God of War Ragnarok Review: The Bigger, Bolder End of the Norse Saga

Going Bigger When You Could Have Gone Safe

There is a quiet pressure that hangs over every sequel to a beloved game: do you reinvent, or do you refine? In 2018, Santa Monica Studio reinvented God of War completely, turning a screaming rage-machine into a tired, careful father and trading frantic combat for an intimate, over-the-shoulder journey. It worked spectacularly.

So when God of War Ragnarok arrived in 2022, the studio faced the harder question. And their answer was to go bigger in almost every direction.

Where the 2018 game kept you mostly in one realm, Ragnarok opens up all nine. Where the first game’s combat was deliberately lean, the sequel hands you a deeper toolkit almost from the start. The set-pieces are more frequent, more cinematic, and frankly more jaw-dropping. The world is more varied, the cast is larger, and the prophecy of Ragnarok finally arrives instead of merely looming.

It is a confident, generous, ambitious game. It is also, by a small margin, the reason this review lands at a 9 rather than a 10 — but we will get there honestly.

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The Coming of Ragnarok

The story picks up a few years after the first game ended. Fimbulwinter — the brutal winter that precedes Ragnarok in Norse myth — has settled over the realms. The prophecy that hung over the entire 2018 game is no longer a distant threat. It is closing in.

Kratos, ever the reluctant prophet of doom, wants to protect his son and avoid the war entirely. He has spent a lifetime learning what vengeance and godhood cost, and he wants none of it for Atreus.

But Atreus has other ideas.

This is the engine of the whole game. The boy from 2018 is now a teenager, and like every teenager he is convinced he understands the world better than his father does. He believes he has a role to play in the coming war, a purpose tied to his Giant heritage and the name Loki. He sneaks off. He makes deals. He trusts the wrong people because he is desperate to matter.

And Kratos, for the first time, cannot simply carry his son through the danger. He has to decide how much to let go.

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The Best Father-Son Story in Gaming Gets Its Ending

What made the 2018 game special was never the spectacle. It was the relationship. Ragnarok understands this completely, and it builds its biggest swing around the part of parenting nobody warns you about: the moment your kid stops needing you to carry them and starts needing you to trust them.

There is a structural choice here that I will not spoil, but the game regularly pulls Kratos and Atreus apart and lets you experience the story from both sides. You feel the father’s helplessness when he cannot see what his son is doing. You feel the son’s frustration at being treated like a child. It is genuinely uncomfortable in the way good family drama is uncomfortable.

For dads specifically, this hits with real weight. The 2018 game was about learning to be present. Ragnarok is about learning to step back — and that is the harder lesson. The conclusion the saga reaches is earned, and it earns its tears without ever feeling cheap.

This is the rare blockbuster that uses its enormous budget to tell a story about restraint, grief, and letting go. It mostly nails it.

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God of War Ragnarök (PS5) (opens in a new tab)

The epic conclusion of the Norse saga. A bigger, deeper, more emotional sequel with all nine realms to explore and the best axe-and-blades combat in gaming.

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The Leviathan Axe and the Blades, Together at Last

Let me be plain about something: the combat in this game is glorious.

The throw-and-recall Leviathan Axe returns, still the most satisfying weapon in any action game — you hurl the frozen axe across an arena, it thwacks into an enemy, and you call it spinning back into your palm with a press of a button. On PS5 the DualSense haptics make it land in your hands physically. It never stops feeling good.

But Ragnarok’s real trick is the combo. The freezing axe and the burning Blades of Chaos are both available, and the game is built around switching between them mid-fight. You freeze a group with the axe, recall it, then chain them together with the blades’ fire while the recall animation is still playing. The interplay of frost and flame, of throw and chain, gives the combat a rhythm and a depth the 2018 game only hinted at.

Add new weapon options later in the game, a deeper skill tree, and smarter enemy variety, and you have one of the best-feeling action systems on the platform. If you came to the saga for the combat, Ragnarok is the better game by a clear margin.

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All Nine Realms — The Spectacle

The scope here is the headline. The 2018 game teased the wider cosmology; Ragnarok lets you actually visit it.

Each realm has its own art direction, its own mood, its own surprises. Some are sweeping and golden, some are oppressive and broken, and a couple deliver the kind of “put the controller down for a second” vistas that justify owning a good TV. The set-pieces between them are bigger and more frequent — there are sequences in this game that genuinely had me grinning at the audacity of the staging.

The world design also rewards exploration more generously than before. Side activities feel less like checklist padding and more like genuine reasons to wander, with a few optional regions and encounters that rank among the best content in the whole package.

