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God of War PC Review – The God of All Seasons

God of War PC Review – The God of All Seasons

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Since the launch of the PlayStation 4 in 2018, Santa Monica’s God of War has made countless “best” lists, often the best of all time. It’s without a doubt the killer app for the PlayStation 4, and an impressive showcase of how far Sony’s console can be pushed. Now, nearly four years later, it’s coming to PC — Kratos’ beard glory has faded a bit, but it’s only just gone. God of War is not just a solid hack-and-slash romp through a refreshingly eerie spin on Norse mythology, but a gentle reflection on fatherhood and generational trauma.

We caught up with Kratos, the legendary ghost of Sparta and the son of Zeus, in an unusually quiet moment. He and his young son Atreus were gathering firewood in a forest in the far north. There’s snow on the ground and gray flowing through the bushy beard, making it clear that the story is a far cry from the original series, both in time and space.

When we return to the family’s secluded log cabin, we learn that this simple chore has a grim purpose: Kratos is collecting firewood for his dead wife Fay. Her wish was for her ashes to be spilled from the land’s highest peak – which took Kratos and Atreus on a longer journey than they could have imagined.

The first-party games Sony has ported to the PC – Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Past – have demonstrated the quality and polish their tentpole series demands, and God of War is no exception. God of War is impressively seamless, highlighted by its one-shot cinematography—through exploration, cutscenes, and gory combat, you’ll never jump from one point of view to another.

As a series, God of War is synonymous with video game excess: each new entry usually tries to outdo the last M in terms of the size of bosses encountered, the number of guts in each brutal battle, and even the sheer number of graded The maturity of the ESRB. There’s definitely something superfluous in this new God of War: in one sequence, I explore the massive corpse of a dead giant, digging a little mythical chisel out of its head, while another lets me pilot a flying The longship left Helheim and swarmed as the undead Drago.

God of War has an impressively seamless, one-shot finish

But I found the restraint and subtlety of the God of War show to be as impressive as its decadent exuberance, if not more so. Many critics have pointed to the satisfying feeling of Kratos’ new Leviathan axe as it snaps back into his hands, like Thor’s hammer after being thrown into a predator’s sneering skull. I appreciate its open world approach to design, it has a large open lake surrounded by points of interest where I can stop the boat to explore basements, solve puzzles to gain new gear and stat boosts, or on my journey to the top in the advancing mountains. It’s big enough to give an awe-inspiring sense of scale to Jörmungandr, the world serpent in Viking saga, as it emerges from the lake and causes the water to drop, revealing more places to visit and puzzles to solve.

While the story involves Norse gods and an undead Spartan warrior who killed Ares and Zeus, it’s a deeply personal story of an absent father’s first meaningful encounter with his son. As they explore Midgard, Atreus asks Kratos the questions any child might ask of a father they barely know, and Kratos, in his rude and often rambunctious ways, tries to teach his son The lessons he needs in order to survive the world in a hostile and unforgiving environment.

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However, Kratos ended up doing most of his learning – much of it from Atreus’ unspoiled curiosity and kindness. The boy asks his father why things happen a certain way, or how someone might feel about them, and Kratos, the mythical death machine, reflexively replies “I don’t know, I don’t. know” don’t care. “

I explore the massive corpse of a dead giant and dig a little mythical chisel out of its head

It turns out that Kratos’ failure as a parent was driven by two factors. First, his famously strained relationship with his own father, Zeus, culminated in Kratos beating him to death after pinning Zeus to Gaia’s heart in God of War III. The second reason is more relevant: Kratos is trying to protect Atreus by withholding information about him. He didn’t want to tell his son that he was God.

For me, this is the most powerful part of God of War – better than its dynamic and punchy combat, its majestic visuals and stunning sound design. At the heart of the story is a compassionate understanding of a familiar phenomenon: Parents who lie to their children, even though their reasons for doing so are often noble, but that dishonesty—an overprotective urge—will pay a price.

