5/5 ★ – RDB07's review of God of War: Ragnarök.

10/10 I’m not sure if I like this or the 2018 game more, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever decide. Given that God of War 2018 is my favorite game of its generation, this means I really like Ragnorok. The game continues the brilliant core story thread of the original, as we see Kratos continue to evolve and his relationship with Atreus deepen further. The end of the last game leaves Kratos and Atreus at a place of general stability and a cool love, which is far better than where they start, but Ragnorok pushes their relationship, testing their trust and leading to the game’s most heartfelt moments. Ragnorok’s greatest strength is how human and emotionally touching it is, without once feeling saccharine or cheap. The last game’s prophecy stinger provides fertile ground for a propulsive, high stakes story in this game, and Ragnorok also makes more of an effort to make the supporting cast into full fledged characters with their own arcs, as opposed to sometimes feeling like people for Kratos and Atreus to interact with in the first game. One area where Ragnarok is more bold than the first game is in its gameplay. Ragnarok does not shy away from the first game’s slight implication of a second playable character, and we get playable Atreus sequences that are frequent, substantial, and above all, fun. Ragnarok continues the first game’s perspective of an uninterrupted camera affixed to its player character, so the introduction of a second POV character is a bold formal leap for Ragnarok. It pays off massively, with Atreus’s sections expanding the world and story in a crucial way, and introducing us to several new characters and locations that we wouldn’t get with a purely Kratos-centric game. The fact that Atreus is such a likable and interesting character, as well as his new friends and foes being engaging and very narratively important cement this bold choice as the right one, and the one that allows Ragnarok to match, and possibly surpass the original.