It is, unambiguously, a showcase. This is a game that rocks the PlayStation, and on a capable display with HDR it is one of the prettiest games of its generation.

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The Honest 9 — Where Ragnarok Plays It Safe

So why not a 10, when the saga hub itself sits at a 9 and the original arguably earns its focus?

Two honest reasons.

First, Ragnarok is a touch bloated. It is a long game, and it knows it — there are stretches in the middle where the pacing sags, where a third combat arena in a row arrives when the story wanted to breathe. The 2018 game’s great strength was its discipline; it never outstayed its welcome. Ragnarok occasionally does, and a tighter edit would have made the emotional beats land even harder. Bigger is not automatically better.

Second, it plays it slightly safe. The 2018 game was a genuine reinvention; Ragnarok is a brilliant iteration on that reinvention. Everything it does, it does better — but it rarely surprises you the way the first game did when it threw out the entire old formula. It refines rather than reinvents, and after the shock of 2018, the lack of a new structural risk is felt.

There is also a personal caveat I will own: this is still, for my taste, a touch too combat-heavy. The quiet father-son scenes are the masterpiece here, and there are moments where the game’s appetite for another big fight crowds out the very thing that makes the saga special. Your mileage will vary — if you love the combat, this is barely a criticism at all.

None of this stops Ragnarok from being a magnificent game. It just stops it from being a flawless one.

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👨 The Dad Angle — When and How to Play Ragnarok

Ragnarok is rated M for Mature and earns it: brutal combat, blood and gore, and strong language throughout. It is not a co-op family game, and it is not something to leave running with little ones in the room. This is an after-bedtime game, played with a good pair of headphones.

But the irony is that its story is one of the most parent-coded in the medium. The whole game is about a father learning to trust his son to walk his own path, and about a kid who needs to make his own mistakes. Older teens often get a great deal from watching a parent play it, and the conversations it can prompt are worth having.

On time investment: budget around 25 to 30 hours for the main story, more if you explore the realms properly. It is a bigger commitment than the 2018 game, so treat it like a series you watch one episode at a time — a couple of chapters a week, letting the story breathe rather than bingeing it into a blur.

On setup: this is one of the rare games that justifies the best display and audio you can give it. A 60fps performance mode on a capable PS5, HDR on a good TV, and DualSense haptics in your hands turn the axe-and-blades combat and the nine-realm vistas into something genuinely special. If you are going to play it, play it well.

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Where It Sits in the Saga

If you have read our God of War Norse Saga review, you know how we frame these two games: the original is the leaner, more focused half, and Ragnarok is the grander, more spectacular conclusion. Neither is strictly better — they are two halves of one story, and you should play both, in order.

Ragnarok is the louder, bigger, more generous game. It concludes the father-son arc with real weight, it hands you the best combat toolkit in the saga, and it shows off all nine realms with a confidence few studios can match. It runs a little long and plays it a little safe, and for my taste it leans a touch too hard on the fighting — but it is still one of the finest action-adventures on the PlayStation 5.

A near-perfect end to a near-perfect saga.

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FAQ

Do I need to play the 2018 game first?

Yes, strongly. Ragnarok opens assuming you already know Kratos, Atreus, and the death of Faye, and it does very little to catch you up. The 2018 game is short and cheap now, runs on the same console family, and the emotional payoff of the sequel only lands if you have lived through that first quiet father-son journey first.

Is God of War Ragnarok ok for kids to watch?

It is rated M for Mature, with brutal combat, blood and gore, and strong language. It is not a kids’ game. The story itself is genuinely about parenting and letting go, so older teens often get a lot from watching, but younger kids should be asleep before the axe comes out.

How long does God of War Ragnarok take to beat?

The main story runs roughly 25 to 30 hours. Doing most of the meaningful side content pushes it toward 40, and full completion with all the post-game challenges sits around 50-plus hours. It is noticeably bigger than the 2018 game.

Is Ragnarok better than the 2018 game?

It depends what you want. Ragnarok is bigger, more varied, and emotionally grander, with a stronger combat toolkit. The 2018 game is leaner and more focused. We give the original the edge on focus and the sequel the edge on spectacle. Both land at a 9.

Is the Leviathan Axe and Blades combo really that good?

Yes. Switching mid-combo between the freezing Leviathan Axe and the burning Blades of Chaos, throwing and recalling the axe while the blades chain enemies, is one of the best combat feedback loops in any action game. The DualSense haptics on PS5 make every swap land in your palms.