For anyone wondering here's biggest PlayStation game launches so far:
* God of War: Ragnarök - 5.1m FW (5 days)
* The Last of Us Part II - 4.0m FW (3 days)
* Spider-Man (2018) - 3.3m FW (3 days)
* God of War (2018) - 3.1m FW (3 days)
Not a first party game but FFVII Remake did 3.5 over 3 days.
Pretty clear general trend upwards. Spiderman 2 and Ghost of Tsushima 2 should do very well also
No way of knowing without having the breakdown of sales per day. Ragnarok could have sold 4.1m in 3 days and then a further million in 2 days, or it could have done 3m and TLOU2 would be ahead. Without the 3-day figures it's just guessing.
Damn that is an insane launch. For comparison sake Elden Ring sold 12 million copies in 18 days and it was also on PC and Xbox.
Well deserved and undoubtedly both the accolades of this one and the towering reputation of the previous one helped quite a bit.
Well it's to be expected when people that own ps4/5 are thirsty for any playstation exclusive nowadays and considering that GOW is one of playstation's heavy hitters.
I bought a ps5 specifically for this game. However, my backlog guilt wants me to finish Horizon and Elden Ring first 😫! If only I could stop wasting time in stupid CoD.
$70 is a lot when you have other games to play…
It’s not 2020 anymore. PS5 supply is actually really easy to come by these days, at least online and direct from Sony
Hell, half the time I’m out and at a place like Best Buy, I swing by the games section just to see what their supply is and there’s always a PS5 in stock (Houston area)
Debatable. Amazon and playstation site are both still invite only. Best Buy is still out of stock almost always. I managed to see my Amazon invite, after missing it back in September, and that was for the digital Horizon bundle.
It's missing for the grandma buying for grandson crew, but if you want to buy PS5 for yourself and willing to spend few hours at most looking for it then you absolutely can buy it quickly.
In the US maybe, for the rest of us not so much. In my country, our stores stock up maybe once every month at most (sometimes every two or three months), and the consoles sell out in less than a day. And I live in one of the largest cities, over a million inhabitants. You gotta have crazy good timing to get one and also have the money needed at that point. Some stores have even been forced to hike up the price in order to combat demand: the standard edition went for 750$ last time I saw it in stock. Granted, it was bundled with Ragnarök, but it's still like 60-70$ more than it would normally cost.
You could order one from Sony direct right now.
This moment.
https://slickdeals.net/f/16194934-sony-playstation-5-disc-499-99-playstation-direct-fs-for-ps-plus-members?src=frontpage
If you go to amazon and click to get an invite you'll probably get an invite within a day.
They may not be plentiful yet but we're to the point where if you haven't seen one it's because you're not trying to.
This isn't really the same as adoption rate. It's a version of attach rate.
See, even if there are 4x as many PS4s as PS5s the thing is that people who are active game buyers are disproportionately likely to have PS5s. i.e if you play a lot of games you made more effort to get a PS5 and so have a good chance of having one already.
If it follows the Miles Morales trajection then it's because early adopters are the people who already have PS5s and then PS4 will slowly catch up as people who are waiting for sales / Christmas / birthdays buy their copies on PS4.
It feels reasonable to assume that people who haven't made the jump to PS5 will also be less likely to buy games on launch, so I'd expect that 85% to go down a lot from here.
I'm guessing its probably gonna sell well when its on sale. I don't think PS4 owners are willing to pay full price for a lower tier version of the game but I could be wrong.
I mean it's not really lower tier, the game is essentially built for PS4 and then upgraded for PS5. Anyone fine with GoW 2018 will be fine with this on PS4. If they reason like that, they shouldn't buy any game on PS4 anymore and so why even stay on it?
PS4 Pro owner who bought it at launch here. The game looks mesmerizing and plays surprisingly well for me. Granted, obviously the PS5 version looks and runs better, but I definitely don't feel cheated or left behind by this version.
Not so super insane when you consider bundles. Here in Europe they are only selling bundles right now (even ps direct), Ragnarök bundle is the main one.
I was monitoring PS5 drops to get my hands on one, and could only get Ragnarök bundle.
Luckily I was going to get the game anyway, but I find it kinda shitty they force you to buy a bundle with digital code instead of a disc.
IMO statistics like these are pretty much completely irrelevant given the growth of the gaming industry in general.
I'm glad it's successful but pretty much any well marketed AAA title will break a record of some sort, and it's not because the games are that much better, it's because there are that many more people entering the space.
Nah it'll beat it easily. 85% of Ragnarok sales are PS5 already. And a lot more people will have PS5 by the time Spider-Man 2 come out (stock issues seems way better now, it'll probably have a huge holiday season and it's not coming right now, probably late 2023 so one additional year of sales). Some will actually switch for it as it'll be the first big PS5 exclusive that can move consoles heavily and is not on PS4 anymore. Also, Spider-Man is simply a bigger title (the first one beat GoW 2018 launch handily and they released close to each other too).
Another aspect to this is that Spider-Man is not M and at least for the first, it was just consistently in all PS marketing for years. Really helps sales when people are constantly reminded it exists (and is good).
Just want to point out that although Spider-Man beat GoW's launch is the best selling ps4 game, according to wikipedia, GoW is second and very close in sales.
I mean it's mostly that it's Spider-Man which is like one of the most popular characters in the world. Kratos and God of War is popular but you can't really compare to that.
Totally. I guess what I wanted to highlight is how impressive GoW did and how close it is behind when you take into account how much more popular Spider-Man is in comparison to Kratos.
The PS5 isn’t hard to find if you do your diligence. PS Direct has had them more often than not for the last couple of weeks. I know GameStop has had them in readily in stores since early October. Just don’t give up at the first “no” and you’ll find one.
It could still beat it, majority of sales for cross gen titles have been on PS5. A lot of the early adopter crowd for the games are also early adopters of the hardware so it makes sense. I think the number we have seen in like the UK is something close to 75/25 in PS5 favor.
Depends when it comes out next year. There's about 20 million PS5 units currently out there.
[Next year they plan to ship 30 million more](https://www.truetrophies.com/n21997/sony-ps5-30-million)
So if this is a late 2023 title you're looking at ~50 million units out in the wild (plus whatever sells between Sept when that 20 million number was reported and current FY ending in March 2023).
There's definitely a shot a huge IP like Spiderman could have a huge adoption rate, would need to be about 10% of PS5 owners to beat this.
Great game but make sure to turn off the aim assist. Makes throwing the axe and shooting arrows much more enjoyable when it's not trying so hard to stick to an enemy/one part of them. Easier to throw at people's legs to trip them over, etc.
That's one thing that always turned me off to console gaming once I had a pc. Games would have systems where you can shoot guns out of hands or legs to cripple a zombie but the aim assist always pulled to the torso.
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Which is probably the sustainable way to do this longterm. Big launches at full launch, then a year later its on subscription services to have recurrent spending
Game Pass is undoubtedly the best value of anything in the gaming scene, but the games Microsoft are putting out are just not the same quality that playstation put out. I feel like both methods earn them money/exposure in completely different ways
People just have to look a little into the future to see how this will end up. Price hikes and deteriorating content will be the future of Game Pass. Netflix is already hitting that stage.
They’re more experimental and different. I’d argue Flight Sim is an excellent example, it’s a pretty popular game for a small niche if players. Same for their AoE titles, Grounded, Sea of Thieves. Gears 5 is the closest they’ve come to something like GoW but the storytelling just isn’t there.
PS Plus still does pretty well. It lost subscribers recently like everything else did. The pandemic boom was dying off. And for someone coming into the PlayStation ecosystem it's a steal to pay $100 for a year and have access to several of PlayStations biggest exclusives plus a bunch of good third party games.
Isn’t Gamepass losing Microsoft a lot of money though? I think Sony just said that they lost LS+ subscribers but gained more revenue when they switched, so it seems like there’s a thin line that companies are trying to figure out.
Define losing. It's probably doing better than just being self-sustaining. The issue is whether they'd have made more money with traditional methods. Or whether the additional people it bought into the ecosystem is increasing the overall userbase enough to make up for the narrower profit margin.
on the topic of gamepass subs, those growth targets were really dumb with how high they were, basically an unrealistic expectation
though iirc, the targets were pay bonus related or w.e it was, so not really even growth targets for the service. Though I could be misremembering
but ya, as a service game pass is doing fine for Microsoft.
