God of War Ragnarök, a sequel to the previous game of the year “God of War (2018)”, has been out since Nov. 9, 2022, and has already earned itself an immense amount of praise and positive feedback from both critics and casual players. This sequel maintains its quality from the previous title. This can be seen through the game’s rating of 10/10 from polygon, Dexerto, IGN, and many more.

After the massive success of God of War (2018) many doubted God of War Ragnarök would live up to the first one, but it is everything you would want out of a sequel to a piece of your favorite media, it’s bigger, more polished and improves in just about every way imaginable upon with first game, while still maintaining what made the first one so special. Offering both spectacle and heartfelt moments, this game also has some of the best fights that rival anything Hollywood can conjure, whether you’re playing or watching them.

While 10/10 games are especially rare God of War Ragnarök is not the first one this year, that honor goes to Elden Ring, one of the most anticipated games of all time, and signal-handily making an entire genre of video games mainstream. Even with God of War Ragnarök still being so new, this has not stopped people from comparing the two and arguing over which could be the game of the year.

Funny enough this has happened before, with God of War (2018) in which it had to compete with Red Dead Redemption 2 another one of the most anticipated games of all time that easily earned its 10/10. Ultimately the game of the year title went to God of War (2018) after some controversy. So, will God of War once again earn the game of the year from the competing 10/10? Only time will tell.

Personally, though I adore both games and they were both the peak of their franchise and so good that I bought both franchises of the previous games. Even If I like God of War Ragnarök better than Elden Ring, I still cannot deny the impact Elden Ring will have on games going forward and the unforgettable experience I had the first time I played it.

God of War Ragnarök will roughly take 30-50 hours to beat depending on how much of the game you choose to experience. The director of the game is Eric Williams and Cory Barlog is known for their previous work on the God of War franchise, doing the original God of war trilogy and the two spin-off games.

Many games opt for a sort of “go all in on a single aspect” approach and have that be the focus of the game while having everything else surrounding that main aspect be lesser, for example, “Doom Eternal” focuses on combat, “Skyrim” focuses on worldbuilding/ exploration, and “Detroit Become Human” focusing entirely on the story. Well, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach because it allows games to truly make the best combat or exploration (for example) ever seen in a game.

Well, what makes God of War Ragnarök so special is that it has a great story, combat, worldbuilding, and exploration all in one. With some of the best combat, story, and game design seen in any game, it’s a miracle that the developers were able to make one of these things as good as they can be. But instead, a divine intervention happened and somehow every aspect of this game was given full attention and effort with equal quality across all aspects of the game.

This game has it all and I say that in the most literal of senses, it has my favorite combat in any game I’ve ever played along with one of my favorite fictional characters, Kratos whose evolution throughout the games is masterful, and getting me into Norse Mythology. So, if you’re looking for fun, challenge, a great story, amazing characters, fun exploration, and even actual Norse mythology learning opportunities then I can’t stress enough how much I recommend “God of War 2018”. Then once you are done with that game you can fully enjoy Ragnarök

God of War Ragnarök comes with a recap video in the main menu of the game that gets you all up to date if you haven’t played the previous games. Although a parting piece of advice be wary of what difficulty you choose, for this game is much harder than God of War 2018. I set it to the 2nd hardest difficulty called “give me no mercy” and I’m dying in 3 hits very consistently so definitely take the difficulty seriously.

There are a few games that I would recommend to everyone, but God of War Ragnarök just does everything right, the combat’s fun, the story is heartfelt and epic, and you can just tell how much care and time was poured into this game. So, if you could only buy one game to play for the rest of the month, then have it be God of War Ragnarök for there’s no way you could go wrong.