God of War may not be the life-changing experience promised by devout PlayStation fans, but its highly polished PC port was a delight to play, despite a slow start to the story and lack of depth in the gameplay.

It came as a bit of a shock to me that one of Sony’s most revered PlayStation exclusive titles was revealed to be getting a PC port late last year. It wasn’t the first title from their catalogue to be making a debut on Steam, but that had been reserved for a handful of their less popular games up until now. Naturally, after multiple Game of the Year awards, and endless praise online, I was eager to get my teeth stuck into something so universally loved. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly all that I’d hoped, and perhaps I’d set myself up for disappointment thanks to my high expectations, but I assure you that there is much more to love than hate about God of War.

Spoilers ahead!

The game is very much driven by its narrative, and I was pleasantly surprised the simplicity of its premise, as retired Greek God Kratos takes his young son Atreus on a quest to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased wife. This remains at the heart of the story throughout, giving the plot a strong backbone and emotional weight to it in spite of all the grandeur and spectacle woven into their adventure. Along the way our heroes get caught up in the world of Norse mythology, which adds another dimension to the story for those who are both familiar and unfamiliar with the folklore; allowing you to either learn about it or employ your existing knowledge to help unwrap some of the mysteries within the narrative. The plot does however get padded out with a lot of very inconvenient detours which were clearly written in to lengthen the game’s main story, causing you to sometimes lose sight of that central arc, but the damage of this is largely mitigated by the dynamic between the main characters.

A lot of the praise for this game rested on the laurels of its two heroes and their dynamic as the story went on, but I confess I wasn’t completely sold on it at first. Kratos himself is a pretty dull main character on his own, being constrained by a strict archetype of “gruff, unwilling hero” until about two-thirds of the way through the story where a bit more characterisation starts to come through. He also doesn’t really undergo any personal change as a character, with all his development corresponding to his relationship with his son. However, I will say that his dynamic with Atreus is where he really shines. It’s established that he had little involvement in his son’s life prior to the story (which comes across a little too well at first, making the beginning a bit dull in terms of the writing), but as time goes on their relationship grows, resulting in some fantastic emotional payoff by the end. Atreus himself is a far more interesting character independent of that bond, as his arc takes him from a sheltered, sickly child to a capable and complex hero. In spite of its sluggish beginning, seeing the story through to the end is its own reward, thanks to the culmination of the plot and the carefully nurtured attachment to the characters you’ll likely end up with.

Unfortunately gameplay is a bit more of a mixed bag. The combat and skill systems work hand in hand to provide a tough but rewarding experience as you improve your fighting ability both through progression as well as constant learning and adaptation.  Fights are never too difficult during the main story portions once you get the hang of it, but venturing off the beaten path will have you facing some incredibly tough battles and some even tougher boss fights, namely the unforgiving Valkyrie battles – one of which I was stuck on for over an hour. The upside to this is of course the powerful gear and bountiful rewards you receive, and these can also come by the way of other “realms” you can visit eventually that serve as the game’s built in challenge mode. They do pull you out of the immersion of the story a bit but I found them to be a fun little piece of side content anyhow. Speaking of story, something that caught me by surprise was how certain plot developments would alter some aspects of gameplay as a result, which was a great way of tying both major elements of the game together, and frankly something I would like to see more of across all sorts of games.

Alas, like I said, gameplay wasn’t all great. For example, the aforementioned gear system lacks enough depth to feel worthwhile, but at times is too obtuse to ignore. Getting the more powerful gear only serves to make the rest of the game a cakewalk, and in my case I found that it made the final story quests a little too easy. There also isn’t that many pieces of gear, and the majority of them are just reskins of the same handful of models, meaning there isn’t a lot of cosmetic value to chasing rare crafting materials either. For a game that involves a lot more ambling around than fighting, traversal and exploration were also pretty poor. Everything feels set out for you and rarely is there a less obvious path to take, and despite the world being “open”, it’s just a string of specifically designed levels stitched together and filled with collectables. Climbing around feels particularly static compared to games like Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed, as you follow static paths and hit button prompts to get from A to B, making it feel like much more of a chore than some of those other games. I understand it’s difficult to strike a balance between story and gameplay, but it’s clear that the latter took a back seat to the narrative here, even with its more positive aspects.

The game itself looked great, and performed really well most of the time. I ran into a couple instances of huge FPS drops and stuttering later on, but it was negligible enough for it to not put a downer on my experience. That said, I don’t think I encountered any bugs or glitches in my entire playthrough, so it seems to be a really solid PC port all in all. The art, soundtrack and lore writing in this game are really superb too, and complimented the experience very well. Overall I found God of War to be pretty damn impressive, even with its issues and my high expectations. Now I just hope the sequel comes to PC sooner rather than later!

8/10