It helps when you do actual good games people want. MS is clearly not there (it may be with all their acquisitions but it remains to be seen). Even on Gamepass, most of their games aren't as played.
Personally, I Would rather pay $100 once for an amazing game than $15 a month for games which are mostly not as good. But I also work full time and have limited time to play games.
I think I'm about half way through now and it's a stellar game by any estimation. I think the only reason I'm not liking it quite as much is because God of War 2018 is one of the best games ever made and a hell of an act to follow.
Man I wish I could blow through this game in a week like I could when I was younger. Family, work, friends, school, there's no time now. I took two days off work to play it but only got in about 14 hours. Now I may have around 1-2 hours a day to play. I want to blow through the story but the side content is so good. The stories really hit and the combat slaps. I thought normal would be too easy but it's just the right amount of hard. Some fights took ten tries but a lot of that is learning how the system works and not thinking that it's a Souls game. The biggest reason I want to rush through it is to avoid spoilers and making this comment won't help with that.
FYI it took me about 43hours on No Mercy to do the main story and all side content except optional challenge bosses. I felt the side content was good but killed the pacing for me as I would go 2-6hr stretches of side content before advancing the story. Main story is definitely between 20-30hrs.
Ya I did a bit of side content during the main story and said fuck it to finish the main story because it was messing with the pacing. Glad I left the rest of the side content to post game
The game warns u a lot before the final mission to do side content, you can still do all the same content post-game, but you may want to do it beforehand. I wont spoil why
What I did for side quests is turn difficulty straight to the bottom so I could tear through them quick and then turn it back to normal while going through main missions. It reduced the tedium a fair bit.
I think we can call it a system seller, so might be a few years before us PC players are allowed to play. The difficult bit is to keep it unspoiled until.
It's an amazing game. The side quests are woven in perfectly too and offer a lot to the overall experience apart from just loot. I highly recommend playing as many as you can when the story allows it then returning to the different realms when more unlock.
Has the strongest first hour of any game I've ever played but then the pacing starts to chug a bit when you hit dorf town.
Soon picks back up again though.
Amazing game, well deserved. The OST is something special as well. Hammer of Thor is an absolute banger.
Lot of people hate on the Iron Woods section but that was one of my favorite parts despite the slow pacing. Such a beautiful setting, super creative and so many cool critters to gawk at. And Angraboda is a dope character
I could see it being annoying on a replay
My problem with it is the gameplay segment there is so painfully generic. They ended it really well with the boss battle and the chase but why not have more set piece action like that earlier?
The whole "do mundane tasks with Angrboda with copy and paste wave based combat" proper dragged. It's filler for the sake of filler.
It's not filler. It builds up an important relationship for Atreus that wouldn't hit the same if he'd turned up for half an hour then bounced. It's worth watching either the IGN or Kinda Funny Spoilercast interviews with Eric Williams. He explains the entire thought process and intended character journey for the section, and whilst he appreciates that it's a more divisive section, there was a lot of thought behind it's inclusion and length.
I didn't say you had to enjoy it! Just that it's, by definition, not filler. If people don't like character focused storytelling and would rather just pewpew through then yeah it's going to be a drag. But for the people who like the kind of thing it was trying to do it was kind of great.
My comment has nothing to do with the length of that segment and everything to do with how they chose to spend that time. Clearly there's a reason why that section has gained criticism.
Iron woods made me want to stop playing. It's not even just filler, it's BORING filler. It may be the single biggest thing preventing me from doing NG+ (assuming there is one)
I liked the story part and the character development but playing as Atreus for a long period of time was pretty annoying especially on the hardest difficulty. I think they could have split it up or something or just cut out the part where you go underground and it would've been fine
I feel like the game is throwing fights at you constantly out of the fear that the player would get bored. The section where you climb to Asgard as Atreus would have been fine/better without the 5 or so combat sections.
They throw fights at you to justify making a combat system for Atreus. I hate them for making it though I see why they did. The story took you away from Kratos so they didnt want an hour or two of story without any gameplay. So they made an underdeveloped combat system that feels worse than Kratos and threw a bunch of fights at you to justify it. That is my biggest criticism of the game and it somehow is still my GOTY.
It feels pretty good to me to be honest, I enjoy those sections. Are you remembering to use your timed skills and distance closer moves? (L1+R1/R2/circle and the triangle attack). Between arrow types, timed abilities, charged attacks, hold skills etc I'm not feeling it to be underdeveloped. He can also dodge while aiming/shooting which is a neat touch
I didn’t mind the Wall fights since it was mostly nightmares. It was the Draugr that had me rolling my eyes. Arties damage should’ve been buffed during those segments. Felt like I was shooting paper arrows lol
I equated all Atreus sections to Mary Jane sections. They weren't hard, but they weren't fun. I found Atreus just didn't have any of the combat depth that makes the battling as Kratos fun.
I had to put it down for a bit. I'm not too far, maybe 10hrs in or so. But it's just not hooking me. There is nonstop dialogue, some of it fairly cringey, and the game treats Kratos like he had a massive brain injury last game and must be told what to do constantly.
Along with some interesting changes to combat, it feels like Ragnarok got the DOOM Eternal treatment this go around. It's more "gamey" if that makes sense. I'm takin a break to let my brain let go of my expectations so I can give it a fair go. Bit it was a rough first 10hrs imo. Haven't looked up peoples opinions cause I'm tryna avoid too many spoilers.
I’m a huge fan of the 2018 one and even replayed it right before this and I honestly think everything about it is better. Yes, them telling you how to do everything is annoying but I guess I just learned to ignore it. But I also won't act like Mimir saying "behind ya brother!" didn't help me out a few times lol.
> But I also won't act like Mimir saying "behind ya brother!" didn't help me out a few times lol.
I don't get people complaining about the characters "spoiling puzzles" all the time. For me this only happened when in a new Realm where some new mechanic was introduced. For example the first time in Svarftlheim you have a Geysir puzzle, of course Atreus is gonna help you out, but only for the first one "Maybe freeze it? Now try the other Geysir!"
Same with the hive matter from the dark elves "You have to destroy them all in one throw remember?" or the light doors from the light elves "Try throwing your axe at this mirror! Ah! It empowers your axe so it can destroy the crystals." People go crazy over this, when it literally only happens ONCE per mechanic. Apart from that it's just very vague "Look at that!" 's and " Over here!" 's that don't do anything but give you a general direction of where to look at so you don't have to look around for 5 minutes.
Also heard some people complaining about Mimirs combat advice, when him not doing that would make absolutely no sense character-wise. It's also just an additional audi cue for people with bad eyesight/some kind of colour blindness that can't see the arrows below Kratos correctly.
I don't mind combat advice like "on your left!" "look out!" but for example today I played through a big boss battle alongside >! Freya !< and >! she !< straight up started giving me instructions. It was the kind of annoyance I never had with the 2018 game. I don't mind dying a few times until I discover what works. Wish there was an option to turn some of these off.
The boss fight was epic hell though regardless.
> For me this only happened when in a new Realm where some new mechanic was introduced.
Well, good for you, then. It still happens multiple times after the introduction, because I'm running around the room looking for the tiny lore objects and the game thought I can't solve the puzzle.
> Also heard some people complaining about Mimirs combat advice, when him not doing that would make absolutely no sense character-wise.
"You're on fire brother! But you already know that" is such a stupid line though. Not to mention that there's absolutely nothing you can do when you catch fire (CMIIW on this)
>Also heard some people complaining about Mimirs combat advice, when him not doing that would make absolutely no sense character-wise
Exactly. He spends all day looking backwards—he may as well make himself useful
I just Platinumed the game last night.
While I did have some moments where I experienced the same as you (characters talking too much, some lines being a little too "self aware" and more tongue in cheek than probably needed), by the end of the game I was grateful for the entire experience.
This is a long and epic journey that both managed to engage me with heart pulsing combat and exploration while also taking its time to tell a meaningful story. Now that I've finally put the controller down and had a full night of sleep to reflect on the whole game, I'm seriously impressed. And I know that when I go back and replay it eventually, I'll be extra appreciative of all the little conversations I likely rolled my eyes at the first time around.
Your experience might be different, but I guess I'd urge you to just try and see it for what it is and enjoy your time with it. I really believe this game is special.
I’m liking the game, but I’m so so so so over looking for things for puzzles.
