God of War Ragnarok PC Review – Raising Up the Mighty Axe

Nearly two years after its initial release on PlayStation, Santa Monica Studio’s God of War Ragnarok has finally arrived on PC. It joins the many recent PlayStation to PC ports, and though PlayStation’s journey into the PC market started a bit rough, they and their talented studios have proven over the years that they can deliver an exceptional PC experience, allowing their games to shine even further with the ever-evolving hardware offered by the platform. God of War Ragnarok is no exception to that, as the PC port was given the attention and care one would hope to see, elevating the already pristine masterpiece of an experience that PlayStation gamers got to greater heights. 

A Masterpiece Made Even Better

For those wanting a more in-depth review of the God of War Ragnarok, I recommend you read my first review of the title, which came out on the PlayStation two years ago. Most, if not all, of my thoughts on the title when it comes to story, gameplay, and visuals remain unchanged with the PC port. For those who experienced God of War for the first time when the 2018 reboot came out on PC and are wondering if the follow-up is worth playing through, the short answer is absolutely yes. God of War Ragnarok is one of those sequels you can’t imagine being possible, because the one before it was so high up there that you couldn’t imagine it getting better, and yet it does. As I mentioned in my original review of sequel, it’s not better because it is a better game; it’s better because it manages to elevate the experience of the first game in a way that brings them together as if they were a single game. It is a single experience that seemingly feels so well-connected to each other regarding how things are callback and connected between each game.

Mind you, it’s a sequel that goes bigger in every way, and yes, it is a better game, but not a lot of game sequels out there that can manage to pull off what God of War Ragnarok does, which is by making its predecessor and even better game than it originally was by the use of world-building. 

It is a masterpiece worth experiencing, regardless of your platform, and I cannot stress how much I recommend that everyone play this and God of War 2018. 

With that being said, let’s look at the PC port of the game, which Jetpack Interactive spearheaded, such as they did with the original PC port of God of War (2018). The first thing a lot of PC players are going to take notice of is the spec requirements. While the minimum (low 1080p at 30 frames-per-second average) can run off an eight-year-old GPU, when you start scaling up to higher performance and resolution, the specs become really beefy. That’s not to say that running the game on lower hardware, such as the Steam Deck, won’t give you a great experience, but there’s some tinkering needed to get it. I got it running on average between 40-50fps, with it never dipping below 30fps (so locked 30fps is possible) with medium to low settings. It’s not bad for a portable device, something I wasn’t expecting to run nearly as smoothly. 

However, you are in for a real treat for those with high-end PCs capable of running the game at 4K and 120 FPS. On my build, which was equipped with an RTX 4090 and an AMD 7900 CPU, God of War Ragnarok ran at a near-locked 120 FPS with DLSS and frame generation enabled.  All are done in high settings, too, which looks far sharper and more detailed than the PS5 version. It’s not some massive graphical leap that feels generational, but it does look better. Image quality and resolution are sharper on PC, allowing details to pop better. Draw distance, shadow quality, ambient occlusion; it all looks better because it is. It’s almost like removing a bit of the blur filter when playing on PC. 

Again, it’s not a generational leap, but all these minor improvements add to a far better image on the screen. Of course, DLSS and FSR AI upscalers help with that, but they’re features Jetpack Interactive gladly takes advantage of. Visually, God of War Ragnarok improves on its already stunning visuals, allowing PC gamers to tweak the settings of most things to make it look better in most cases. What is going to be that “generational” leap between a high-end PC and what’s offered on the PS5 is the performance. The PS5 version offers Quality Mode (30fps), Performance Mode (60fps) and Unlocked FPS Mode, which has been noted by many before as being less smooth than 60fps despite going higher due to the mode not maintaining a stable frame rate. That’s not an issue on the PC version (as long as you have the power), and running the game on my rig allowed me mostly to run near 120fps, even in the most intensive areas.

The benefits of running at a higher frame rate than 60fps aren’t quite as noticeable as the jump from 30 to 60, but you can feel them more as controls are more responsive and animations run more smoothly. It honestly is a game changer to play the game at such a high frame rate while maintaining the same visual fidelity offered by the max settings. 

Elsewhere, the PC version supports HDR (as does the console version) and an aspect ratio of 21:9/16:9/16:10. Playing ultra-wide sure is something I didn’t know I needed for God of War Ragnarok, given its linearity nature, but wow, is it gorgeous. The HDR implementation is actually well implemented, if not perfect, something a lot of PC gamers can probably tell you a lot of games struggle with. God of War Ragnarok is a very colorful game, more so than its predesseccor, and seeing all the lush jungles, the vibrant reds, and the dark colors, all being brought out through the HDR support on both an OLED and QLED display, is like stepping into another world. 

Worthy of the Gods…

All in all, the PC port of God of War Ragnarok is exactly what I was hoping for it to be: an excellent, extremely well-optimized port that takes advantage of features only found on PCs, allowing it to shine even better than it did in its original release. That’s not to say that everything is perfect, as the game clocks in at nearly 200GB, double the size of the PlayStation versions. There’s also the PSN requirement. It’s not an issue for me since I have an account already, but it does suck knowing that the game can’t be sold everywhere because of it. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: everyone should be able to play this masterpiece, and Sony should find a way to make that possible.

Beyond that, though, the PC port of God of War Ragnarok is practically perfect. One of the greatest games to ever be released is now fully playable on PC, taking no shortcuts in features and allowing the game to shine to new heights on the platform. On the gameplay front, there is very little to criticize, since not only does the game feature a tightly woven narrative, its gameplay is what gamers dream of: visceral battles, fantastic boss fights, a deep progression and combat system that’s now made even better with uncompromised graphical performance. This is a highly recommended port that takes no shortcuts to godhood.

Score: 10/10

Pros:

• Visually breathtaking.
• Incredible story, filled with rich and engaging dialogue. It’s easy to get lost in one of Mirmir lengthy tales. 
• Excellent voice and motion capture performance. I have never felt for a character in the way God of War Ragnarok made me feel. The cast deserves a round of a applause for this one.  
• Side missions are some of the best crafted ones I’ve ever seen for an a game of this scope. Loads of secrets I’m still coming across well past 100% completion.
• One of the best video games I’ve ever played.
• The PC port is extremely optimized and polished. It’s amongst the best ports that PlayStation has released thus far, and offers everything a PC gamer could ask for when it comes to settings. 

Cons:

• None, I had to use a joke con in my original review to have something there, and to this day I still can’t think of something I disliked about the game. The PC release just made me love it even more. 

A review code for God of War Ragnarok was provided by Sony Computer Entertainment. Played on the PC. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.

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