God of War Ragnarok Equals Ridiculously High Review Rating of Its Predecessor

Highest rated PS5 exclusive, @ShogunRok.

Incredible score nonetheless. Though, as eluded to, it’s still a tad short of Elden Ring’s 96 rating. GOTY discussions will be very interesting this year!

I can't say I ever had any doubt that this one would be a right barnstormer

It’s funny to see Elden ring have a higher score than God of War Ragnarok on Metacritic this shows that the review system is very flawed.

yet some will score it a 1.

im sure it will be a very good game. and cant wait to see if the praise is well deserved

If GOWR was the first in the new series, having no GOW2018 it would have scored a little higher.
Also this year it seems to me scores are a bit stricter than 4 years ago.

@4kgk2 How so?

@dschons God of War Ragnarok does everything better than Elden ring. God of war Ragnarok has better graphics better performance better animations and a better story than Elden Ring.

@The_Pixel_King Thanks for that, fixed!

@4kgk2 Two different games with different intentions and focus. Comparing these two head to head seems like a stretch to me.

@dschons that sounds like a excuse to me.

I'm looking forward to playing this next week, I don't personally rate the previous entry as high as many seem to but its a very good game, from the reviews this sounds like it's improved upon it in many ways

@4kgk2 I'm assuming you've played Ragnarok then?

@4kgk2 So you played the new GoW to know? Honestly you sound like a fanboy to me who doesn't understand how opinions work.

@4kgk2 It just doesn't really make sense to say "better story" (just to name one example) which firstly is highly subjective and secondly is a main focus in one game and a side note in another.
What you're trying to do here is claiming the review system is flawed (which I actually agree with) by using the argument "because game X which I like better has a lower score than game Y which I don't like as much". Yeah, that's convincing reasoning right there.

@The_Pixel_King GoW won Goty in 2018 with a score of 94 beating RDR2 which had a score of 97.

@4kgk2
To me Elden Ring is overrated.
Ok I have not played but watched lots of gamers playing it. It seems very old tech wise to look at for a start, open world wise.
Just go play HFW open world and there is a massive difference quality wise.

I was never really into the God Of War series but I've downloaded the 2018 game to see what all the fuss is about.

Unfortunately, this won't be GOTY since Elden Ring will probably win based on the buzz it created.

@carlos82 no but I’m reading reviews saying god of war Ragnarok is better than god of war 2018 in every way. I think god of war 2018 is better than Elden Ring too.

Its very weird seeing this GoW vs Elden Ring battle between fanboys. Like it looks like 2022 has seen two of the best games ever with them both so can't we focus on that? Elden Ring is incredible and it looks like GoW is so for me i see that as a massive win for gamers.

@WallyWest It's not a battle between fanboys (although I love ER). It's disputing nonsensical reasoning, nothing more, nothing less.

@SamMR If elden ring beat God of war Ragnarok the gaming media is more of joke than I thought.

@ApostateMage it's basically like Zelda bit with better graphics and combat

@WallyWest I beat elden ring 3 times I beat both the ps4 and ps5 version I don’t hate Elden ring It’s just not a better game than gow.

@dschons @WallyWest it's just weird all round, we've got another great game and what does it matter which game score higher? Just more great games to choose from as far as I'm concerned

@carlos82 Sure, that's how I see it as well. Pumped for Ragnarök.

@4kgk2 it's different games and audiences. Me personally, not a fan of Elden ring. Would vote GOWR and HFW above it. But that does not mean general opinion agrees.

@4kgk2 In your opinion, others think differently while others think the same because that's how opinions work.

"So, according to critics at least, Ragnarok stands alongside the previous game as its equal."

Well... according to a numerical aggregate. If you asked individual critics, they'd likely be able to tell you if they thought one was superior to the other.

Which is a roundabout way of me saying:
Metascores mean close to nothing.

@4kgk2 God of war Ragnarok has 30 more reviews than elden ring, so if elden ring had the same amount it could of been scored lower.

God of masterpieces. 🐐 👑. Both 2 legendary games. Kratos the g.o.a.t.word up son

@4kgk2 you might be right but your argument is like when sports fans use "Liverpool beat City but United beat Liverpool, so United are the better team"

@4kgk2 Kinda weird that Super Mario Galaxy, Galaxy 2 and Odyssey have a higher score than GoWR than since those games barely have a story at all /s

And now lets wait the most important rating and that is User Score.

@The_Pixel_King yeah but Elden ring has way less reviews and they were split. For example on pc it’s rating is 95 the same rating as opencritic which doesn’t split by platforms or do a ridiculous weighting system.

@mariomaster96 don’t get me started about Nintendo games at least Nintendo kinda deserves to be overrated because Nintendo saved console gaming in the 80’s.

