In a year that’s already given me so much to be satisfied with, I sure wasn’t expecting any more surprises as we start winding down. Color me surprised.
When Sony Santa Monica revealed the long rumored DLC content for their critical and commercial hit God of War: Ragnarok this past week at The Game Awards, I sure went through a gamut of emotions.
The 2018 re-imagining of the God of War franchise is high up there in my “favorite games of all time” pedestal. It is the game I credit for getting me off a major gaming slump where I thought I had lost my love for gaming. Here came Sony Santa Monica, in their desperate move for survival after a less than well received game in God of War: Ascension and a canceled new sci-fi IP, re-imagining one of my favorite action series from the PS2 and PS3 era so successfully, crafting a potent amalgamation of what made my “perfect video game” to keep me in love with the medium to this day.
Its direct sequel, God of War: Ragnarok, built nicely upon the things that made God of War 2018 such an important game for me, but it certainly didn’t surpass my feelings of that previous game thanks to some slight mis-steps along the way.
So when this DLC, simply subtitled Valhalla, was announced as a “rogue-lite” mode as its en vogue with many games these days, I sure went from elated excitement to see more God of War content to slight indifference. While I definitely enjoyed my time with God of War: Ragnarok in 2022, even if it didn’t linger in my mind like 2018’s game, I still wouldn’t mind any excuse to try to go back to it. I am not going to lie when I say that I would have preferred an actual expansion to the game as the rumors had suggested instead of a rogue-lite mode as seemingly marketed.
My love for rogue-lites not-withstanding, is very hit and miss. But hey, God of War: Ragnarok, for better or worse, already gave us enough content. So what’s the harm in a free new mode, right?
8-10 hours later and counting, color me absolutely shocked at the end result. Sony Santa Monica absolutely undersold the amount of work, love, and care they put into this free update.
God of War: Ragnarok Valhalla is way more than just a rogue-lite mode. It’s an expansion-worthy extension for God of War: Ragnarok that marries the rogue-lite concept in a way that feels organic while building upon the main game’s story. It distills the very best elements of God of War: Ragnarok while downplaying and eliminating many of the issues that held back the ambitious sequel. And finally, it throws in tasteful callbacks to the series’ entire history that help enrich the denouement of both the Greek and Norse eras of the saga.
And all of it for free? It’s absolutely nuts.
Slight story spoilers from the end of “God of War: Ragnarok” to follow
Picking up shortly after the end of the main game, God of War: Ragnarok Valhalla picks up with Kratos some time after his son Atreus’ departure to find the missing giants from Jotunheim in the wake of Asgard’s destruction and Odin’s death. After discovering one final prophecy from his late wife Fey showing a new path forward for him, Kratos alongside his mouthful companion Mimir take a journey towards the Norse afterlife shores of Valhalla after receiving a mysterious invitation to this otherworldly place. With promises of answers to this new prophecy, Kratos goes on his biggest journey of introspection as he fully grapples with the past he’s been slowly shedding away and reconciles it with this uncertain and different future far different from his expected nature.
It’s through this story concept where God of War: Ragnarok Valhalla manages to introduce the rogue-lite conceit as Kratos’ journey through Valhalla takes him on a mental journey that makes him relive the trials and tribulations of his recent realm spanning journey through the nine Norse realms and his dark deeds through the Greek era. If you have been following the God of War saga all the way from the 2005 original to now, God of War: Ragnarok Valhalla will reward your dedication with direct and overt references to every previous God of War entry before it.
Even the Ready at Dawn developed PSP spinoffs, which were also referenced in the main game’s story, play an important part in this latest introspective journey for Kratos, and the way these references have evolved now into actual physical manifestations perfectly marries both pantheons together in a fully satisfying way. If you only got onboard the God of War train with the 2018 re-imagining and found interest in the references to the past, God of War Ragnarok Valhalla makes these references more visually overt now. Longtime fans are definitely in for the most reward.
When I say there is a shocking amount of narrative peppered throughout your runs, I mean it. From important in-game dialogue to the mocap-style seamless cut-scenes seen in both 2018’s game and the base Ragnarok game, Sony Santa Monica didn’t skimp on its narrative production value for this free update. Kratos’ therapeutic direct confrontations for his past deeds delivers an emotional reckoning worthy of the re-imagined duology and his Greek saga.
