God of War: Ragnarök PC Review

One of the benefits of the current gaming landscape is that titles that were previously locked to consoles to entice gamers to the platform are now, mostly, making their way to PC. This often comes with graphical uplifts and unlocked frame rates as well other benefits that having a powerful gaming PC can bring. When I reviewed the PC port of God of War just over a couple of years ago I was sucked in by the fantastic use of Norse mythology weaved into what is essentially a father and son bonding story. That may be a little reductive, and if you haven’t played it please do so as it is well worth your time, especially if God of War: Ragnarök is on your radar. There is a recap available which is useful to refresh your memory if you’re returning to the franchise, but I highly recommend playing the first game if you’re new.

Rob reviewed God of War: Ragnarök on its release and I can’t say I disagree much at all with what he wrote. God of War deserved a meaty sequel and Ragnarök more than delivers. The relationship between Kratos and Atreus is delicately balanced. Growing up is confusing as it is; finding out there’s more to you and your family as well makes it even more so. Kratos has his own things to deal with and Atreus’ curiosity and need to find out more makes for a gripping tale. Equally though, there’s a lot more going on in the weeds and it’s quite easy to get lost in them. Overall though, Santa Monica Studios delivers and that’s no mean feat given the bar it set for itself with God of War.

It was up to Jetpack Interactive to port this epic to PC and, for the most part, they’ve absolutely delivered. Whereas God of War was a DX11 based game, Ragnarök, instead is a DX12 port allowing for better utilisation of modern cards. There’s options here for DLSS and other upscaling technologies, ultrawide monitors have native support alongside shader pre-compilation so no more frame stutter. In visual terms, if you want to play God of War: Ragnarök at its absolute best, and you have the rig to run it, the PC version trumps anything that its native PlayStation platform can put out. That’s not to say the console version is ugly, far from it, however, you really can see the improvements. Even with my modest RTX3080 running most things on high or ultra, I was getting a visual experience exceeding what’s currently possible on the PS5. Frame rates too were, on average, higher however, at time of writing, there is a problem with memory leaks leading to instances where things drop to less than 10fps. It can be quickly mitigated by exiting to the menu and going back in but the fact it exists at all is disappointing.

What may upset PC players more, though, is the need to create or log into a PSN account. Why an entirely single-player game needs it I’m not sure. I appreciate it allows you to earn trophies but there are already achievements for PC separate to that. There’s also no multiplayer and whilst it was onerous enough for it to appear post-launch for Helldivers 2 it at least made some sense given the type of game. Related to this as well was that a repeated cause for my inability to launch the game for longer than a minute or two was that the PSN SDK for PC would crash causing the whole game to go with it. For a brief period a mod by a fan was available via Nexus Mods but was understandably pulled when it gained traction. I can’t fault the creator for doing so as the last thing I’d want to see is a letter from PlayStation’s lawyers.

Memory leak issues and PSN requirements aside, Jetpack Interactive has done a fantastic job of porting Santa Monica Studio’s instant classic. When you consider it includes the Valhalla DLC, Steam Deck verification and the ability to customise the game to your liking there’s a lot to like here in what they’ve achieved. It is a shame, however, that its arrival on PC has been marred by instability, and for some the PSN requirement draws heavy criticism which is hard to disagree with. It is, however, to be expected given the nature of today’s current gaming landscape. Most publishers have their own storefronts, most still have their own launchers (even if you buy from somewhere else) and it’s no surprise that Sony likely wants to get their cut from this market as well. Its execution, however, has been less than stellar.