Kratos is reluctant to accept correction, but his journey has given him some tragic hunch about where his protective instincts might end up going. The fate of our children is unwritten, but it is still theirs, and we cannot simply replace one doomed outcome with another we choose. Holding them too close, keeping them too insulated, will eventually doom them to repeat our own mistakes, or worse.

Of course, combat is the real heart of God of War. Once you’ve unlocked all the base moves, it feels great: Kratos sprints forward, through the dusty guts of the menacing draugr, and when you activate his Spartan rage, he mercilessly throws his bare fists at The enemy’s face is jelly. Feedback is professionally adjusted, only Just the right amount of bass kick and screen shake to feel every savage hit and crunching shield deflection. Atreus provides long-range support throughout, stunning enemies with electrified arrows, leaving them vulnerable so Kratos can intervene with devastating juggling and finishing moves.

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As good as the combat feels at the moment, it hits a high point early on and doesn’t change much for the rest of the game.Once you’ve found both weapons and unlocked some rune skills, the only thing God of War can change the fight is to craft it less Have fun by forcing you to use a specific weapon or exaggerating your enemy’s damage output and health pool.

The list of enemies is disappointing. There are only a few basic types of monsters to fight, each with specific combat roles. These all come from a range of elemental subtypes and loadouts, but by the time I got to the endgame, most of the fights felt pretty repetitive. Once you’ve fought a troll, you’ve pretty much seen the extent of what they can do, no matter what element they’re charged with. Beyond that, there are almost only two things to consider when entering a fight: where is the greatest threat, and who am I going to have Atreus pin down with his arrows?

This is a personal story about an absent father and son’s first meaningful encounter

Experience gained through battles and missions can be used to unlock new weapon abilities and skills for Atreus, and you can find and upgrade new armor as you explore. However, while the difficulty of the enemies does expand, the main questline doesn’t present enough challenges to make it worth your while to actively pursue upgrades, especially in the second half of the campaign.There Yes Brutal combat in God of War, but only as you explore the beaten path will you test your might in the Realm Rift and Valkyrie Vaults, which are clearly meant to be rescued before you finish the story.

But once you’ve watched the credits roll, there’s a lot more to do. Throughout the journey you’ll travel to several mythical Norse kingdoms, but two of them – Niflheim and Muspelheim – are repeatable endgame modes in which you can play in a Hunt for loot in timed, semi-Roguelike mazes, or take on increasingly demanding challenges on your way up the volcano. If you like fighting, after you finish the campaign, you have many hours of fighting to do – and that’s before you even think about joining a new game.

At this point, I could hear fingers tapping on the table. We knew God of War was a good game, we all heard about it when it came out. What about the PC port? I have good news: it’s pretty good too. The Steam version supports ultrawide monitors and 4K resolutions, with separate settings for texture detail, model quality, shadows, reflections, “atmospheres” and ambient occlusion. While God of War’s system requirements aren’t too demanding, you can also boost performance with Nvidia DLSS or AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution to help you take advantage of the new uncapped frame rates.

The enemy list is disappointing, with only a few basic types of monsters to fight

However, there are some odd omissions: the review version lacks a true full-screen mode, offering only borderless full-screen and windowed display options. Likewise, while you can remove the frame rate cap, if your monitor has a refresh rate of 144Hz or higher, and you want to lock the frame rate at that value, the manual cap is 120fps.

The performance of the RTX 2070 Super and Ryzen 9 3900X is generally rock-solid, even on the Ultra preset at 1440p. I couldn’t get Ares to recognize my Elite Series 2 controller when connected via Bluetooth, but that’s not unique to Ares, connecting with a USB-C cable worked just fine.

Fortunately, none of these hiccups are enough to distract from the fact that God of War is a luxuriously crafted game, from its structured boss fights to its finicky attention to detail, allowing it to seamlessly tell its story. . And for a grumpy god who spends his time slicing through stories of mythical warriors with a whirling knife that bears an odd resemblance to the Unreal Engine logo, the god of war is refreshingly human.

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Kirsten Bennett
Kirsten is a passionate writer who loves games, and one day he decided to combine the two. She is now professionally writing niche articles about Consoles and hardware .