Still Worthy — Now at 60 FPS and Native 4K. God of War Ragnarok PC Review

Sony games on PC trigger mixed feelings nowadays. The huge price tag of late ports and the mandatory PlayStation Network account linking significantly reduce demand for them. Therefore, the likelihood of God of War Ragnarok's success on PC seemed improbable. And considering that the project's peak online player count on Steam reached 35.6k concurrent players, this game was forgotten rather quickly even in regions where it is available for purchase. But setting all the negativity aside, the project can still hook PC players. It is these "novelties" that this review of the PC version of God of War Ragnarok is dedicated to.

For those who are still unfamiliar with the game and the franchise

On our website, this will already be the third (first, second) review of the same game (fourth including the video review). So if anyone still doesn't know what this God of War of yours is all about — let’s go over it once more.

The sequel’s plot continues the “father and son” journey concept across the nine realms of Norse mythology. Kratos continues raising Atreus and teaching him about life. The slightly grown-up son of the God of War, in turn, searches for himself and his place in this world threatened with destruction. And all this family drama is wrapped in the protagonists’ epic struggle against Odin – the All-Father of the Nine Realms. 

It all sounds interesting in theory, but in reality — this whole drama sparks debate in the community. Not everyone appreciated the “banal” core theme of the work – the relationship between parents and their children. I have nothing against it, as time and history have proven that society constantly needs reminders of simple truths.

The other side of the debate lies in character development. The prime example here is Kratos himself, who was turned from a “stubborn tough guy with a clear life stance” into an alleged softie: he philosophizes, tries to avoid battles, and dreams of a quiet, peaceful life with his son. Although I can easily explain such a transformation by the fact that Kratos is still a single father. The God of War simply doesn’t know how to be a loving person, and no one ever taught him how.

The situation with other characters is built similarly – a bunch of figures with tragic backstories. Because of this, Ragnarok seems to want the player to empathize with absolutely everyone, but in the end, it’s quite difficult to care about anyone here… The developers clearly forgot that players can connect with characters through means other than constant angst. Furthermore, some of these heroes get very little screen time. Therefore, caring about one supporting character or another becomes completely pointless by the end of the game.

However, the ideas of God of War Ragnarok are complicated by its open-world gameplay. As players progress through the story, they will occasionally be prompted to veer off the main path. Taking on another side quest can drag on for several hours, as the developers went out of their way to create separate large locations with puzzles and riddles for them. As a result, a 100% completion run starts to look like a long TV series with a bunch of filler episodes, making you completely forget where the main storyline left off.

Yet God of War Ragnarok is an example of a classic action-adventure game where you can and should dismember crowds of enemies with an axe and the Blades of Chaos, taking breaks for puzzles and exploring all Nine Realms. However, such innovations, like many others, are essentially a heavy reshuffle of the previous entry’s mechanics. Many runic attacks from the previous game became skills in its new upgrade tree. A player unfamiliar with the series will hardly notice, but for seasoned gamers, such a design choice might look like an “illusion of productivity.” The game didn't get worse because of it, but questions about why it needed to be changed this way remain…

It is also worth noting that in this installment, we play not only as the former god-slayer, but also as his son. In the time between the first and second games, Atreus gained combat experience and can now do more than just shoot a bow – he swings it in melee combat, knocking enemies in all directions and stunning them. Atreus has a distinct set of animations and moves that look very flashy, are pleasing to the eye, and are easy to master.

Visually, the game remains just as gorgeous and detailed. Locations are diverse and rich. Yet that is precisely where the key distinguishing features of the PC version lie.

PC Version Features

Speaking of the “master race” version, the most important change turned out to be far from improved graphics or even support for RTX, DLSS, and other acronyms. No, that's all trivial. The main new feature was the option to reduce the frequency of companion hints… Yes, that is what players had been asking for almost since release. By the way, a similar feature will soon become available on consoles as well, so everyone wins. 

Some might recall the memes about pop-up tips regarding clumsy controls — where you had to “tilt WASD gently to walk and hold WASD to run” or “use the touchpad on the keyboard to open the map.” In my playthrough, there were only two such instances. The touchpad tip did not appear for me. However, the instructions for riding mounts or vehicles regularly produced oddities. And that’s after several patches aimed at fixing optimization and similar bugs.

The graphics look identical to the PS5 version. Textures, lighting, shadows – everything mirrors the PS5 in “Quality” mode one-to-one. The only thing where I noticed a slight difference is the draw distance for certain small objects. But it is so minor that I wouldn’t even pay attention to it.

Comparing the different settings with each other, they all look more or less equally good. Even playing on low or medium settings won’t turn it into awful PS3-era blur. The only difference lies in lighting. On low settings, indoor spaces seem dim, while on maximum settings everything feels overly bright, though shadows render more accurately. 

And now let's smoothly move directly to optimization itself. With an RTX 3060 Ti graphics card on Full HD displays, the game runs flawlessly, even without DLSS. It runs at 60 FPS, though there may be stutters in cutscenes — possibly because game assets are being loaded during them. Speaking of 2K monitors, the frame rate is almost always above 100 without any signs of drops. And for an enjoyable 4K experience without blur or frame rate issues, you will have to turn on DLSS.

One can conclude that Sony learned from all the mistakes made during the release of the PC version of The Last of Us. This is evident not only from how smoothly the game runs on mainstream graphics cards, but also because Ragnarok runs fine on budget cards with only 4 GB of VRAM. Granted, in this case, you need to install an extra patch to play. Moreover, the game runs smoothly on the Steam Deck today and is fully optimized for it.

Diagnosis

PC players got an excellent console port boasting solid optimization. Unlike many other titles, God of War Ragnarok runs wonderfully on both high-end PCs and budget rigs, allowing a broad audience to experience this remarkable game. Meanwhile, the developers are still releasing optimization patches for weaker hardware — six patches have already arrived since launch, and users with 4 GB VRAM graphics cards can now play. At release, that was impossible! 

Furthermore, the story and gameplay of the former Sony exclusive have aged well and are received better by players than other Sony titles released this year — and past years’ criticisms have faded, making Ragnarok easier to appreciate. Sure, this isn’t the adventure of the “old” Kratos, but nobody really promised that anyway. 

The only substantial obstacles standing in the way of playing the “Game of the Year 2022” – are the price tag, unavailability in Russia, and the mandatory link to PlayStation Network.