Ragnarök is coming - the next God of War title is now confirmed, after a long period of rumour-mongering, and Sony recently took the wraps off it with a full gameplay trailer.
It looks absolutely gorgeous, and is set to continue the story of Kratos and Atreus some years after the end of the last game. Keep reading to find out all the key details you need to know, but be warned - this article contains some spoilers for the end of the last game!
God of War Ragnarök: Trailer and release date
Sony gave us a proper show in September 2021 when it used its Showcase event as the chance to show off Ragnarök properly for the first time - we knew the game was on its way, but didn't have a title much less gameplay.
Previously we'd had a teaser which you can find below - released almost exactly a year before the latest trailer, and confirming almost nothing.
However, one thing it did give us was a release window of 2021, which we know has since been delayed. The global pandemic can largely be given the blame, but we don't yet have a new release window to anticipate. Based on the impressive gameplay in the latest trailer, though, we'd hope that a 2022 release is in the making.
God of War Ragnarök platforms
While the game was properly shown off during a showcase stream that was all about the PlayStation 5, subsequent information has revealed that Ragnarök will not in fact be a PS5 exclusive - it'll also come out for the PS4.
That is no great surprise, since the footage does indeed look like a shinier version of the last game, rather than a huge technical leap forward. While it might disappoint some next-gen owners, this will also help Sony to reach a far wider audience given the PS4's huge install-base.
God of War Ragnarök: Story
The end of 2018's God of War contained a fair few rapid-fire revelations, so stop reading if you haven't finished it!
At the close of the game, we've found out that Atreus was named Loki at birth, suggesting he himself is a part of the Norse pantheon that Kratos has been trying so hard to hide from. The death of Baldur triggers the beginning of Fimbulwinter, a plague of ice that precedes the world-ending Ragnarök itself.
From the first trailer for Ragnarök, we can see that a few years have passed and Atreus has grown up a bit, into his awkward teenage years. It's clear that the Norse gods are coming for Kratos, not least Freya who is still in mourning for Baldur - and in the background the presence of Thor can't be ignored.
Mimir, your friendly talking head from the last game, is returning, and from the sounds of it he's cooking up a plan to free the imprisoned Tyr, Norse mythology's own god of war, to get him to help you push back against the other gods. Whether that will work as simply as it sounds, we'll let you be the judge.
God of War Ragnarök: Gameplay
It's clear from the gameplay trailer that things are taking some evolutionary steps in Ragnarök - we can see that in the glimpses of combat that we get. For one, Atreus seems to now have summoning abilities, riding on a spectral stag at one point.
Kratos has a bunch of new abilities himself, including a grapple-hook style movement set, and presumably this time we won't have to wait too long before we get our hands on the Blades of Chaos. There are also clearly diverse new enemies to fight, including the above crocodile-like Dreki and the return of centaurs (hopefully their deaths won't be quite as gruesome as in God of War III).
The world is also expanding in geographical terms - God of War in 2018 let us visit six of the nine realms of Norse myth, but Ragnarök will expand that to run the full gamut, and we see glimpses of active and bustling towns in the trailer. That's a new look for God of War, and we wonder if it could make for more dialogue and characterful questlines.
There are also moments where Kratos takes to a dog-pulled sledge to cross iced-over water, along with returns to the boating that was so prominent in the last game, so it's clear that we'll be traversing large maps once again.
Beyond that, we don't know a vast amount more, but the noises coming from Santa Monica Studio indicate that the game is going to be bigger than its prequel in most ways you can think of, so we'd also assume there will once again be an extensive crafting system and weapon upgrade tree.
To find out a bit more about the game, you can check out the PlayStation Blog post unveiling it, but otherwise we'll have to wait for more trailer and information to come out over time.
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