In 2018, God of War competed for the Game of the Year award with Red Dead Redemption 2, a juggernaut in modern gaming. Since then, the memory of Kratos and Atreus’ adventure has faded away a little, as if players had started to take for granted some of its qualities, reach, and influence in video games’ current landscape. On top of being an exciting graphical upgrade and an occasion for a new audience to enjoy the Norse blockbuster, God of War’s PC release is the best way to light up that flame again, and remember what made it so special almost four years ago.
After exploring the prequel path with Ascension, Santa Monica Studio knew it had to try something new. God of War was acclaimed back in the PS2 era as an ode to gratuitous violence, but needed to change its course to appeal to a more modern audience and be more in line with the storytelling-oriented prestige games of Sony’s post-PlayStation 3 era.
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This is how this soft reboot was born, resetting Kratos’ story both in terms of themes and gameplay, bringing him to a new and distant land miles away from Ancient Greece, and with a son, Atreus, to take care of. Innovations such as the one-shot camera, the new action-RPG take that completely changed how the traditionally linear hack ‘n’ slash series worked, the introduction of a kid in a typically gory environment, and even a boat to use for exploration purposes – these were all controversial choices, but the game landed to critical and commercial acclaim.
One of the things that makes God of War unique is its ability to let you feel like you truly are in a brand new, unexplored land. Kratos can’t read this land’s runes and he doesn’t know the deities who rule over the Norse landscape – Atreus is as much a teacher to him and he is to the boy. His son is essentially a bridge between the old and the new worlds. More than ever, Kratos feels like an extension of the player as you explore this magical and deadly landscape and stare up in awe at giant turtles and serpents that coil around the world. Atreus is not a simple narrative sparring partner or some helpless NPC you’re forced to escort along the entire game. The kid has a precise role in both story and combat, and his growth – as a child with a complex relationship with his father, which has an actual impact on gameplay – is dealt with in a manner that’s so different from your usual companion characters.
Despite the game’s tonal shift, though, the series’ signature violence isn’t gone entirely. Santa Monica Studio managed to bring back the potency of the original games’ fighting system and make it work with the tighter camera and more thoughtful story. Switching up tactics in combat feels smooth and there’s real intention in every swing. Using your fists, an ice axe, powers, and other weapons, you’re a whirlwind of fury who’s as effective at range as you are up close. Atreus acts as a ranged extra, firing arrows at your command, helping you keep enemies juggled in the air or stunned in place. This is all brought to life by crunchy feedback, gory dismemberments and buckets of blood.
The most important thing about this soft reboot, however, is how the Californian developer defined and implemented the new setting. In a moment when games with boundless landscapes were saturating the industry, God of War’s semi-open world is about small encounters and puzzles, a more contained size that inspired Gears 5 and Halo Infinite on competing platforms, and most importantly was pivotal in shaping up a layout for PlayStation exclusives to come, including The Last of Us Part II. This was one of the first, if not the first, last-gen games to offer a non-linear, and non-bloated sandbox where you’re not pitched an inhuman amount of tasks to complete, but instead feels hand-crafted – filled with activities that continue to flesh out and grow the characters away from the golden path.
So, how does God of War stack up on PC? Playing at Ultra details, at any HD resolution, textures pop out of the screen, and the level of smoothness at or above 60fps adds a whole new dimension to the game.
Our tests were based on a PC with an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU and an Intel i9 11900k CPU at max settings (of which there are many, and highly customizable – including the beloved FOV slider). This action-RPG game is not what you’d define “light,” but performance is more than in line with system requirements. What’s important to point out is that technical issues that were present in Horizon: Zero Dawn’s PC edition, where frame-pacing was a pain during traversal, are long gone, and PlayStation releases have reached the degree of quality and polish you’ve come to expect on console even on their new home. Nvidia and AMD’s upscaling techniques are now fully supported right at launch, and God of War is a showcase for Reflex, a new feature that allows you to play at a lower latency during combat.
One of the biggest new features of the PC version is support for ultrawide monitors, tested at a 2560×1080 resolution. As with Death Stranding, you can see little black borders, due to a native resolution of 2520×1080, but it’s not a deal-breaker, and it’s likely that modders will get to work as soon as possible to fix that. Ultrawide’s impact is maybe lower here compared to other actual open-world games such as Days Gone, as not all the areas are what you would call sprawling. However, bigger scenes – such as rowing a boat through Midgard – and more ambitious camera cuts offer an extremely pleasing experience on a 21:9 display, and one that is hard to come back from. At this resolution, the frame rate bounces between 150fps and 90fps, mainly based on whether you’re playing in closed or open scenarios, with rare low points at around 75fps. That said, you’ll never notice actual dips, and coming from older consoles, the feeling of smoothness is refreshing.
4K resolution plays at an average of 70-80fps, making it perfect for vsync or toggling on the frame rate cap for a more stable and smoother solution. Going for this resolution, you’ll only get to see micro-dips at around 55fps when in the most expansive areas.
If you decide against vsync, you’ll notice screen tearing mainly in cutscenes. Naturally, 4K is a bit more expensive in terms of resources – it’ll take around 1GB more VRAM to run it – but there are plenty of sliders to toggle up and down to get the result you’re looking for. As for loading times, going back in the game from a save file on a best-in-class SSD is around 10 seconds faster on PC than it was on PS4 and PS4 Pro. Jumping in the game from a cold boot instead, offers very close times between the platforms, also because of the addition of a new PlayStation Studios intro sequence on PC.
The debate between 30fps and 60fps or above will be eternal, and there’s a chance God of War won’t be the one to sort it out. On consoles, the game clearly aims at a cinematic effect to render the power of Kratos and the heaviness of his movements both in cutscenes and gameplay. On PC, the original theatricality is a bit lost in translation, with the title feeling more gamey and “functional” as it offers a more frenetic and engaging experience in combat. There’s no denying that, following the release of PlayStation 5, the gap between the different versions is now way closer than it felt in the past and, considering there’s no new content here, console users shouldn’t feel like they’re treated as second-class citizens.
All in all, God of War is one of the best games from the last generation, and one that still makes it clear why it was so much praised back in 2018. The PC version isn’t revolutionary, as with previous PlayStation games’ Steam ports, but allows a whole new audience to enjoy an adventure that they’d never even dreamed of up until a couple years ago. It does so without technical issues of sorts, and brings in the deep variety of customization options PC users love to play with. Now, the ball is in God of War: Ragnarok’s court.
Written by Paolo Sirio on behalf of GLHF.
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