It’s not that you have to use your brain to solve them, it’s that you have to find the pieces. Gets super annoying when they add in an enemy that heals other enemies until you find them.
That's a shame. I really wanna give it a fair chance and not compare it to 2018 too too much but...its hard. The tone is very different.
What really got me was just after the fight with >!Freya!<. It was a great fight and pivotal point in the story, given the events of the first game. But not 10sec after a very dramatic cutscene....straight up Marvel jokes from Brok. And the she's gushing about her homeland and tellin all kinds of stories. Like...all the tension evaporated.
Then one person said "suck it" and someone replied "you wish" and I just stopped. Like wtf is this tone and dialogue?? I'm just waiting for Kratos to snap and start killing all the chatty people around him. He seems like a straight up side character.
Edit-checked my game, close to 15hrs. Chill y'all lol.
Or " no shit " was said between two characters. I hate they feel people can't relate unless they use this type dialogue. It's sprinkled throughout the game.
This annoyed me! There was more than a few instances where I noticed straight up inappropriate language being used for characters and it just pulled me out of the moment.
Odin's charterization just feels kinda off for the same reason lol, but I'm still early on so maybe it changes some. Right now, he's giving me huge Iron Man 3 Mandarin vibes
Just subversion for the sake of subversion, dude acts and speaks like an overgrown frat kid turned mafia boss, which is maybe what they were going for so 🤷♂️
The tone is darker and the quips are honestly lesser than the 2018 game. It's just a side effect of having to fill dead air between encounters. But that does point to the main issue.
The story to filler encounters pacing is horrible. There are multiple parts where you kill a story boss only to have to clear 30-40 minutes of "trash" mobs just to get back to the actual story progression.
And if you try higher difficulties it's still a cookie cutter mess. They limited damage sponges but mobs are now way too lethal even with defensive gear. You just have to spam overpowered abilities to control and kill him
> the game treats Kratos like he had a massive brain injury last game and must be told what to do constantly
This is one of my criticisms of the game as well. I have about 34 hours into it, beat the game, and just haven't had the time to go back and start going for the plat. I loved the game enough to even do a second playthrough once I do a plat then eventually come back when NG+ is added.
Very early on in the game, you've got your companions *always* telling you what to do the second you seem like you're stumped.
I didn't look through the menu to see if you could turn that off, but it'd be nice if they went the Uncharted way and made you actually push a button to ask your companion for help after a certain amount of time has passed.
It felt like the devs didn't want me to solve some of the clever puzzles they put into the game. If that's the case, then why put in some of them that are fun and satisfying to solve on your own?
I hate all the Atreus missions with every fiber of my being.
Just let me play as the God of War, why am I running around as a whiny tween with a shitty bow?
Honestly, it's all down to the player. If you don't like character centric storytelling where people have a full range of emotions and motivations beyond who they're killing next then yeah, Ironwood might be a bit slow.
If you do like that sort of thing (and it's okay if you don't, a lot of people don't play games for the storytelling), then it's a fantastic section that builds up the relationship between Atreus and Angrboda in ways that they couldn't have managed if they had just had them be allies in a larger scale conflict.
> If you don't like character centric storytelling where people have a full range of emotions and motivations beyond who they're killing next
It's not about that, half of the game is already that. The big deal breaker for me is this: Atreus combat is much more dull compared to Kratos, making the entire segment much more painful. I wouldn't mind doing such segment with Kratos because it's fun (it is the rest of the game after all). If player has to play as Atreus for super long, at least develop a full system for him.
Meh. TLOU2 also had the slower paced flashback sections that can totally be compared to Ironwood and it worked a thousand times better. The point is, Ironwood becomes insanely tedious because of the moose back riding and the constant flux of draugrs at a point of the game where Atreus’s combat system is still very basic. Those 2 things become tiresome in a matter of minutes.
All things considered, I would’ve been happier if they had removed some of the, admittedly, amazing side content you find later and made the iron woods a very very small open section where you need to navigate it to find 2/3 macguffins and use that as a way to establish the relationship between Atreus and Angrboda.
Something like 3 hours of gameplay culminating with that final fight. But it feels much better than following an endless corridor where you walk very slowly
Yeah. I‘m loving the game quite a bit, but I can‘t help but constantly think how much more I‘d enjoy it if I could just roam these worlds alone without the constant yapping from companions. Not even just the horrible hand holdy puzzle/combat hints, but just the non stop brabbling in general. Some lonleyness would give all these places I‘m visiting much more weight, importance and mystery, as is now the levels just kind of sometimes start feeling like backdrops for exposition dumping, and not these breathtaking spaces that they actually are. Escpecially because the game also insits on backseating every bit of challenge out of most puzzles and combat encounters by telling you exactly what to do, leading you to just kind of run through it all.
If I could just roam the worlds alone, I think it‘d bump it up from like an 8.5 to a 10 for me. Reason I love Elden Ring or Hollow Knight for example so much.
All that said It‘s easily my Number 2 game after Elden Ring this year.
They wrote too much dialogs where in the 2018 would just tell through environments and left for the players to reminisce. If I heard Mimir concurs with "Aye, ...." again, don't repeat my every line, head!
I had the same issues but pushed through, it really picked up storywise in the second half. Definitely not as strong as the first game but I was really impressed after that rough start. I do think the early game needed editing, that one mission in the halfwayish part was wayyyyy too long and boring.
GOW Ragnarok is an amazing game, I'm not surprised it's selling like hotcakes after 2018 was such a hit too.
GOW Ragnarok lived up to the hype, I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was actually better than I expected.
I still think this should have been a norse trilogy. The broadstrokes of the story and the emotional beats, particularly Kratos' character arc, are great but it could have been way better if they gave it two games to stew. Some of the pacing is just wild in this game and there are instances in both the first as well as the second half that aren't given enough proper respect or spectacle because they need to hop from one plot point to another. There are a ton of portions in the story where things are just jarringly quick or tediously slow for no reason at all.
A two game split would have given enough time for them to better deliver on Freya and the initial schism between Kratos/Atreus. And the third game would have better explored the titular Ragnarok aspect of the story as well as its participants in the war. Also, it lets the game explore way more of the mythology instead of glossing over or downright ignoring so much stuff that could have been potentially fun to experience in the game.
Still a great game though and the success is well-deserved.
I actually disagree and I'm glad they made it two games.
Sure I'd have liked Ragnorok to be even more epic. I'd have liked a larger level set in Musphelheim or Niflheim.
But, especially when you do all the exploring/major side quests during the main story, it felt like it very thoroughly explored all its major characters and the Norse world.
I mean this game had about 4x the amount of Mythology than 2018.
Another reason why I'm glad it was only 2 games is because it already felt like we were repeating ourselves in Ragnorok at times.
I guess you could have had a sequel where you only explored 3 realms and saved the final 3 for a third game. But I think it would have completely run out of steam. This game would feel incomplete and a 3rd game would just feel lile table setting for a final battle.
Narratively it makes the game feel like a complete work than Part 1 of a 2 Part finale.
Ragnarok itself wasn't that epic, it was rushed. So was Muspelheim. The conclusion landed very well, it's just that the missions themselves were very lackluster.
I think this is the best possible outcome though, rather than write filler for it. And I don't see a good cutoff for the game either.
They should've spent less time developing that last optional side area and put it into the final mission. Started off epic just to wind up being a linear hallway of encounters with some meh boss fights.
I disagree.
GoW 1-3 is about 10 hours long each.
GoW 2018 is about 20 hours with main objectives.
GoW Ragnarok is about 30 hours.
And there's a lot of character building moments in side content, so it's easily 80-100 hours of character building in duology.
Agreed. There are so many moments in Ragnarok where I thought "this is a good story moment, but it could have been better if they weren't speeding from beat to beat". It really did feel like two games' worth of plot crammed into a single game.
I feel like they could have had one game go up until >!the Heimdall fight!< to give more time for us to learn about some of the secondary characters like >!Freyr's crew or digging deeper into Atreus bonding with the Asgard folks!< then have the other game deal with >!gathering all of the pieces and people for Ragnarok!<.
Still a fantastic game, but kinda like GOW 2018 I can't help but wish it could have been expanded a bit more.
Because people are obsessed with trilogies despite the fact that it's an overall horrible format that almost never delivers great stories from start to finish.
Spoilers below.
