The reason that I made this account. Not only game of the year but one of the best games ever made. Larian have created something that will be unparalleled for decades. After two full playthroughs, with many more that aren't yet finished, there is still so much to see and it will all be masterfully created. I will be playing this game for a very long time.

The game does not come without it's technical issues; a game of this magnitude would have taken a QA team years to effectively test and reproduce the bugs that the millions of gamers would find and report. I trust Larian will continue to service and improve the game and do not hold it against them.

I couldn't recommend this game more to anyone who enjoys Dungeons and Dragons, wants to get into Dungeons and Dragons or just enjoys RPGs where you reap what you sow.

A masterpiece.

I have said before that Ragnarok is my easily my favorite GoW game. The way it weaved its massive tale of the Norse mythology, how it neatly tied it all at the end, and the massive strides it took to flesh out GoW 2018's combat fundamentals; it's a crowning achievement. And yet, it doesn't stop there. Valhalla feels like another leap forward, one that is taken with a good reason. While Ragnarok mostly deals with the world around Kratos, Valhalla looks within him, as he deals with a possible path to the future that is deeply connected with his past; a self he no longer wishes to be. Utilizing various lessons learned from the booming Roguelike genre, Valhalla shows this struggle through gameplay, as each repeated attempt to understand the self are displayed outwards: gaining a variety of powerups to approach things differently each time. Looking at things from a slightly different perspective. To keep moving onwards even when you have to start over, and over, and over, until clarity is achieved. But there is no end to self improvement. Valhalla always awaits you, and it is why this DLC is a gift that we all should be grateful of.

May write a more detailed log about this game later so not really an actual review but FUCK THIS GAME RUINED ME. Everything about it appeals to me on so many different levels and I have not been this grabbed by a story before since Control. Remedy's use of the medium and playing to its strengths when it comes to storytelling is on full display with this game. It's something that simply could not be adapted into another medium without essentially making an entirely different story anyway. I also wanna briefly talk about how the use of lighting in this game is superb and really effective. One of the few games I've played to really get creative with its use of lighting to convey tone/mood and how it actually tries to have different styles of lighting throughout the game in different places with different purposes tied to the use of those styles of lighting. The game's art direction is fantastic and one of the few times where an extreme push for graphical fidelity was also done with artistic intent behind it. The game very much needed the higher fidelity and utilized it effectively. I can't really think of a game with an art direction similar to Alan Wake 2's and I'm so happy that fidelity was used as a tool for achieving their desired art direction instead of a tool for making things feel "realistic". This game is just insanely special to me and truly feels like a passion project Sam Lake always wanted to make as it never felt like the vision he had for the game was compromised. It felt insanely consistent to its themes from start to finish as well as feeling like Sam had told the entire story he wanted to tell with this game (yes there's post launch content however I genuinely feel that could easily be Alan Wake 3 shit instead. The way the game ended is fantastic especially after thinking about the wider implications of the ending and the mid credits scene)