God of War PC Review

"Son of War, on PC"

Campaign

January 12, 2022 at 8:21pm
By Jason Stettner

One of the best Playstation 4 titles has arrived for PC, and for the most part it absolutely delivers. This is one incredible title, refreshing the series in an exciting way and it brings many unique upgrades to the Windows side of things. These specific elements will be gone over under the gameplay section, so let’s shift over to the story.

God of War is one of the defining releases of the PS4 generation that truly aimed to push the boundaries of what's possible in games and its simply stunning. Every single moment of the game is a treat from the places you visit to the characters you meet along the way. It's a linear, yet strangely open world experience that takes place within the realms of the Norse gods. A shift from the prior titles, so Kratos is out of his element here.

While it's epic in scale, the journey is a simple one filled with grief as a father and son attempt to deal with this starting issue together. Kratos is older, and struggles to grasp fatherhood since his son is filled with wonder whereas he is colder due to recent events and his past. This journey they go on together allows both sides to discovers things about one another and grow as individuals.

That aspect was the core of the tale and something that stood out strongly throughout the course of the narrative. To continue, this is a long and winding tale where you meet many unforgettable characters. The relationships around the duo were just as strong and interesting to see as they developed over the course of the tale. It's really hard to capture all of the content, but you're never bored considering the length and always have a desire to step off the core path to discover something hidden.

There are challenges, side areas to conquer and it's just packed with so many things to do. As I noted it is chunky and this provides many hours of epic gameplay that feels conclusive yet at the same time makes you want more from it. I can’t wait for the sequel to come, hopefully it doesn’t take too long to arrive on the PC platform as well.

Gameplay

The visuals in God of War are stunning, few games bring the quality of realism to their environments that this entry does. From the gorgeous particle effects, to the breathtaking backdrops that help create a sense of purpose and area. All of these spaces are amazing and the way the characters interact within these worlds is incredible There are so many different types of environments to visit and each is clearly polished to the brim with the smallest of details.

The snow is deeply torn into during combat and those markings are retained afterwards which is a nice touch. The impact of each hit is felt and you can see the enemies clearly getting ripped apart during battle with interior stuff flying about if you get what I mean. Mixed with the particle effects it all feels so visceral and impactful.

Combine that with the use of your son for extra combat as he continues to grow across the story and it's an epic time. The performances are fantastic and you can clearly see pain within the duo as they work across their journey. The character level elements are beautifully well done being in the background and light in how they're adjusted, while still directly impacting what you're doing. The collection of additional resources feels rewarding as you solve simple puzzles that are strewn along the way, take on special creatures or just venture slightly off the core path.

Puzzles were never too hard to accomplish with everything feeling natural and combat had the right balance of difficulty. When it comes to the PC side of things we do get a host of options. Things such as tweaking the graphics from original to ultra. To adjusting the resolution with fine tuning and AI upscaling techniques such as NVIDIA’s DLSS or AMD SuperFidelityFX.

I was actually impressed by both of the options, but I prefer the former as I felt it gave better performance and kept the resolution quality going very smoothly. NVIDIA really has done a great job with DLSS as it can really dig deep for higher frames or keep that quality and performance setting going. No matter which end of the DLSS choice you go with, it was great looking.

For context, I was using the RTX 2080Ti with an i9 9900k and it seemed to run the game quite well. I did notice odd frame tearing when using any cap at 60fps or under and that required V Sync. This was no matter what resolution I chose, when I turned on uncapped or say 120fps as a target option without V Sync there was no screen tearing at all. So that’s interesting. I would have liked some more tweaking options too here, such as with FOV.

There’s ultrawide support which is nice, but I do like choices in just fine tuning some elements here or there. I also felt some more minimum types of options would help those with less powerful configurations here. This did feel fantastic with the mouse and keyboard. Despite being DualSense and DualShock natively set I did try this with the Xbox Series controller and I loved that, it felt great.

The Conclusion

God of War delivers one of the most incredible gaming experiences ever created, and now it’s on PC featuring a selection of options to fine tune your visual and control settings. Upon initial release it was an amazing step forward in gaming that expanded the general narrative beyond what one would ever expect.

It achieves this by telling a deep tale of a cold father and his extremely curious son. The dynamics between Kratos trying to work through his past mixed with a boy that tries to see the good in things is rather heartwarming. Those two in action through the lengthy adventure was ever so charming, and the changing dynamics were great to witness. The side characters were very well done as was the amazing worlds you could visit throughout your journey to a mountain.

There's just too much to do with the core narrative extending across countless hours and a whole set of areas beyond that to visit. What's even better is that this whole experience is seamless with minimal loading as gameplay and cutscenes meld in complete sync throughout. The PC settings were great, I do wish we would had some more spec adjustment options but I feel they cover a range of choices.

There’s more work for them to do in future ports in regards to further fine tuning but they provide many choices for you to adjust. Combat feels visceral, hits are impactful and the use of particle effects within the magic was just gorgeous. It's hard to cover all elements in God of War as the game is just so massive in scope and scale. It's a wonderful world to explore and I can’t wait to see what happens when Ragnarok arrives.

Read our Days Gone PC Review
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God of War PC Review on PC
Review Code Provided by SIEC

Rating Overall: 9.5