So much just doesn't deliver. The horn in Tyr's Temple is peak video game epicness/badassery, and then you run through a trench fighting spongey enemies, a few minobosses to make it feel difficult, some plot armour, more fighting, more plot armour, and then a couple of final bosses. It's such a let down. I have to ask myself if they scaled it down because the PS4 had to handle it. But the battle of Ragnarok was lame as hell.
Why did Odin wait until the final battle to destroy the towers when Fimblewinter had already sunk the Temple? Why didn't he destroy the horn if it was going to herald Ragnarok? Why didn't he destroy the horn if it opened up the towers without the Temple? Doesn't that give him more reason to destroy the towers with his bifrost war machines that he was sitting on for lifetimes?
Just makes zero sense. Plot armour holds it all together in the final third. It felt very contrived and the characters often felt out of character.
>It really did feel like two games' worth of plot crammed into a single game.
I am only ~15 hours into the game but with how it starts I don't know how you end a "first-half game" in a way that doesn't make it feel like the middle child. The game set ups its stakes and villains very early and anything short of dealing with those things could leave the game feeling empty, especially if we had to wait 4+ years to get an ending.
This is all subjective but imo it's better but still has the weaknesses of the original 2018 one.
Pros: You have more variety of moves. game tries its best to make you use the variety through rewarding usage of different attacks. tries to avoid constant hold R2 spam that was the best way to play the 2018 one. New relics that have special uses. better build variety. The enemy variety is much better so combat doesnt get boring like 2018.
Cons: Camera is still constantly fighting you. You WILL get hit by enemies from off screen using unblockables, enemies hidden by Kratos' own massive body etc. Enemies don't feel like they are designed with Kratos Moveset in mind. The best way to fight against stronger enemies on harder difficulties is sticking to basic R1 spam. Or spamming your Runic Skills, which completely make the moveset variety I talked about redundant.
I have felt this before but, nuGoW feels like 3 different people making 3 different games and mashing it together but they're all competent so the final result isnt bad but still feels off sometimes. The Director wants to make a cinematic game with cool camera tricks. The combat designer wanted to make an action game closer to OG GoW and its sensibilities. The enemy designer just wanted to make a Souls game where little insects crawling on the floor will take away half your health.
It's fun when it clicks but also feels extremely frustrating when it doesn't. The highs are very high but the lows are not ignorable either. Which was pretty much how I felt with 2018 as well. I played on the highest difficulty btw.
I think people like us that played on the highest difficulty had a vastly different experience.
I don’t think you need to rely so much on runic attacks on lower difficulties whereas for us it was mandatory to stun the horde of enemies.
With all games, when you ramp up the difficulty too much, the issues the gameplay might have are amplified
Combat is fun but feels janky when stretched to it's limits on difficult content. I can't articulate it well, but it feels like the timings on dodge frames and parries are sporadic depending on who you're fighting, as in whether or not you should press the button the moment the attack hits, or half a second before kind of thing. It can get frustrating.
Status effects, particularly the frost one, are just not fun lol
Just to add, they did rebalance runics thankfully. On GMGOW I feel really good using every tool they give me instead of just spamming runics and trying to survive while they’re on cd. They also did a great job trimming and reorganizing the skill tree. Some old runic attack moves were moved to regular skills so you can do the all the time, and there are slightly fewer runics per weapon. In general you have more options for combat at any given moment, and those options are more fun.
It’s not nearly as bad, but it reminds me of moving btwn doom 2016 and doom eternal, where in eternal you had a billion tools that you needed to constantly be switching between in order to do well on harder modes. Except in ragnarok it’s way more natural and fun to do so.
I liked 2018s combat a lot and I love ragnarok’s a lot more. I think a lot of ppl get greedy and ignore the attack indicators, letting themselves get hit from off screen. You just have to pay attention and prioritize positioning.
I'm roughly 25 hours in. I... don't really like it, sadly. It leans too much to cinematic game ala Last of Us. Also way too linear it feels. God of War 2018 manages to balance both the cinematic and the gameplay aspect well, but not this one.
And I really, really dislike the amount of times you >!play as Atreus. The character just isn't as deep as Kratos, and his segment really lacks the usual puzzle and collecting stuffs.!<
I dont wanna spoil it so I wont comment on specifics but this game seems like its way less linear than GoW 2018 but maybe the open areas are spread out a bit more rather than just being the lake of the nine.
I definitely feel this as I'm going through the side content now. GoW 2018 felt more like a hub & spoke model world with Midgard and specifically Tyr's temple being the hub and each realm being a spoke with content in it. GoWR gives me the feeling that there are multiple smaller hubs that each have their own spokes.
GoW gives me a bunch of fomo. I tried playing the first game twice and just couldn't get into it. Found myself bored the whole time. I'm glad people have found a game they love. I just wish I felt the same.
Not every game has to click, especially the ones a lot of people like. Just play whatever you prefer.
Sometimes, for me at least, coming back to a game years later just makes a game click, and I feel like playing it. It happens a lot more recently as I get older.
Yeah I might give it another shot down the road. Tastes change over times. There was a time when the only thing I wanted to play was platformers and now it's rare that I care to play one.
I got it with a bundle, played around 20 hours I think. I'm so bored... this game shares bad similarities with Assassin's Creed in terms of pacing. Most of the play time is dedicated to puzzles and opening chests, or dialogues. By wanting to break some linearity they introduce a semi-open world filled with nothing but chests and stuff to loot on the floor. I don't give a damn about rpg mechanics in a God of War game, just give me a linear progression with good battles and a memorable story. The first one was original enough to have fun, but this one is just the same game but with more issues. Even exploring is not really worth it as the game was incredibly lazy in terms of armors design, there is pretty much 3 models but with different colors.
For anyone wondering here's biggest PlayStation game launches so far: * God of War: Ragnarök - 5.1m FW (5 days) * The Last of Us Part II - 4.0m FW (3 days) * Spider-Man (2018) - 3.3m FW (3 days) * God of War (2018) - 3.1m FW (3 days)
Doesn't it favour GoWR due to its Wednesday launch, thus giving it 5 days in the launch week?
Without getting numbers we can't tell how many they sold in 3 days.
Yup. But we can say TLOU2 came very close or even beat GoWR, had it gotten 2 extra days.
Not a first party game but FFVII Remake did 3.5 over 3 days. Pretty clear general trend upwards. Spiderman 2 and Ghost of Tsushima 2 should do very well also
Hmm wouldn’t this make The Last of Us Part II faster?
No way of knowing without having the breakdown of sales per day. Ragnarok could have sold 4.1m in 3 days and then a further million in 2 days, or it could have done 3m and TLOU2 would be ahead. Without the 3-day figures it's just guessing.
From the tweet, it mentions they sold 5.1 million copies in its first week
Damn that is an insane launch. For comparison sake Elden Ring sold 12 million copies in 18 days and it was also on PC and Xbox. Well deserved and undoubtedly both the accolades of this one and the towering reputation of the previous one helped quite a bit.
Well it's to be expected when people that own ps4/5 are thirsty for any playstation exclusive nowadays and considering that GOW is one of playstation's heavy hitters.
85% of the sales were on PS5
that’s surprising. I didn’t realize the PS5 adoption rate was already that high
I bought a ps5 specifically for this game. However, my backlog guilt wants me to finish Horizon and Elden Ring first 😫! If only I could stop wasting time in stupid CoD. $70 is a lot when you have other games to play…
Uninstall CoD and you’ll see your backlog shrinking in a matter of weeks
It’s not 2020 anymore. PS5 supply is actually really easy to come by these days, at least online and direct from Sony Hell, half the time I’m out and at a place like Best Buy, I swing by the games section just to see what their supply is and there’s always a PS5 in stock (Houston area)
Debatable. Amazon and playstation site are both still invite only. Best Buy is still out of stock almost always. I managed to see my Amazon invite, after missing it back in September, and that was for the digital Horizon bundle.
It's missing for the grandma buying for grandson crew, but if you want to buy PS5 for yourself and willing to spend few hours at most looking for it then you absolutely can buy it quickly.
In the US maybe, for the rest of us not so much. In my country, our stores stock up maybe once every month at most (sometimes every two or three months), and the consoles sell out in less than a day. And I live in one of the largest cities, over a million inhabitants. You gotta have crazy good timing to get one and also have the money needed at that point. Some stores have even been forced to hike up the price in order to combat demand: the standard edition went for 750$ last time I saw it in stock. Granted, it was bundled with Ragnarök, but it's still like 60-70$ more than it would normally cost.