@Eagly I agree although I would replace xenoblade 3 with HFW. Xenoblade 3 open world just had too much filler and it’s story was nothing to write home about.

@Tomchuu is this sarcasm?

@mariomaster96 galaxy 2 deserves it score but not the first and def not Odyssey

Can't wait for this.

But it's crazy that the original PS2 God of War has the exact same score.

I'm sure the score of 94 is still 6 points too low, just as it was for the first game. I'm looking forward to this game!

Wonder which website will be first to give it 4/10 for free publicity

@The_Pixel_King don't forget this is absolutely a Ps4 game

@Tomchuu yeah cant wait for the deluge of xbox gamers to give it 1/10 🙄

@KundaliniRising333 hopefully the next one will be ps5 only, and we can see what it can really do

@dark_knightmare2 Nope, no sarcasm at all. Metascore can be whatever, what matters most is what most majority of world thinks of the game. And that is regular people, players, users. - User Score.

@tallythwack No worries I know how to filter ***** from actual real criticism.

@dark_knightmare2 So Horizon Forbidden West?

@Eagly They are both at 97, can't really get "way" higher than that ^^

@KundaliniRising333 no, it’s not. It’s made using PS5 tech, then transferred to PS4 with certain cut backs. If it was PS5 exclusive it would look exactly the same. You really think they make new games using PS4 tech then remaster the PS4 game for PS5??? They don’t.

A 2 point difference on Metacritic is hardly any metric to go by, especially when Elden Ring and Ragnorak have different priorities as games.

@jordan1992 the general tech analysis consensus all agree that this is an inherently Ps4 title that just runs at a higher framerate and resolution in the PS5 version. So yes I am absolutely saying this is a Ps4 game, Boosted when playing the Ps5 version.

The definitely didn't build this around the PS5 and downscalenit to run on last Gen hardware.... Cmon

@KundaliniRising333 that’s exactly what they do. Look at lets say Returnal, a PS5 exclusive. It does look fantastic, however Uncharted 4, Ghost of Tsushima look better an they’re actual PS4 games originally. The PS5 is still a new machine, games will get better visually with time. Compare TLOU 2 with a release PS4 game, huge difference in visuals.

@jordan1992 that's not true at all. Even Santa Monica recently said:
"When it comes to Ragnarök, from the very get-go, we knew this was going to be a PS4 game because we wanted to support the fanbase - we had so many people that had enjoyed the game on PS4. So from the very beginning, we knew, this is going to be a PS4 game. We're going to make this the best PS4 game we can make. Our goal was to surpass God of War 2018 in every way possible. Having the PS5 version, that's just icing on the cake." It was designed as a ps4 game. But thay doesn't make it a bad game at all

@KundaliniRising333 @jordan1992 @Sakai yup, dudes, it's a PS4 game with some extra options for ps5 that let you choose resolution or framerate performance. It's still gonna rock and be great. Like its predecessor, it's a phenomenal 9/10 game (not a 10, both have unecessary fake puzzle time fillers to stretch "time to finish", in adition to the first one having dog*** broken difficulty scaling and a ridiculous number of crafting systems/upgrade mechanics).

@Sakai yes, but they’re not saying they made the PS5 version on PS4 tech. The only way they could do that is make the game for PS4 then remaster it. They’re not gonna do that or they’d have to sell it as a remaster. They could have simply made it PS5 exclusive but they’re saying they wanted PS4 gamers to enjoy the game too. Put it this way, i bet the difference in the PS4 an PS5 game is greater than say Spiderman PS4 and Spiderman PS5 remaster. It’ll be a similar difference to The Last of Us PS4 an The Last of Us Part 1, the remake.

Nice, it is either Elden Ring or GOW for GOTY.

Best thing is that you can play both on your PlayStation and make up your own mind.

@jordan1992 that is exactly what they are saying. It's nothing to do with a remaster. They make a ps4 game and scale it up with increased settings for the ps5. This has all been confirmed

@jordan1992 No its a PS4 game, it started as a PS4 game and was always intended as a PS4 game. The only real differences between PS4 and PS5 versions are framerate, textures, loading times and resolution.

People here keep calling god of war Ragnarok a ps4 isn’t hurting the game but helping it. A ps4 look better than almost all next gen third party games release so far this shows how talent Sony studios are compare to everybody else.

@Dezzy70 Though I think Forbidden West is a solid beautiful game with fun gameplay, the story(ies) feel soulless to me. And the acting was garbage.

Elden Ring was something I couldn’t put down. Forbidden West was something I paused on many a time. I like them both for different reasons, but more reasons belonged to Elden Ring.

Tomatoe Tomato I suppose. Though I’m excited to play Ragnorak this years crown so far belongs to Elden Ring for me.

