2022 Preview: God of War Ragnarök promises an epic end to the Norse two-parter

You can’t move for Ragnarök these days.

From Marvel’s Thor movies to Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (which is even getting DLC called Dawn of Ragnarök in March) to a Norwegian Netflix series, the Norse apocalypse legend is getting more attention than it’s had since actual Viking times. Now Sony’s Santa Monica Studio wants a piece of the action.

The reveal for its big sequel to 2018’s God of War reboot emphasised that “Ragnarök is coming”, and we now know what we weren’t sure about then: Ragnarök is actually the title for Kratos’ continuing Norse adventures.

• Related: God of War Ragnarök release date, pre-order, trailer and more

By the end of the last game, Kratos and boy, sorry, Atreus, had killed troublemaker Baldur, son of Odin and Freya, and Thor’s sons, Modi and Magni. This kind of behaviour was always bound to cause a stir, and bring the A-list deities out from hiding.

Quite who will has yet to be determined – the only real tease at the game’s plot that we’ve seen to date was the game’s first trailer, released in September, which revealed that it will be set a few years after the events of its 2018 predecessor.

What we do at least have is a brief overview of what to expect, as described by Santa Monica Studio’s senior community manager Grace Orlady back when the trailer was originally released.

“While the last game built an enormous amount of trust and understanding between father and son, there is still a great deal of complexity in their interactions – especially after the revelation of Atreus’ Giant heritage and the hidden prophecy only Kratos saw,” Orlady explained.

“Atreus is desperately curious. Like most young people, he wants to understand who he is more than anything. In this case, he wants to understand who he could be. The mystery of Loki’s role in the upcoming conflict is something that Atreus cannot let go of. He wants to keep his family safe, but Atreus also doesn’t want to stand by and do nothing while conflict consumes the Nine Realms.

“Kratos, still bearing the knowledge of his past mistakes, wants to spare Atreus the bloody lessons he learned from his conflict with gods. He wants to keep his son safe, above all, and their confrontation with Baldur has vindicated the belief that only tragedy will come from further entanglements with the Aesir.

“Together, Kratos and Atreus will have to make a choice about which path they will take. Whatever they choose will define the fate of all those living in the Nine Realms as Ragnarök approaches.”

“Together, Kratos and Atreus will have to make a choice about which path they will take. Whatever they choose will define the fate of all those living in the Nine Realms as Ragnarök approaches.”

It’s not yet clear what will happen when and if Ragnarök does happen in the game. In Norse legend, Ragnarök, the ‘Fate of the Gods’, follows a string of events, including the death of Baldr (Baldur) at the hands of the treacherous Loki, and ‘Fimbulvetr,’ an extra-long winter that heralds the arrival of the end times (as we left Kratos and Atreus last time, Fimbulvetr had already begun).

When Ragnarök begins, the seas flood the land, mountains collapse and the sun and moon are eaten by cosmic wolves. Loki breaks free from imprisonment and rises against the gods, and fire-giant king Surtr invades Asgard, Odin’s kingdom. Then basically everyone dies. Odin is eaten by giant wolf Fenrir, Freya and Surtr kill each other, as do Thor and Jörmangundr, the world snake, and Heimdall and Loki. With that done, the whole world sinks into the sea, leaving a void. It’s heavy stuff.

We assume God of War won’t quite take things this far, not least because the ending of all existence isn’t a shrewd move for the future of the franchise. And Santa Monica Studio isn’t exactly attempting a faithful retelling of Norse mythology.

But Ragnarök implies a more epic scale even than the first wide-ranging adventure, and the likelihood that the Norse pantheon will be decimated. Given Kratos’ track record, if our grumpy Spartan demi-god is sufficiently angered, perhaps he could be the bringer of Ragnarök himself, dealing death to all.

Those familiar with the first game will know that the role of Loki in these legends could be a trigger issue here. Let’s just say that family ties and personal revenge will probably once again be as central to events as world-ending prophecies. The reboot put a lot of work into developing the strained relationship between Kratos and Atreus, and that’s likely to remain a key theme. Expect more blunt parental advice and mood swings. Will they stick together? Might they even face off against each other at some point?

As for the play experience, we don’t anticipate big changes. The combat was pretty feisty and fun the first time around and just needs a little fine-tuning to really shine. A new weapon to master would also be appreciated. Other than that, we honestly wouldn’t mind if they simplified some of the resource hunting and upgrading systems, to focus more on rewarding exploration and set-piece encounters.

Presumably, there’ll be a semi-open world structure again, with a branching hub area and occasional visits to alternate realms. One thing we do know is that this time we’ll be visiting Asgard, Vanaheim and Svartalfheim, the other three of the Nine Realms we didn’t get to see last time.

“One thing we do know is that this time we’ll be visiting Asgard, Vanaheim and Svartalfheim, the other three of the Nine Realms we didn’t get to see last time.”

We also know that Ragnarök will mark the end of the Norse story, with reboot director Cory Barlog stating that the studio didn’t want to take 15 years to make a trilogy. So whatever happens this time around is going to be fairly definitive.

One big question that has now been answered is whether God of War: Ragnarök will also be a PS4 game – it will. In a way, it makes sense, because with continued PS5 shortages it could be argued that such an expensive game simply couldn’t ignore the huge installed user-base on the older format.

That said, the PS5’s SSD will reduce loading times, removing the need for padding scenes between areas, which the PS4 would still require. Reboot director Cory Barlog previously talked up the importance of SSD for this reason, so it’s going to be interesting to see if the PS5 game’s ambition is going to be held back by the PS4 version’s requirements.

The only major question that remains, then, is exactly when we can expect to see God of War: Ragnarök on our PlayStation console of choice. The game was already delayed from a planned 2021 release so one would hope that it would at least hit 2022, but the lack of a confirmed date yet makes us wonder if we’re looking at the back half of the year. The wait continues.