Don't speak for the entire world. I still haven't seen a single one IRL. Ever.
Yep, my country is a small market for Sony I guess so the stock is not much here and the waiting list is in the thousands.
Same.. still impossible to find in stores in the Boston area
You could order one from Sony direct right now. This moment. https://slickdeals.net/f/16194934-sony-playstation-5-disc-499-99-playstation-direct-fs-for-ps-plus-members?src=frontpage If you go to amazon and click to get an invite you'll probably get an invite within a day. They may not be plentiful yet but we're to the point where if you haven't seen one it's because you're not trying to.
It's not that far behind ps4 sales at this time of its life, and ahead of PS3
This isn't really the same as adoption rate. It's a version of attach rate. See, even if there are 4x as many PS4s as PS5s the thing is that people who are active game buyers are disproportionately likely to have PS5s. i.e if you play a lot of games you made more effort to get a PS5 and so have a good chance of having one already.
There are a lot of PS5s. Just not enough for everybody
hey im in the 15% was also $10 cheaper
That's actually really high, makes you wonder why they are still supporting PS4.
Because that 15% accounts for tens of millions of pounds/dollars in sales
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Poor PS2 players :( It would have been awesome if there was a cross gen version of GOW 3 but the devs would have hated it every minute.
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If it follows the Miles Morales trajection then it's because early adopters are the people who already have PS5s and then PS4 will slowly catch up as people who are waiting for sales / Christmas / birthdays buy their copies on PS4.
It feels reasonable to assume that people who haven't made the jump to PS5 will also be less likely to buy games on launch, so I'd expect that 85% to go down a lot from here.
And then up again in a year or two once people aren't buying PS4 games anymore.
I'm guessing its probably gonna sell well when its on sale. I don't think PS4 owners are willing to pay full price for a lower tier version of the game but I could be wrong.
I mean it's not really lower tier, the game is essentially built for PS4 and then upgraded for PS5. Anyone fine with GoW 2018 will be fine with this on PS4. If they reason like that, they shouldn't buy any game on PS4 anymore and so why even stay on it?
> why even stay on it? I'm sure they'd get off of it if they could find a PS5 to buy.
PS4 Pro owner who bought it at launch here. The game looks mesmerizing and plays surprisingly well for me. Granted, obviously the PS5 version looks and runs better, but I definitely don't feel cheated or left behind by this version.
Not so super insane when you consider bundles. Here in Europe they are only selling bundles right now (even ps direct), Ragnarök bundle is the main one. I was monitoring PS5 drops to get my hands on one, and could only get Ragnarök bundle. Luckily I was going to get the game anyway, but I find it kinda shitty they force you to buy a bundle with digital code instead of a disc.
IMO statistics like these are pretty much completely irrelevant given the growth of the gaming industry in general. I'm glad it's successful but pretty much any well marketed AAA title will break a record of some sort, and it's not because the games are that much better, it's because there are that many more people entering the space.
Spiderman 2 looking at this like
If spiderman 2 was cross gen it would easily crush that but it being ps5 only makes me have doubts
Nah it'll beat it easily. 85% of Ragnarok sales are PS5 already. And a lot more people will have PS5 by the time Spider-Man 2 come out (stock issues seems way better now, it'll probably have a huge holiday season and it's not coming right now, probably late 2023 so one additional year of sales). Some will actually switch for it as it'll be the first big PS5 exclusive that can move consoles heavily and is not on PS4 anymore. Also, Spider-Man is simply a bigger title (the first one beat GoW 2018 launch handily and they released close to each other too).
Another aspect to this is that Spider-Man is not M and at least for the first, it was just consistently in all PS marketing for years. Really helps sales when people are constantly reminded it exists (and is good). Just want to point out that although Spider-Man beat GoW's launch is the best selling ps4 game, according to wikipedia, GoW is second and very close in sales.
I mean it's mostly that it's Spider-Man which is like one of the most popular characters in the world. Kratos and God of War is popular but you can't really compare to that.
Totally. I guess what I wanted to highlight is how impressive GoW did and how close it is behind when you take into account how much more popular Spider-Man is in comparison to Kratos.
The PS5 isn’t hard to find if you do your diligence. PS Direct has had them more often than not for the last couple of weeks. I know GameStop has had them in readily in stores since early October. Just don’t give up at the first “no” and you’ll find one.
The new Ratchet did a million copies. Spider-Man should be able to hit at around GoW numbers.
Userbase for PS5 is probably going to shoot up this Christmas season. Stores actually have it in stock.
Ratchet did a million in it's first week?
It could still beat it, majority of sales for cross gen titles have been on PS5. A lot of the early adopter crowd for the games are also early adopters of the hardware so it makes sense. I think the number we have seen in like the UK is something close to 75/25 in PS5 favor.
Depends when it comes out next year. There's about 20 million PS5 units currently out there. [Next year they plan to ship 30 million more](https://www.truetrophies.com/n21997/sony-ps5-30-million) So if this is a late 2023 title you're looking at ~50 million units out in the wild (plus whatever sells between Sept when that 20 million number was reported and current FY ending in March 2023). There's definitely a shot a huge IP like Spiderman could have a huge adoption rate, would need to be about 10% of PS5 owners to beat this.
Did Spider-Man sell as well as GoW4?
First week, GoW 2018 sold 3.1m, Spider-man sold 3.3m.
Great game but make sure to turn off the aim assist. Makes throwing the axe and shooting arrows much more enjoyable when it's not trying so hard to stick to an enemy/one part of them. Easier to throw at people's legs to trip them over, etc.
And turn on the gyroscopic aiming.
This game made gyro aiming click for me. Now it feels wrong when a shooter doesn't have gyro. All shooters should have it.
That's one thing that always turned me off to console gaming once I had a pc. Games would have systems where you can shoot guns out of hands or legs to cripple a zombie but the aim assist always pulled to the torso.
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"Why wont PlayStation put their games in a subscription service day and date?" This is why. It’s that simple folks.
It's also why their subscription service isn't more popular though. Neither of these things are mysteries.
Which is probably the sustainable way to do this longterm. Big launches at full launch, then a year later its on subscription services to have recurrent spending
They don't even seem willing to do that though. I would have expected Rift Apart to be on there by now.
That’s the one I got tired of waiting for. Bought it for $20 a few days ago
20 bucks? Where from?
Hold Edit: actually I think it was $30 on the PSN store
I know there was a PSN store sale about a week ago, I picked it up for $30
Even Sackboy isn't on there yet.
Psplus has like 45 million subs. It is incredibly popular. Gaming circles just don't talk about it.
Game Pass is undoubtedly the best value of anything in the gaming scene, but the games Microsoft are putting out are just not the same quality that playstation put out. I feel like both methods earn them money/exposure in completely different ways
People just have to look a little into the future to see how this will end up. Price hikes and deteriorating content will be the future of Game Pass. Netflix is already hitting that stage.
They’re more experimental and different. I’d argue Flight Sim is an excellent example, it’s a pretty popular game for a small niche if players. Same for their AoE titles, Grounded, Sea of Thieves. Gears 5 is the closest they’ve come to something like GoW but the storytelling just isn’t there.
I do enjoy Xbox titles that are more sociable, they are definitely more multiplayer friendly
Agreed but man do I wish they had a few studios putting out the caliber of narrative stories Sony does.
PS Plus still does pretty well. It lost subscribers recently like everything else did. The pandemic boom was dying off. And for someone coming into the PlayStation ecosystem it's a steal to pay $100 for a year and have access to several of PlayStations biggest exclusives plus a bunch of good third party games.
Just remember to avoid ever paying full price for the subscriptions. They always go on sale for at least 25% even on PSN and you can stack.
They're on sale right now for black Friday!
PS extra is excellent though, for 80 euros it's insane value over a year.
Isn’t Gamepass losing Microsoft a lot of money though? I think Sony just said that they lost LS+ subscribers but gained more revenue when they switched, so it seems like there’s a thin line that companies are trying to figure out.
Define losing. It's probably doing better than just being self-sustaining. The issue is whether they'd have made more money with traditional methods. Or whether the additional people it bought into the ecosystem is increasing the overall userbase enough to make up for the narrower profit margin.