@WallyWest I’m lost what’s this a reply to

@MasterEMFG story soulless like what and acting garbage thats just lol.

@4kgk2 or that Elden Ring had a bigger and more positive impact with reviewers.

@4kgk2 It's just subjective. Like comparing the rating of a ripe apple to a green banana. There are probably indie games that have scored higher because thy are being judged for what they are. Honestly, anything that wasn't in the 90 something percentile was going to mean a disappointment. The rating system is what it is.

@MasterEMFG
It’s whatever you fancy really.
Just bumped into GOWR spoiler on you tube
So watch out.
I watched 5 seconds a boss fight I guess.
Wow, amazing that’s all I can say.

@dark_knightmare2 You said XB3 world is mostly filler and the story is nothing to write home about and said HFW is better, those same faults apply to HFW as well.

@WallyWest oh ok but yeah no. The filler is kept to the bare minimum in HFW. There’s barely any collectibles and the ones they have tell a story, there’s only like 20 something sidequests which are all high quality and some of the best since Witcher 3 with some even changing the environment and the world is big but not stupidly big like XB 3. XB 3 story is alright for a jrpg story but horizons sci fi story is decently unique,well told and very well acted. I’m not saying XB 3 isn’t good it is I just think it isn’t as good as HFW.

@jordan1992 Dude !! If it was made for PS5 from the ground up, PS4 couldn't play it. That means that the game would take full advantage of the PS5 SSD , compression engine. Was no need for corridors and other level design magic to cover transitions. Don't need to remaster a game to put a PS5 badge on it. It is what it is. You have better frame rates better resolution scaleing on PS5, better audio maybe. Ideea is, nobody cares, it's still better looking then most PS5 games out there.

@SilkySmile89 exactly, this jordan dude thinks he knows but he doesnt know what hes talking about

Both GOW & Elden Ring will win plenty of awards, there's plenty room for both to share the stage. Can't say the same for Horizon thought, maybe it wins some technical and graphics awards.

@Toypop This entire comment is wrong. I had Elden Ring platinumed on PS4 just over a week from launch and it ran like a dream the whole way through.

And besides, this whole comment section just proves what they say about Sony fans being suckers. This is the same game as the other, with a new story. But these aren't movies, they're videogames. To that end, GOW didn't really innovate, and so it sits at the same score. Regardless, ER is going to take the award in a player's choice regard, because there are far more of them out there. GOW is an exclusive, and not a phenomenon across the net.

All this talk about GOTY. A Plague Tale: Requiem would be my shout so far.

@ChromeSQD 'This is the same game as the other, with a new story' elden ring is just open world dark souls there's no innovation there either , Forza horizon 5 was just Forza horizon 4 in Mexico once again no innovation didn't stop them from being good games that got great reviews I don't see why a direct sequel to an amazing game has to innovate to be as good or better than the previous one lol

@ApostateMage
I love Plague Tale as well! I go back and forth on if I like Elden Ring better or not. If I had to choose I think Elden Ring just barely pulls ahead but Plague Tale definitely gives it a run for its money.

it was Elden Ring or Stray for GOTY, and now this...damn, never saw that coming

/s

@jrt87 or simply some people don't think that a game needs to innovate to get a 10/10 score, but to be (for the reviewer) a 10/10 experience. The fact that you assume that those who disagree with you must be angry fanboys says more about you than them.

@WallyWest For me its always weird that you have to be a fanboy if you tend to like a firstparty game then something else. But its kinda funny to hear a game that is better in every way then the one before and it scores the same.

I dont give a toss how others review it I'll make up my own mind. If you look at this site any other one we all have different opinions.

And if you get a 94 with 120 plus reviews I think we all can say it's a fantastic game. I know there will always be people who say it's garbage but im to old to care about that anymore.

@Tomchuu The user score will be a mess with reviewbombing from people who never played it so I'll have to disagree. A lot people are crybabies / trolls that like to see something fail because it's not their brand.

@SilkySmile89 I guess all games are made seperate for highend cards then? You make the best version and downscale for the lesser platform damn it's almost a PC.

@Flaming_Kaiser you can’t compare Pc development with consoles. Most PC games don’t take advantage of SSD, that is part of new DirectX 12 API, and you don’t see too many of those, most people still rocking DirectX 11 cards. PS5 SDK is similar with PS4 but to take full advantage of all PS5 features, you can’t make a game cross-gen. Example Ratchet Rift Apart, where new worlds are streamed in instantaneously due to the decompression unit inside PS5. It’s not always about graphics ☺️

So were still playing PS4 games on our PS5 , sholud of kept my pro and saved the money.

@mariomaster96

Guess it's called gameplay.