God of War

We didn’t expect to see Kratos, the PlayStation icon, on another platform one day, but Sony did it and here it is, bringing one of the greatest adventure games of the last generation, God of War, to the PC platform Adventure that renewed the blood of this series and took it to new heights. Completely and unprecedentedly, it abandoned Greek mythology and switched to Norse mythology upon its release in 2018, reinterpreting this popular series and presenting it to gaming audiences in a new way. The PC version obviously brings many improvements and we played through the entire experience and the result was positive, perhaps even more than we expected.

If you’re the type of player who’s never played this game, God of War reimagines the original series, deconstructs it, and then rebuilds it based on the same elements to create a more modern, innovative experience. Kratos is no longer the ruthless, frenzied fighter. Kratos now lives isolated from humans in the middle of the forest with his wife and son Atreus. Kratos has grown older and wiser, although he still retains his immense physical strength. The journey begins when Kratos’ wife dies and he and his son Atreus decide to fulfill her wish by scattering her ashes from the highest mountain peak. The human nature of the adventure is very different from previous God of War games, revolving around the relationship between Kratos and Atreus, the relationship between father and son, teacher and student, and how each of them explores aspects of the other’s personality doesn’t know, other than the development of Atreus’ character during the journey.

The relationship between Kratos and his son is the strength of this version, which made us feel like it was a prelude to bigger and more epic adventures in the future. The relationship between the two parties was full of tension and attraction, especially with Kratos’ strictness and the impulsiveness of Atreus, who wanted to prove himself. As for the gameplay, it is still as good as it was in 2018. The gameplay is based on elements of action, puzzle solving and exploration. The action element and the combat system are the best from our personal point of view, it is very fun and allows to perform many consecutive attacks (combos) with the possibility of better customizing the character of Kratos to the player’s personal preferences focuses on that Element of physical strength or magical ability. The player can upgrade the armor and weapons of Kratos as well as Atreus, who plays the role of assistant and gives him orders with a single press of a button, using money and items that the player collects during the journey, and there is a large group of Skills that can also be learned through experience points and… It opens new horizons in combat.

The puzzles were very simple and we believe that they no longer live up to what they were before. We also really missed the epic boss fights from the third part, but the game was careful to keep the main adventure balanced and suitable for all levels of players Fans of challenge and exploration: the side content in the game will give them the fun they are looking for, with significantly more difficult challenges. Despite this side content, God of War is still a narrative game that follows a linear progression style, a style that gives it more control over the elements of the adventure throughout the journey, in a way that many other games currently lack. However, we’re hoping that Ragnarok will feature more challenging puzzles and trickier boss fights than we’re used to in the past. Anyway, the new step in the series is great, the new camera fits perfectly and God of War can now hold on to this image for a long time.

God of War had an excellent release on PC and we believe many players will be pleased with its smooth performance. The game benefits from the benefits of NVIDIA DLSS and Reflex and we have tested both extensively. DLSS (the image display function reduces the actual screen resolution and increases it using artificial intelligence to improve performance) works very perfectly in this game, and in terms of quality you can’t tell any difference at all from the actual screen resolution. The game runs in DLSS quality and at the highest settings with a frame rate of more than 125 frames on the RTX 3080 graphics card, which means that the game gave us a high-performance experience. Users of AMD graphics cards also have the opportunity to use the Super Resolution function, but it reduces the actual image quality somewhat, which is not the case. It rivals the aesthetics of the DLSS quality option, but strikes us as closer to the image provided by the DLSS performance option.

The PC version of the game also supports HDR and has one of the best uses of the technology we’ve seen to date, with more natural colors and a higher level of contrast and depth to the image, giving the game a more atmospheric character. The game does not support any ray tracing technology. Perhaps the game could have benefited from ray tracing for reflections, considering there are a large number of environments with reflective surfaces in the game. However, the game requires a great deal of effort to master. Reflections using traditional graphics techniques and… The reflections have been improved compared to the console version of the game, with more depth and detail in the game’s environment through additional environmental occlusion techniques.

The appearance of the game is still attractive after all these years, and although it may no longer compete for the title of the best graphic games, the great effort put into the bright materials, decorations and character models with fine details, the case still shines and looks best on PC. Reducing graphics settings significantly improves performance, so we’re confident that most gamers will have a great gaming experience even with slightly outdated hardware. For example, reducing the shadow setting by one degree gave us a very large jump in performance – another 30 frames. In sometimes very demanding areas. On the other hand, the amount of shadow on the floors has decreased significantly, although we believe this is a sacrifice that many will make to achieve the best possible performance. We had no issues with the game’s performance or any issues with stuttering. As for the Reflex feature, which speeds up the reaction, it didn’t make any difference to our experience and we didn’t feel like it represented much of an advantage in a game that carries weight. With such controls, the reaction speed in the game is very fast anyway.

God of War is still a wonderful game and a rich and vast adventure for fans of single-player games on computers, as it was on the PlayStation. The game may not be quite as impressive now as it was when it was first released, but we think it’s one of the best-made PC conversions in recent memory, especially after several disappointing titles in a row, including Final Fantasy VII Remake. This version also offers many graphics options and balanced performance, making the experience wonderful and smooth, with easy access to 60 frames on a variety of devices. The PC version of the game is the best way to experience the journey of Kratos and Atreus, which won the hearts of many gamers when it was first released. It’s 2018, and now, if you’ll excuse us, it’s time for us to get back on board and continue our journey across Midgard in search of treasure and even more brutal challenges.

We received a copy of the game through the publisher ahead of its release on PC