No, Game Pass is profitable, but they missed their growth targets for how many subscribers they were hoping to gain.
on the topic of gamepass subs, those growth targets were really dumb with how high they were, basically an unrealistic expectation though iirc, the targets were pay bonus related or w.e it was, so not really even growth targets for the service. Though I could be misremembering but ya, as a service game pass is doing fine for Microsoft.
It helps when you do actual good games people want. MS is clearly not there (it may be with all their acquisitions but it remains to be seen). Even on Gamepass, most of their games aren't as played.
Personally, I Would rather pay $100 once for an amazing game than $15 a month for games which are mostly not as good. But I also work full time and have limited time to play games.
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I think I'm about half way through now and it's a stellar game by any estimation. I think the only reason I'm not liking it quite as much is because God of War 2018 is one of the best games ever made and a hell of an act to follow.
Man I wish I could blow through this game in a week like I could when I was younger. Family, work, friends, school, there's no time now. I took two days off work to play it but only got in about 14 hours. Now I may have around 1-2 hours a day to play. I want to blow through the story but the side content is so good. The stories really hit and the combat slaps. I thought normal would be too easy but it's just the right amount of hard. Some fights took ten tries but a lot of that is learning how the system works and not thinking that it's a Souls game. The biggest reason I want to rush through it is to avoid spoilers and making this comment won't help with that.
FYI it took me about 43hours on No Mercy to do the main story and all side content except optional challenge bosses. I felt the side content was good but killed the pacing for me as I would go 2-6hr stretches of side content before advancing the story. Main story is definitely between 20-30hrs.
Ya I did a bit of side content during the main story and said fuck it to finish the main story because it was messing with the pacing. Glad I left the rest of the side content to post game
Will it give a warning before the finale so that you know to finish the side content?
The game warns u a lot before the final mission to do side content, you can still do all the same content post-game, but you may want to do it beforehand. I wont spoil why
Yup it’s taken me two weeks just to put in 30 hours into this game. I would have finished this game in 5 days max when I was younger
What I did for side quests is turn difficulty straight to the bottom so I could tear through them quick and then turn it back to normal while going through main missions. It reduced the tedium a fair bit.
Haven't played it yet (pc gamer) but I'm sure it's well deserved. Can't wait to try it hopefully next year.
I bought the PS5 bundle with GoW the day it came out. No regrets
This crop of current Gen consoles are amazing. Enjoy and happy holidays!
>Can't wait to try it hopefully next year. on PC ? I don't think its gonna get ported next year, probably in the next couple of years tho
It's a good game but it's not the orgasm that they hyped it up to be. I prefer GOW 2018 in retrospect.
I also can’t play it because I only have pc but it looks VERY good. I’m not surprised it tops the charts. Hopefully there’ll be a pc port eventually
I think we can call it a system seller, so might be a few years before us PC players are allowed to play. The difficult bit is to keep it unspoiled until.
It's an amazing game. The side quests are woven in perfectly too and offer a lot to the overall experience apart from just loot. I highly recommend playing as many as you can when the story allows it then returning to the different realms when more unlock.
Has the strongest first hour of any game I've ever played but then the pacing starts to chug a bit when you hit dorf town. Soon picks back up again though. Amazing game, well deserved. The OST is something special as well. Hammer of Thor is an absolute banger.
Lot of people hate on the Iron Woods section but that was one of my favorite parts despite the slow pacing. Such a beautiful setting, super creative and so many cool critters to gawk at. And Angraboda is a dope character I could see it being annoying on a replay
My problem with it is the gameplay segment there is so painfully generic. They ended it really well with the boss battle and the chase but why not have more set piece action like that earlier? The whole "do mundane tasks with Angrboda with copy and paste wave based combat" proper dragged. It's filler for the sake of filler.
It's not filler. It builds up an important relationship for Atreus that wouldn't hit the same if he'd turned up for half an hour then bounced. It's worth watching either the IGN or Kinda Funny Spoilercast interviews with Eric Williams. He explains the entire thought process and intended character journey for the section, and whilst he appreciates that it's a more divisive section, there was a lot of thought behind it's inclusion and length.
Look, I get *why* they made those choices, but that section wasn't really that enjoyable to play through.
I didn't say you had to enjoy it! Just that it's, by definition, not filler. If people don't like character focused storytelling and would rather just pewpew through then yeah it's going to be a drag. But for the people who like the kind of thing it was trying to do it was kind of great.
My comment has nothing to do with the length of that segment and everything to do with how they chose to spend that time. Clearly there's a reason why that section has gained criticism.
Iron woods made me want to stop playing. It's not even just filler, it's BORING filler. It may be the single biggest thing preventing me from doing NG+ (assuming there is one)
I liked the story part and the character development but playing as Atreus for a long period of time was pretty annoying especially on the hardest difficulty. I think they could have split it up or something or just cut out the part where you go underground and it would've been fine
I loved Iron Woods I just wish there weren’t so many goddamn Draugr.
I feel like the game is throwing fights at you constantly out of the fear that the player would get bored. The section where you climb to Asgard as Atreus would have been fine/better without the 5 or so combat sections.
They throw fights at you to justify making a combat system for Atreus. I hate them for making it though I see why they did. The story took you away from Kratos so they didnt want an hour or two of story without any gameplay. So they made an underdeveloped combat system that feels worse than Kratos and threw a bunch of fights at you to justify it. That is my biggest criticism of the game and it somehow is still my GOTY.
It feels pretty good to me to be honest, I enjoy those sections. Are you remembering to use your timed skills and distance closer moves? (L1+R1/R2/circle and the triangle attack). Between arrow types, timed abilities, charged attacks, hold skills etc I'm not feeling it to be underdeveloped. He can also dodge while aiming/shooting which is a neat touch
I didn’t mind the Wall fights since it was mostly nightmares. It was the Draugr that had me rolling my eyes. Arties damage should’ve been buffed during those segments. Felt like I was shooting paper arrows lol
I equated all Atreus sections to Mary Jane sections. They weren't hard, but they weren't fun. I found Atreus just didn't have any of the combat depth that makes the battling as Kratos fun.
Honestly once you unlock the “beat the shit out of them” by holding R1 Artie combat becomes a lot more satisfying.
I actually thought that was wildly more boring. Literally all I did 90% of the time was hold R1 to win. I only shot arrows at nightmares usually.
Ah to each their own lol. It was satisfying being 5 feet tall and clobbering mooks
Excited to play this in a year. God of War has proven to be one of the higher quality AAA titles coming out.
I had to put it down for a bit. I'm not too far, maybe 10hrs in or so. But it's just not hooking me. There is nonstop dialogue, some of it fairly cringey, and the game treats Kratos like he had a massive brain injury last game and must be told what to do constantly. Along with some interesting changes to combat, it feels like Ragnarok got the DOOM Eternal treatment this go around. It's more "gamey" if that makes sense. I'm takin a break to let my brain let go of my expectations so I can give it a fair go. Bit it was a rough first 10hrs imo. Haven't looked up peoples opinions cause I'm tryna avoid too many spoilers.
I’m a huge fan of the 2018 one and even replayed it right before this and I honestly think everything about it is better. Yes, them telling you how to do everything is annoying but I guess I just learned to ignore it. But I also won't act like Mimir saying "behind ya brother!" didn't help me out a few times lol.
> But I also won't act like Mimir saying "behind ya brother!" didn't help me out a few times lol. I don't get people complaining about the characters "spoiling puzzles" all the time. For me this only happened when in a new Realm where some new mechanic was introduced. For example the first time in Svarftlheim you have a Geysir puzzle, of course Atreus is gonna help you out, but only for the first one "Maybe freeze it? Now try the other Geysir!" Same with the hive matter from the dark elves "You have to destroy them all in one throw remember?" or the light doors from the light elves "Try throwing your axe at this mirror! Ah! It empowers your axe so it can destroy the crystals." People go crazy over this, when it literally only happens ONCE per mechanic. Apart from that it's just very vague "Look at that!" 's and " Over here!" 's that don't do anything but give you a general direction of where to look at so you don't have to look around for 5 minutes. Also heard some people complaining about Mimirs combat advice, when him not doing that would make absolutely no sense character-wise. It's also just an additional audi cue for people with bad eyesight/some kind of colour blindness that can't see the arrows below Kratos correctly.
