God of War Ragnarök closes the Norse chapter that Santa Monica Studio opened in 2018, and it does so at full volume. Released November 9, 2022, for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, it was the first cross-generation launch in the series’ history. The PC version followed on September 19, 2024.
It is the ninth mainline God of War game, the tenth in chronological order, and the direct sequel to the 2018 title. It is also the best one Sony has published.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
Kratos and Atreus, Three Years Into Fimbulwinter
Ragnarök picks up three years after the last game. Fimbulwinter, the long cold that began when Kratos killed Baldur, has turned Midgard into a wasteland. The Lake of the Nine is frozen solid. Kratos now travels by sleigh, pulled by two wolves, where he once rowed a boat.
The father-son bond built in 2018 holds, but it has grown complicated. Atreus knows he is part Giant. He knows a prophecy exists that Kratos saw and never shared. That secret sits between them for most of the game.
Atreus wants to know who he could be. The mystery of Loki’s part in the coming war is something he cannot put down. Kratos, carrying the memory of his own bloody mistakes, wants his son nowhere near the Aesir. Their fight with Baldur settled that argument in Kratos’s mind: more contact with those gods means more tragedy.
Christopher Judge returns as Kratos. The teenage Atreus is the other half of the game, and the story asks both of them to choose a path. That choice decides what happens to everyone in the Nine Realms.
All Nine Realms, Finally
The 2018 game kept several realms locked away. Ragnarök opens all nine.
Returning are Alfheim, home of the light and dark Elves; Helheim, the icy land of the dead; Jötunheim, land of the Giants; the fiery Muspelheim; and Niflheim, the fog realm, now buried in ice and snow. Muspelheim and Niflheim were optional side areas last time. Here they are part of the story.
Three realms are new. Svartalfheim is the industrial home of the Dwarves. Vanaheim is the lush country of the Vanir gods, and it is where the giant wolves Sköll and Hati live. Asgard, the modest home of the Aesir, can only be visited during the campaign. Once the story ends, it is closed off.
The Valhalla DLC adds one more: Valhalla itself, the place within Asgard where warriors go after death. Inside it are small recreations of the earlier realms, built from Kratos’s memories, plus stretches of his homeland, Greece.
A Spear, Two Blades, and a Better Shield
Combat stays close to the 2018 template: third-person, over-the-shoulder, combo-based, single-player only, with puzzle and role-playing elements folded in. The camera never cuts. There are no loading screens.
Kratos keeps the Leviathan Axe, his ice-infused battle axe, which can be thrown and summoned back to his hand, and used to freeze objects and enemies for puzzles. He keeps the Blades of Chaos, the fire-infused chained pair. The Blades get a new trick: they work as a grappling hook, letting Kratos swing over chasms and yank objects loose to throw at enemies.
The new weapon is the Draupnir Spear, a wind-infused spear for close and long range that can copy itself. Kratos can plant several in one enemy and detonate them together. His shield is now more versatile, with different types offering different offensive and defensive trade-offs.
Enemy variety is up from the last game: einherjar, wyverns, stalkers, phantoms, human raiders, nøkkens, and more mini-bosses to break up the pacing.
Atreus Takes the Controller
Atreus and other characters fight alongside Kratos and can be passively directed. The bigger change is that Atreus becomes fully playable in specific story sections — a first for the series.
The mystery of Loki’s role in the upcoming conflict is something that Atreus cannot let go of.
That line is the whole game in miniature. Atreus is not a companion anymore. He is a second protagonist with his own questions, and the story treats his curiosity as legitimate rather than as a child’s rebellion.
Where Ragnarök Earns Its Length
The nine-realm structure could have been a checklist. It is not. Svartalfheim’s dwarven industry and Vanaheim’s overgrowth feel like separate countries rather than palette swaps, and the return to Muspelheim and Niflheim as required stops gives those realms a weight they never had as optional content.
The Draupnir Spear is the smartest addition. The Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos already covered ice and fire. Wind, with self-replicating copies, gives players a third rhythm instead of a third skin.
The Valhalla DLC is the rare add-on that justifies itself. Rebuilding the old realms out of Kratos’s memory, and dropping Greece into the middle of it, is fan service with a point.
The Case Against
The game is long, and it knows it. The single-take camera, impressive for an hour, becomes a commitment over a campaign this size. Some realm visits are shorter than the buildup suggests.
Atreus’s playable sections are the boldest swing and the most uneven. They break the combat loop in ways that serve the story more than the hands.
What Ragnarök Gets Right
God of War Ragnarök is the strongest argument yet that Sony’s biggest franchise can carry real emotional weight without dropping its combat. Kratos and Atreus are given a genuine disagreement — safety against purpose — and the game refuses to settle it cheaply. All nine realms, the Draupnir Spear, and a fully playable Atreus are the mechanical proof. The father-son story is the reason to stay.
It is not flawless. The length tests patience, and the Atreus chapters will divide players. But this is the rare sequel that expands scope and deepens character at once, and it closes the Norse era without leaving anything important unsaid.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
