a fine foundation for what is inevitably to come. It combines the older games' spectacle and set pieces with new, RPG-like mechanics, terrific action, and great visuals to create a well-rounded, action-adventure package. The camera may not be ideal, the frame rate could be more consistent, and some enemies could be more interesting, but there is still a lot to love about God of War on PC. Overall, God of War is just as good now as it was back in 2018.
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Kratos, the god slayer, gets a new look, fresh tools, and a Norse pantheon to cut down in this dramatic, exciting shake-up of the classic God of War franchise.
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