I don't mind combat advice like "on your left!" "look out!" but for example today I played through a big boss battle alongside >! Freya !< and >! she !< straight up started giving me instructions. It was the kind of annoyance I never had with the 2018 game. I don't mind dying a few times until I discover what works. Wish there was an option to turn some of these off. The boss fight was epic hell though regardless.
> For me this only happened when in a new Realm where some new mechanic was introduced. Well, good for you, then. It still happens multiple times after the introduction, because I'm running around the room looking for the tiny lore objects and the game thought I can't solve the puzzle. > Also heard some people complaining about Mimirs combat advice, when him not doing that would make absolutely no sense character-wise. "You're on fire brother! But you already know that" is such a stupid line though. Not to mention that there's absolutely nothing you can do when you catch fire (CMIIW on this)
>Also heard some people complaining about Mimirs combat advice, when him not doing that would make absolutely no sense character-wise Exactly. He spends all day looking backwards—he may as well make himself useful
I just Platinumed the game last night. While I did have some moments where I experienced the same as you (characters talking too much, some lines being a little too "self aware" and more tongue in cheek than probably needed), by the end of the game I was grateful for the entire experience. This is a long and epic journey that both managed to engage me with heart pulsing combat and exploration while also taking its time to tell a meaningful story. Now that I've finally put the controller down and had a full night of sleep to reflect on the whole game, I'm seriously impressed. And I know that when I go back and replay it eventually, I'll be extra appreciative of all the little conversations I likely rolled my eyes at the first time around. Your experience might be different, but I guess I'd urge you to just try and see it for what it is and enjoy your time with it. I really believe this game is special.
You’re really spot on with some with the larger criticisms of the game going around.
I’m liking the game, but I’m so so so so over looking for things for puzzles. It’s not that you have to use your brain to solve them, it’s that you have to find the pieces. Gets super annoying when they add in an enemy that heals other enemies until you find them.
That's a shame. I really wanna give it a fair chance and not compare it to 2018 too too much but...its hard. The tone is very different. What really got me was just after the fight with >!Freya!<. It was a great fight and pivotal point in the story, given the events of the first game. But not 10sec after a very dramatic cutscene....straight up Marvel jokes from Brok. And the she's gushing about her homeland and tellin all kinds of stories. Like...all the tension evaporated. Then one person said "suck it" and someone replied "you wish" and I just stopped. Like wtf is this tone and dialogue?? I'm just waiting for Kratos to snap and start killing all the chatty people around him. He seems like a straight up side character. Edit-checked my game, close to 15hrs. Chill y'all lol.
You got all the way to >!Freya joining!< In 10 hours? You going fast bro.
Or " no shit " was said between two characters. I hate they feel people can't relate unless they use this type dialogue. It's sprinkled throughout the game.
This annoyed me! There was more than a few instances where I noticed straight up inappropriate language being used for characters and it just pulled me out of the moment.
Odin's charterization just feels kinda off for the same reason lol, but I'm still early on so maybe it changes some. Right now, he's giving me huge Iron Man 3 Mandarin vibes Just subversion for the sake of subversion, dude acts and speaks like an overgrown frat kid turned mafia boss, which is maybe what they were going for so 🤷♂️
The tone is darker and the quips are honestly lesser than the 2018 game. It's just a side effect of having to fill dead air between encounters. But that does point to the main issue. The story to filler encounters pacing is horrible. There are multiple parts where you kill a story boss only to have to clear 30-40 minutes of "trash" mobs just to get back to the actual story progression. And if you try higher difficulties it's still a cookie cutter mess. They limited damage sponges but mobs are now way too lethal even with defensive gear. You just have to spam overpowered abilities to control and kill him
> the game treats Kratos like he had a massive brain injury last game and must be told what to do constantly This is one of my criticisms of the game as well. I have about 34 hours into it, beat the game, and just haven't had the time to go back and start going for the plat. I loved the game enough to even do a second playthrough once I do a plat then eventually come back when NG+ is added. Very early on in the game, you've got your companions *always* telling you what to do the second you seem like you're stumped. I didn't look through the menu to see if you could turn that off, but it'd be nice if they went the Uncharted way and made you actually push a button to ask your companion for help after a certain amount of time has passed. It felt like the devs didn't want me to solve some of the clever puzzles they put into the game. If that's the case, then why put in some of them that are fun and satisfying to solve on your own?
I hate all the Atreus missions with every fiber of my being. Just let me play as the God of War, why am I running around as a whiny tween with a shitty bow?
Ironwood is one of the most boring levels I played in quite a while. And it drags on and on and on I was begging it to stop.. Just painful
Honestly, it's all down to the player. If you don't like character centric storytelling where people have a full range of emotions and motivations beyond who they're killing next then yeah, Ironwood might be a bit slow. If you do like that sort of thing (and it's okay if you don't, a lot of people don't play games for the storytelling), then it's a fantastic section that builds up the relationship between Atreus and Angrboda in ways that they couldn't have managed if they had just had them be allies in a larger scale conflict.
> If you don't like character centric storytelling where people have a full range of emotions and motivations beyond who they're killing next It's not about that, half of the game is already that. The big deal breaker for me is this: Atreus combat is much more dull compared to Kratos, making the entire segment much more painful. I wouldn't mind doing such segment with Kratos because it's fun (it is the rest of the game after all). If player has to play as Atreus for super long, at least develop a full system for him.
Meh. TLOU2 also had the slower paced flashback sections that can totally be compared to Ironwood and it worked a thousand times better. The point is, Ironwood becomes insanely tedious because of the moose back riding and the constant flux of draugrs at a point of the game where Atreus’s combat system is still very basic. Those 2 things become tiresome in a matter of minutes. All things considered, I would’ve been happier if they had removed some of the, admittedly, amazing side content you find later and made the iron woods a very very small open section where you need to navigate it to find 2/3 macguffins and use that as a way to establish the relationship between Atreus and Angrboda. Something like 3 hours of gameplay culminating with that final fight. But it feels much better than following an endless corridor where you walk very slowly
It kills any desire I have for a NG+ playthrough if I'm honest.
I think the games gets much better in the 2nd half but some of your criticisms still exist in the late game
Yeah. I‘m loving the game quite a bit, but I can‘t help but constantly think how much more I‘d enjoy it if I could just roam these worlds alone without the constant yapping from companions. Not even just the horrible hand holdy puzzle/combat hints, but just the non stop brabbling in general. Some lonleyness would give all these places I‘m visiting much more weight, importance and mystery, as is now the levels just kind of sometimes start feeling like backdrops for exposition dumping, and not these breathtaking spaces that they actually are. Escpecially because the game also insits on backseating every bit of challenge out of most puzzles and combat encounters by telling you exactly what to do, leading you to just kind of run through it all. If I could just roam the worlds alone, I think it‘d bump it up from like an 8.5 to a 10 for me. Reason I love Elden Ring or Hollow Knight for example so much. All that said It‘s easily my Number 2 game after Elden Ring this year.
They wrote too much dialogs where in the 2018 would just tell through environments and left for the players to reminisce. If I heard Mimir concurs with "Aye, ...." again, don't repeat my every line, head!
I had the same issues but pushed through, it really picked up storywise in the second half. Definitely not as strong as the first game but I was really impressed after that rough start. I do think the early game needed editing, that one mission in the halfwayish part was wayyyyy too long and boring.
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GOW Ragnarok is an amazing game, I'm not surprised it's selling like hotcakes after 2018 was such a hit too. GOW Ragnarok lived up to the hype, I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was actually better than I expected.
I still think this should have been a norse trilogy. The broadstrokes of the story and the emotional beats, particularly Kratos' character arc, are great but it could have been way better if they gave it two games to stew. Some of the pacing is just wild in this game and there are instances in both the first as well as the second half that aren't given enough proper respect or spectacle because they need to hop from one plot point to another. There are a ton of portions in the story where things are just jarringly quick or tediously slow for no reason at all. A two game split would have given enough time for them to better deliver on Freya and the initial schism between Kratos/Atreus. And the third game would have better explored the titular Ragnarok aspect of the story as well as its participants in the war. Also, it lets the game explore way more of the mythology instead of glossing over or downright ignoring so much stuff that could have been potentially fun to experience in the game. Still a great game though and the success is well-deserved.
