I have a funny history with the God of War series. The PS2/PS3 trilogy was the first Playstation series I ever played through, as a newbie to the whole thing when I got my own PS3 in like 2010. In replaying those games before the 2018 game, I discovered that I liked them a great deal less, found them just totally tiresome and annoying. The 2018 game shocked me completely by being a lot more considered and digging into Kratos as a character and his new surroundings, giving him friends and family to protect. To some people this was also tiresome in a new way, but I found it well-meaning and genuine and so it worked on me. Idk, sue me.

So when it came to Ragnarok, I honestly just filed it away in my brain as "more good stuff" and proceeded to not think about it, worry about it, or hype about it until it eventually dropped. That's a weirdly super good headspace to be in for a new game! I should try it again sometime lol. Anyways, they got me again! God of War Ragnarok is impressive for all the ways that it seems unconcerned with itself, taking a longer time to just weave a really fucking engaging narrative that brings this whole series to a thrilling and natural climax. It's such a breath of fresh air, to play a modern Playstation game that doesnt feel like it has anything to fucking prove to me. It's focused on being a fun ass video game with competent progression systems, and enough story hooks and surprising twists to keep me engaged the whole way. They made the new God of War the closest thing I've personally seen to a western-developed modern Final Fantasy game lmao, it's so fucking cool. I dunno, there's a lot of meaty stuff here in the narrative about unraveling a dark, abusive, colonial history and succeeding our parents and what that means, but like. All I wanna say is that the game is fucking cool as hell! Great job to everyone involved, excited to see what Santa Monica does next.