Topic: God of War Ragnarök

Who else is looking forward to this? It looks like most of the boat rides will be replaced by a sled and wolves now that the lake is frozen. Plenty of new bosses as well, so that's a big plus. I'm very interesting where they're going to take the story. There's so much left to unpack from the first one. I can't fathom doing all of that in one game. So I kinda hoped it would've been a trilogy.

I like that Freya is seriously pissed off now - I think she’s going to be great in it

Looks like Mimir was right about Thor's appearance.

@Octane I’m with you about the whole, feeling slightly disappointed at the Norse saga being over after two games. I’m still kinda hoping (I’ll admit almost definitely wrongly) that this just gets to Ragnarok and then a third game plays out during Ragnarok… but the realist in me (I keep him suppressed in the pits of my subconscious) is resigned to this being the climax sadly 😔.

Either way though, I’m extremely excited. I thought the trailer looked perfectly fine from a graphical perspective (a step up from 2018 but still in the same ball-park… some of the environments looked a lot better than the first game) and narratively the trailer really hit me where I wanted it too. Can’t wait!

@colonelkilgore Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'd love a GOW set in Egypt eventually, but there's so much Norse mythology left untouched, that it feels a bit wasteful to end it with the second game. I'm also a big sucker for Norse mythology, so want to to explore it all.

We've spend one game chasing Baldur, and there are dozens of more gods, monsters, creatures and myths in Norse mythology we haven't even seen. And I don't want them to rush the events in the upcoming game either. Even the events leading up to Ragnarok, with the death of Baldur being the first one, could easily fill another game or two.

But yeah, I don't expect there will be a third, since they've already confirmed it, and otherwise this one wouldn't have been called Ragnarok.

So basically its become whatever Assassin's Creed does we can do it better.

The umlaut throws me. I forget that it’s a totally different phonetic sound in Icelandic as I’m used to the German use.

@Tasuki I know what your saying but that’s quite a reductive stance imho. David Jaffe has discussed many times that when he created Kratos that he envisioned him taking on the Gods of various global mythologies that existed throughout history. He even name-checked the Egyptian pantheon and hinted at others.

Also, the Assassins Creed series has only delved into this territory with its last three games ‘really’ and only then in the dlc’s of Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla… the actual base games themselves are set in Egyptian, Greek and Scandinavian/English era’s set way after the mythological Gods supposedly operated. Also, while the AC games have moved away somewhat from its ‘origins’ as mainly games about assassinations, stealth is still a major facet of the gameplay. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing Kratos and Atreus performing much stealth.

Lastly, the recent Assassins Creed games that ‘could’ be perceived as treading similar ground to the God of War games are basically heavily influenced by the open worlds of the Middle Earth games and The Witcher 3 in particular. God of War 2018 (and it’s sequel by the looks) are far more semi-open world in design and the ‘closest’ progenitor of which could possibly be the Arkham games, albeit with a different combat system (a better one imho) and no stealth.

So while the might well have some similar historic and mythological foundations (Greek, Norse & Egyptian myth) the games are quite different.

@colonelkilgore @Octane Quick shout for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. By way of comparison, it’s closer to God of War (2018) in the way it plays (although still a far piece away) and it is set in the Norse mythology. A fantastic game, be sure not to miss it if you like the Norse stuff.

@Th3solution Hellblade mixes in some Celtic stuff too, if I’m not mistaken. Great game.

@Th3solution it’s in the backlog 😉… thinking about digging it out when the sequel is eventually released on Xbox.

@Th3solution The accents in that game did my bloody head in. She’s from Orkney and yet they have a German English woman speaking with a baseline English accent with a German lilt. If they’re going to make a game about Picts then they can at least make them a little more authentic.

@nessisonett As an American I suppose I wasn’t tuned in to the regional discrepancies of accent. But you’re right - I’m surprised a British studio wasn’t more cognizant of how that might create dissonance. I suspect the shoestring budget they had and the fact that Melina Jeurgens was literally given the motion capture and voice acting job on a complete whim was also a factor. To my ears (and eyes) she did a fantastic performance, especially for a novice. And I think they recorded her voice performance simultaneous with the mo-cap, which I think is not a typical practice. Still, I know it would drive me up a wall (and sometimes does) when an actor is supposed to be from say, Boston and they have a New York accent.

@colonelkilgore Depending how the sequel turns out, it might be worth getting an Xbox for me. Or at least getting GamePass for a month and trying to play on PC or something. It was that moving for me. And actually, I think they caught lightning in a bottle, to be honest, and I’m not sure a sequel can be as impressive, but we’ll see.

@Voltan Yes, you’re right. It’s got a sprinkling of different lore, Norse and Celtic I guess. I’m by no means an expert and so I have a hard time differentiating them in the game. I just remember hearing the term “Ragnarok” thrown around 😄.

@Th3solution well that is high praise indeed… and really makes me look forward to playing it even more. If I enjoy it anywhere as much as you seem to have, I’ll be right there with you on GamePass to play the sequel. Maybe it will actually be the first thing that convinces me to try that green, green grass. The irony shouldn’t be lost on Xbots that it will be a single player, third person action adventure that they once referred to the original as a ‘walking simulator’ that has eventually achieved that 🤣.

@colonelkilgore I know, right? I’m not the least bit tempted by Halo… Infinite is it? I don’t even know what Halo we’re on now. Nor for Forza or … whatever else I’ve seen exclusive over there. Credit to Microsoft for seeing that if they can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em, so to speak, with the single player third person narrative driven action adventure games. The interesting thing with Hellblade and Ninja Theory (and I apologize for the derail but the Assassins Creed talk prompted the Hellblade comparison) is that I wonder if all that Microsoft money will spoil the secret sauce. Part of the charm of the first game was this AA development with the team really having to dig deep into their creative minds to make something artistically impactful without all the money. At least that’s my interpretation. So it’s very possible that it become like so many examples in the film industry where a movie is made on the cheap and is successful and then the sequel is a bloated mess of fancy but shallow CG effects.

@Th3solution They honestly could have even just had a Norwegian voice actor and it would have made more sense. The area occupied by the Picts was later colonised by Norway. We only took control of it in the 15th century. Even a bit of an Irish lilt would make sense given the ties between the Pictish language and Old Irish. It just irritated me because it’s not often we get games set in our parts and the accents were a bit all over the place.

@Th3solution there are examples of a money-bags sequel eclipsing the smaller-budgeted original classic (Terminator 2, Aliens etc.) but they are a lot fewer and further between than they ‘should’ be that’s for sure. Hell, maybe Microsoft should throw enough money at James Cameron to direct the sequel 😉.

@nessisonett do you think Norway colonised that area because it was a pretty area to look at? As in it was Pict-uresque? (I'm instantly sorry)

In that would it would be neat to know what they worked on. I imagine most of the designing aspect is already finished (3D modeling, concept art, textures, etc.), same with the writing, music, mo-cap. Let's say it releases in eight months or so, then it's safe to presume a lot of it has been finished already. The last couple of months are mainly playtesting and bug fixing from what I understand.

@Octane the last one I saw had “Engineering lead on God of War” in his bio