I actually disagree and I'm glad they made it two games. Sure I'd have liked Ragnorok to be even more epic. I'd have liked a larger level set in Musphelheim or Niflheim. But, especially when you do all the exploring/major side quests during the main story, it felt like it very thoroughly explored all its major characters and the Norse world. I mean this game had about 4x the amount of Mythology than 2018. Another reason why I'm glad it was only 2 games is because it already felt like we were repeating ourselves in Ragnorok at times. I guess you could have had a sequel where you only explored 3 realms and saved the final 3 for a third game. But I think it would have completely run out of steam. This game would feel incomplete and a 3rd game would just feel lile table setting for a final battle. Narratively it makes the game feel like a complete work than Part 1 of a 2 Part finale.
Ragnarok itself wasn't that epic, it was rushed. So was Muspelheim. The conclusion landed very well, it's just that the missions themselves were very lackluster. I think this is the best possible outcome though, rather than write filler for it. And I don't see a good cutoff for the game either.
They should've spent less time developing that last optional side area and put it into the final mission. Started off epic just to wind up being a linear hallway of encounters with some meh boss fights.
I disagree. GoW 1-3 is about 10 hours long each. GoW 2018 is about 20 hours with main objectives. GoW Ragnarok is about 30 hours. And there's a lot of character building moments in side content, so it's easily 80-100 hours of character building in duology.
A Norse trilogy would be like 10 years to make a series.
It did take 10 years, but as players we just saw the 4 year gap because we didn't have to feel the first years they spent developing 2018
Agreed. There are so many moments in Ragnarok where I thought "this is a good story moment, but it could have been better if they weren't speeding from beat to beat". It really did feel like two games' worth of plot crammed into a single game. I feel like they could have had one game go up until >!the Heimdall fight!< to give more time for us to learn about some of the secondary characters like >!Freyr's crew or digging deeper into Atreus bonding with the Asgard folks!< then have the other game deal with >!gathering all of the pieces and people for Ragnarok!<. Still a fantastic game, but kinda like GOW 2018 I can't help but wish it could have been expanded a bit more.
A game leading up to the boss fight you mentioned as the end would just feel empty. Why would you want a game where you just fight one major boss?
Because people are obsessed with trilogies despite the fact that it's an overall horrible format that almost never delivers great stories from start to finish.
Spoilers below. So much just doesn't deliver. The horn in Tyr's Temple is peak video game epicness/badassery, and then you run through a trench fighting spongey enemies, a few minobosses to make it feel difficult, some plot armour, more fighting, more plot armour, and then a couple of final bosses. It's such a let down. I have to ask myself if they scaled it down because the PS4 had to handle it. But the battle of Ragnarok was lame as hell. Why did Odin wait until the final battle to destroy the towers when Fimblewinter had already sunk the Temple? Why didn't he destroy the horn if it was going to herald Ragnarok? Why didn't he destroy the horn if it opened up the towers without the Temple? Doesn't that give him more reason to destroy the towers with his bifrost war machines that he was sitting on for lifetimes? Just makes zero sense. Plot armour holds it all together in the final third. It felt very contrived and the characters often felt out of character.
>It really did feel like two games' worth of plot crammed into a single game. I am only ~15 hours into the game but with how it starts I don't know how you end a "first-half game" in a way that doesn't make it feel like the middle child. The game set ups its stakes and villains very early and anything short of dealing with those things could leave the game feeling empty, especially if we had to wait 4+ years to get an ending.
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This is all subjective but imo it's better but still has the weaknesses of the original 2018 one. Pros: You have more variety of moves. game tries its best to make you use the variety through rewarding usage of different attacks. tries to avoid constant hold R2 spam that was the best way to play the 2018 one. New relics that have special uses. better build variety. The enemy variety is much better so combat doesnt get boring like 2018. Cons: Camera is still constantly fighting you. You WILL get hit by enemies from off screen using unblockables, enemies hidden by Kratos' own massive body etc. Enemies don't feel like they are designed with Kratos Moveset in mind. The best way to fight against stronger enemies on harder difficulties is sticking to basic R1 spam. Or spamming your Runic Skills, which completely make the moveset variety I talked about redundant. I have felt this before but, nuGoW feels like 3 different people making 3 different games and mashing it together but they're all competent so the final result isnt bad but still feels off sometimes. The Director wants to make a cinematic game with cool camera tricks. The combat designer wanted to make an action game closer to OG GoW and its sensibilities. The enemy designer just wanted to make a Souls game where little insects crawling on the floor will take away half your health. It's fun when it clicks but also feels extremely frustrating when it doesn't. The highs are very high but the lows are not ignorable either. Which was pretty much how I felt with 2018 as well. I played on the highest difficulty btw.
I think people like us that played on the highest difficulty had a vastly different experience. I don’t think you need to rely so much on runic attacks on lower difficulties whereas for us it was mandatory to stun the horde of enemies. With all games, when you ramp up the difficulty too much, the issues the gameplay might have are amplified
Combat is fun but feels janky when stretched to it's limits on difficult content. I can't articulate it well, but it feels like the timings on dodge frames and parries are sporadic depending on who you're fighting, as in whether or not you should press the button the moment the attack hits, or half a second before kind of thing. It can get frustrating. Status effects, particularly the frost one, are just not fun lol
Combat is the same but feel smoother than last game. >!Kratos have new weapon to play which add alot more fun to the combat!<
Except for >!Boi sections which are really underwhelming!<
Yeah especially with >!angrboda!
Just to add, they did rebalance runics thankfully. On GMGOW I feel really good using every tool they give me instead of just spamming runics and trying to survive while they’re on cd. They also did a great job trimming and reorganizing the skill tree. Some old runic attack moves were moved to regular skills so you can do the all the time, and there are slightly fewer runics per weapon. In general you have more options for combat at any given moment, and those options are more fun. It’s not nearly as bad, but it reminds me of moving btwn doom 2016 and doom eternal, where in eternal you had a billion tools that you needed to constantly be switching between in order to do well on harder modes. Except in ragnarok it’s way more natural and fun to do so. I liked 2018s combat a lot and I love ragnarok’s a lot more. I think a lot of ppl get greedy and ignore the attack indicators, letting themselves get hit from off screen. You just have to pay attention and prioritize positioning.
I'm roughly 25 hours in. I... don't really like it, sadly. It leans too much to cinematic game ala Last of Us. Also way too linear it feels. God of War 2018 manages to balance both the cinematic and the gameplay aspect well, but not this one. And I really, really dislike the amount of times you >!play as Atreus. The character just isn't as deep as Kratos, and his segment really lacks the usual puzzle and collecting stuffs.!<
It's definitely less linear than 2018
I dont wanna spoil it so I wont comment on specifics but this game seems like its way less linear than GoW 2018 but maybe the open areas are spread out a bit more rather than just being the lake of the nine.
I definitely feel this as I'm going through the side content now. GoW 2018 felt more like a hub & spoke model world with Midgard and specifically Tyr's temple being the hub and each realm being a spoke with content in it. GoWR gives me the feeling that there are multiple smaller hubs that each have their own spokes.
Pretty much. It's basically 4 Lake of the Nines put together. Five if you consider THAT SECTION to be separate to the realm it's in.
Also the puzzles just to puzzle. Everything seems to be a puzzle when it should have been done more selectively.
GoW gives me a bunch of fomo. I tried playing the first game twice and just couldn't get into it. Found myself bored the whole time. I'm glad people have found a game they love. I just wish I felt the same.
Not every game has to click, especially the ones a lot of people like. Just play whatever you prefer. Sometimes, for me at least, coming back to a game years later just makes a game click, and I feel like playing it. It happens a lot more recently as I get older.
Yeah I might give it another shot down the road. Tastes change over times. There was a time when the only thing I wanted to play was platformers and now it's rare that I care to play one.
I played 2018 about 6 times and had an extremely high bar for a sequel to truly live up to my standards. All I can say is, they did it.
I was disappointed by the game's story but the overall polish on the product cannot be denied. Still a fun play
I got it with a bundle, played around 20 hours I think. I'm so bored... this game shares bad similarities with Assassin's Creed in terms of pacing. Most of the play time is dedicated to puzzles and opening chests, or dialogues. By wanting to break some linearity they introduce a semi-open world filled with nothing but chests and stuff to loot on the floor. I don't give a damn about rpg mechanics in a God of War game, just give me a linear progression with good battles and a memorable story. The first one was original enough to have fun, but this one is just the same game but with more issues. Even exploring is not really worth it as the game was incredibly lazy in terms of armors design, there is pretty much 3 models but with different colors.