In this article we are going to talk about the current God of War part from 2018. It differs from the original games in a few ways. How I think about that, how it worked out technically and some general thoughts are collected here. And of course there is an obligatory spoiler warning.

So now that we’ve played all of the previous parts in the series, I was hyped. So far I’ve only been excited about the series (we’re not talking about Ascension) and I also was excited to see what to expect in the new installment. I already knew that it was part of Nordic mythology – there was hardly anything else to do, we had already killed all the gods in Greece.

A point that surprised me, especially in the second part, and excited me even more, was how well the connections worked. The story was planned for a trilogy anyway, but the explanations for game-mechanical necessities (why don’t I have all the magic anymore, where have all my improvements gone) had never been made better for me. Instead of a “you just fell and lost it” or something, it was another betrayal that robbed us of those gifts – it was an integral part of the story that explained the further motivation. I don’t think I’ve played anything that has come close to this transition.

The new part completely changed this – the transition is simply not explained at all. Not at all. Suddenly we have a child and a dead wife and we are in the north. Fullstop. The whole game doesn’t properly explain why we’re still alive after part 3, what we’re doing here, how we’re here, and so on and so forth. To be honest, that made it very difficult for me to understand the motivation – I didn’t know the wife and son and didn’t recognize Kratos. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I didn’t care, but honestly – I did what the menu told me to do, not what I felt was Kratos’ motivation. The old parts solved that much better and that was also a big disappointment for me.

So now I’m stumbling through this world a bit unmotivated – this open world. And that’s my next question: why?

Basically, open worlds always have one problem: why should you explore them? You have a goal in every game that’s very important to the protagonist, and that’s why you really have to do everything necessary to achieve that goal as quickly as possible – or would you go shopping and collect some mushrooms before you come to the rescue of your best friends when they are in need?

Different games handle this differently. A positive example for me is “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”. You can go to Ganon immediately if you want and try the boss fight – but it just makes sense to explore a lot beforehand and thus build up skills and knowledge. So the open world works well here.

For me, GoW is almost a negative example. You have Kratos, who has always run straight to his goal and even in the current part sees every detour as annoying. You have a clear goal and you have a child with you that you don’t want to die – does it make sense to run along the beach again beforehand or to visit a valkyrie and challenge it? I personally think it’s strange. Especially since Kratos keeps asking to hurry in subordinate clauses – Atreus, on the other hand, would like to explore the area. However, that didn’t motivate me.

After so much complaining, now to the positive side: the game looks damn good, sounds damn good, and is a lot of fun. Epic fights against huge opponents, the well-known, extensive yet detailed backgrounds and landscapes and the different mechanics really are a lot of fun. The axe (works like Thor’s hammer) allows for new puzzle mechanics and Atreus with his bow has to be used in completely new ways to solve certain puzzles or to help us in battle – a very interesting addition to the system that I really liked.

Technically it all worked very well: we streamed the game via PSNow, we had no crashes and only very few lags in a few places – but all in all hardly distinguishable from a local installation. I didn’t notice any bugs either.

However, I noticed one half technical, half content-related peculiarity: the balancing was all over the place. While in the first parts there was always a fight out of the ordinary, the fights here were very varied in their difficulty. I’ve had to switch modes several times for failing a fight, only to fall into a fight that was way too easy. The different colored bars meant to indicate an opponent’s difficulty – roll a dice and you get better predictions. And Sparta’s wrath was just disappointment.

In the old parts, the ultimate weapon that chopped up everything and everyone (which is why it had to be laboriously recharged again and again) was completely messed up here. Some bosses suffered a lot, other basic enemies marked in green could take two or three hits – very frustrating. Also a reason why the attack, which took a lot of time built up, sometimes seemed completely wasted – with the admittedly still epic start animation.

The bosses were big and epic – but no chance against a basic soldier thing

All in all, there was a lot that I liked, but unfortunately almost as much that bothered me. In the end, for me it’s almost the same as with the newer Assassin’s Creed parts: same name because people know the brand, similar characters, but a completely different game. And because it’s trendy right now, something with Vikings.

For me, the open world idea doesn’t fit GoW at all and, in my opinion, the story can’t even begin to keep up with that of the original parts – you run from A to B and knock out everything that’s there. You kill a few gods again and learn a bit about the alternative world – all the rest is just given. You learn a bit about the gods who live here and their history; I don’t know why that should interest me as Kratos.

A new story with Atreus as an essential element is teased for the next part, which could be quite interesting; I don’t know if we’re going to play that though.

I’m not saying that GoW is a bad game in itself or that it wasn’t fun. In my opinion, it didn’t deserve the title God of War though. They took a well known brand, pasted it onto a generic game and hoped no one would notice – for my part I at least think I figured it out.

What are your thoughts on this? Let me know and let’s discuss it on Discord or on stream!