After roughly a year since its reveal teaser, God of War Ragnarok was featured front and center at PlayStation Showcase 2021. The trailer didn’t just highlight key narrative beats and elements, but also gave audiences a pretty good look at all kinds of new gameplay elements and environments they will get to experience in the game.
Santa Monica Studios announced earlier this year that God of War Ragnarok will not be coming out in 2021, which was the initial release window, and was instead pushed to 2022. The exact release date is as of yet unconfirmed, but there is way more for audiences to work with now than they did a year ago.
God of War Ragnarok will be a cross-gen release, meaning it will be available on both the last-gen PS4 as well as PS5.
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God of War Ragnarok – What to expect from the game come 2022?
New characters
While players got to see a few familiar faces such as Freya, Brok,Sindi, and Mimir – there were also plenty of new ones. Laya De Leon Hayes joins the cast as Angraboda, one of the last surviving giants, Usman Ally plays Durlin – who is possibly another dwarf that Kratos and Atreus meet on their journey.
2018’s God of War did a great job in building up the eventual and inevitable between Kratos, Atreus and the higher Aesir Gods, of which there are plenty in the upcoming game. Ryan Hurst joins the cast as Thor while Ben Prendergast takes on the role of Tyr, the Norse God of War. It was also confirmed in the PlayStation Showcase 2021 that Odin will also be a part of God of War Ragnarok, and will be played by Thomas Schiff.
New Gameplay elements
God of War Ragnarok will supposedly continue the duo’s journey shortly after where the first game ended with the onset of Fimbulwinter as a layer of frost covers all of Midgard. This means the pair will have to ditch the trusty boat that allowed for travel in Midgard – but a trusty sled carried by two wolves will take its place instead.
The wolves, of course, will have some significance to Ragnarok, or they could just be regular wolves – albeit wolves capable of carrying two gods, one of whom who probably weighs a little less than a boulder. Apart from this, the trailer also showcased new moves for the Blades of Chaos – allowing Kratos to introduce more verticality in combat and pull himself up to higher up ledges and even enemies.
This looks very much in line with previous God of War titles, which were far more vertical in their approach to combat. This also lines up thematically as it means Kratos is re-learning his skills with the Blades of Chaos after having abandoned them all these years. The Leviathan Axe has some pretty gnarly, new animations and moves as well, and Artreus seems to be a lot more physically strong this time around too.
Seeing as Atreus is visibly older, it makes sense for his moveset to evolve with is growth spurt and contribute in a much bigger way to combat, not that he didn’t do that already.
New realms and new enemies
Santa Monica Studios have confirmed that Kratos and Atreus will now be able to travel to all Nine Realms in the game. This means that the God of War Ragnarok sandbox will be much larger than the previous game, which allowed players to visit only Six Realms.
The game will include Asgard as one of the realms the pair can potentially visit. Along with new realms that introduce all kinds of diversity to the game in terms of environment, there will also be new enemy types to keep players busy.
New enemy types were also spotted in the trailer which will surely force players to adapt to the new moveset. New enemies such as Dreki and Stalker were named specifically by the studio, and it will be interesting to see what kind of perils await the duo in their journey across the Nine Realms.
The end of the Norse saga
God of War Ragnarok will wrap up the series’ foray into Norse mythlogy as the studio has confirmed it will be the last chapter of the pair’s story in these particular lands. Game Director Eric Williams did go on to confirm that Ragnarok will indeed take place, possibly bringing about the end of the Aesir, but as to what implications that has for Kratos and Atreus, it remains to be seen.
The series has previously hinted at exploring new mythologies in new lands such as Egypt, by dropping cryptic hints in God of War (2018) so it will be interesting to see where the franchise ventures to, next.
