God of War: Ragnarok has had its trailer released and it’s already one of the biggest stories of the Playstation Showcase 2021. We saw our first gameplay as well as some story beats too. God of War was one of the best games on PS4, so the hype here is enormous for the second. We left off the end of the first game with a huge reveal that Atreus is none other than Loki in this version of Norse Mythology. The implications for this are understandably gigantic considering Loki has a massive part to play in Ragnarok as well as the fact that the world serpent from the first game is in fact his son… Confused yet? Good! Here are 5 things you need to know right now about God of War: Ragnarok.
5. The Combat Will Remain Brutal
One of the biggest surprises about God War PS4 was that not only did it retain the gory insanity from the original trilogy, but it also managed to ground that brutality in some realism too. God of War: Ragnarok aims to do just the same as the trailer showed off some impressive new moves to go along with the ones we’d seen from the previous game. Honestly, the combat didn’t look all that different from the last game and while that’s okay for the most part, for a game coming out 4 years later, you would expect some of the animations to be smoothed out a bit and it still looked to have somewhat of the same animations and clunkiness that slightly plagued the last game. It’s an early showing of course, but it is noticeable.
4. Freya is Pissed
I mean, she has good reason to be, right? After all, Atreus pierced the veil that protected Baldur from any harm in his life which allowed Kratos to finally kill him. Baldur being Freya’s son, it’s understandable that she’s got some big-time anger behind her and she swears at the end of God of War that she will have her vengeance. We see this vengeance start to take form in the trailer as she comes flying at Kratos with a sword and is clearly not about talking anymore. She will likely have a huge role to play and could possibly be a massive boss encounter at some point throughout the story. It’s made all the more tragic considering what an awesome character she was in the first game but hey, you kill a mother’s son and there is most certainly a price to pay.
3. Ragnarok Will Not Start at the Beginning of the Game
It’s a bit of a disappointment for sure, but it appears that at least the beginning of the game will not have the world-ending war of Ragnarok taking place just yet. It seems like we will have a bit of a journey to go on before we reach this apocalyptic event. Because of this. God of War: Ragnarok kind of looks similar to the previous game in not only aesthetic but also location-wise. Of course, it’s very possible that Santa Monica Studios doesn’t want to give away the real juice of its game in the first trailer, so perhaps they’re playing their cards close to the chest and hiding what the Norse doomsday will really look like until we experience in for ourselves.
2. Atreus is Older
Now, this is a little confusing because Atreus sounds significantly older in this trailer, but that can mean a few different things. It is possible that the hibernation sleep we saw Kratos dreaming about at the end of God of War PS4 has come to pass and Thor arriving to lay down the law is just the start of God of War: Ragnarok, or it’s possible that that scene was just a preview of what the beginning of the actual Ragnarok event could be. The other reason might simply be because Atreus’s voice actor is now going to be 4 years older than he was in the first game and time might not have passed at all from the closing moments in that on and this is just something we’ll have to accept.
1. Tyr is Real
This is by far the biggest reveal of the trailer and a bit shocking because this seems like a massive story moment that should have best been reserved for the players to discover. Either way, many fan theories have come toppling down following this reveal because a huge prevailing theory in the first game is that Kratos is actually Tyr and has left these murals from the future in order to help himself in the past. This theory was also supported by the fact that Tyr was a friend of the giants (Kratos married one after all) and that he and Kratos were two of the only gods that Atreus considered to be kind. This theory gets thrown to the wayside as we’re introduced to Tyr seemingly shackled up somewhere. The OMG moment of the trailer occurs after Kratos asks Tyr if he’s coming with them and Tyr rises up to reveal that he is also a giant. This means that Tyr had the same ability to foresee the future as Kratos’s wife did and that those murals were put in place to help him. So what is Tyr’s game then here? As the Norse God of War, he is no saint himself, so what could he need Kratos for? It’s possible that Tyr was guiding Kratos forward in order to gain an ally that might be powerful enough to help him stop Odin and whatever he has planned or something else entirely.
The God of War: Ragnarok trailer gave us plenty to chew on and speculate about and that’s exactly what it set out to do. It looks to give us more of the same from the best PS4 exclusive of this last generation of gaming and I’m sure fans will be plenty alright with that.
God of War: Ragnarok will release sometime in 2022 and will be available on PS4 and PS5.