If the idea of engaging into a randomized rogue-lite to get to experience this narrative sounds unappealing, fret not. Sony Santa Monica made this mode its own, feeling like a curated experience worthy of the high quality of their two recent games. It’s a highly malleable experience for those who just want to see its narrative beats through, and it’s adaptable for those that want to get the biggest challenge possible. If anything, I found even greater satisfaction in Valhalla’s ending not just as a conclusion to this epilogue, but as a summation of Kratos’ entire journey so far.
There is something to be said about a game that has so many excellent elements that seem like they may get lost in the shuffle of less desirable stuff. God of War: Ragnarok built nicely upon the strengths of the 2018 game, taking an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, just make it cooler” ethos to how the game handled its combat and underlying systems. But where the underlying nature of the gameplay improved in nice ways, other more glaring issues either became more obvious in the sequel or were problems the first game didn’t quite suffer from.
For one, pacing, which was more deliberately measured in the first game, became more sluggish in Ragnarok as the game tried cramming more characters into its narrative and divided its attention between Kratos and a playable Atreus. Exploration, which was a first for the series with the 2018 game, blew up its scope with Ragnarok while also taking steps back with logical level layout and a horrible compass that got you lost more often than it guided you. When the game would get into the meat of its incredible story along with the pomp and circumstance of its big emotional moments, and when it let you revel in its excellent combat, the excellence of God of War: Ragnarok was undisputed. But when the aforementioned problems got in the way, it was hard not to wish the game would just focus on the things it did so excellently. God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla absolutely focuses on the latter.
By embracing a more linear ethos fitting of the rogue-lite nature, Valhalla gets to the fun stuff much quicker and in ways that are ever growing and satisfying. Thanks to the rogue-lite nature of this expansion, the underlying combat of God of War: Ragnarok finds new meaning and purpose with expert curation in its random runs. Whereas the main game would eventually give you more runes and abilities than you could ever find the use for, the rogue-lite randomized nature of starting a run and getting different kinds of runes and upgrades helps pair the combat down nicely to important choices that can help you build Kratos in different ways. It showed me a level of versatility to the game’s combat that was always there, and it is now more front and center when I have to pick the hard choices presented to me.
Continuing a trend that started with Ragnarok as clear feedback to the lack of enemy diversity seen in the 2018 game, not only does Valhalla bring a lot of the varied encounters of the main game back for the expansion, Sony Santa Monica went a step further and brought a lot of the Greek enemies not seen since both God of War 3 and God of War: Ascension. Cyclops, the underground jumping guards, the Olympus rank and file skeletons, minotaurs, sirens, the harpies, and more all show up as enemies to fight in your runs, and they fit in perfectly with the expansion’s marriage of the two pantheons while also working well with the new combat system.
And when they are combined with some of the boss fights that also harken back to the old era, God of War Ragnarok Valhalla is truly combat bliss. If you were worried this combat would be broken up with shimmying and convoluted environmental puzzles or exploration, fret not. Valhalla understands the assignment and keeps the focus on the things that matter, and the focus along with the variety makes it the best expression of combat in the re-imagining so far.
“Half assed” is certainly not a word that can be used to describe the work Sony Santa Monica put into the production value of this thing. While God of War: Ragnarok was already a superb looking title taking advantage of being a souped up PlayStation 4 game to be so sharp and run flawlessly on the PlayStation 5, they certainly didn’t skimp on expanding the environments they already had on deck for Valhalla.
With a couple of exceptions that feel like a few environments lifted straight from the game for some of the combat scenarios in some of the biomes, a lot of the levels included here are all new, taking advantage of the 9 different biomes from the Norse realms while also adding a couple of Greek environments late in the run clearly evoking legendary moments from the Greek games, like the Desert of Lost Souls, the Aegean Sea boat, and the Hercules Arena from the original God of War and God of War III. It’s a lovely recreation of many different touchstones of the franchise, and it feels extra rewarding in the way it all comes together.
If anything, God of War: Ragnarok Valhalla will go down as one of the more successful attempts at mis-direction I’ve ever seen a company pull off. If you just watch the announcement trailer, I don’t blame you if you think there is nothing essential about this other than an endless mode taking advantage of the game’s strong combat. The fact that this ended up being so much more, where even after 8-10 hours I’m still finding new enemies and permutations to the runs and getting even more awesome story context to things, is insane for a free expansion.
Sony Santa Monica did incredible work with this, and if you have ever liked the God of War franchise at any point, I can’t imagine a better love letter for the fans. If anything, God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla helped made me love Ragnarok more than I did, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.
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