God of War Ragnarok (PC)

Studio Santa Monica’s God of War from 2018 is one of my favourite games in recent memory (despite what the dear editor of this esteemed site thinks of it), which they deftly followed up with God of War Ragnarok.

I sank numerous hours into the original game, featuring grizzled and rough-edged god Kratos (although he’s trying to find his softer side) and his son Atreus, and then did the same with the sequel in 2022. It expanded Kratos’ adventures but was much grander in scope and scale.

Now, like Spiderman, The Last of Us, Returnal, and the Uncharted Collection, God of War Ragnarok is the latest PlayStation game to come to PC – and My God, what a masterpiece it is!

Now, I’m not going to dwell too much on Ragnarok’s story (you can read our review here) but it involves Kratos and Atreus again visiting the nine realms and taking on Norse gods like Thor and Odin. If you haven’t played the first game go play it if you haven’t but there is a nice recap in the menu that will provide all the important stuff to get you up to speed.

Axe me about the PC port.

I installed Ragnarok on my LCD Steam Deck and with graphic options set to custom, I set most options to low apart from textures which were set to high and models set to medium. I also locked the frame rate to 30 frames a second to ensure smooth game play and set AMD’s FSR 3.1 to balanced for the initial few hours of my play through.

Apart from a few seconds while Kratos was crossing a bridge in the volcanic Svartalfheim region, tanking the frame rate to single digits before bouncing back just as quickly, the game performed flawlessly, with the frame rate pretty much a consistent 30 frames a second.

It also looks bloody good, even with graphics settings on low. The game is just a looker, make no mistake and the small screen size of the Steam Deck at a resolution of 1280 x 800p means everything looks detailed and sharp. The combat, too, is super smooth, with each swing of Kratos’s axe and blades of chaos feeling impactful. Part way through my play through, I changed FSR 3.1 image scaling to quality mode and things sharpened up a bit, too.

Be warned, though, the game is a battery hog. With a full battery, I got around an hour and a half’s worth of game play before I had to plug into a power outlet. All this graphical goodness takes its toll on the LCD Steam Deck’s battery (and the poor wee handheld’s cooling system). I understand you’ll get around another 30 minutes or so with the OLED Steam Deck.

Why-Fi? Playstation, Why?

Another niggle I have is that you can’t start the game without being connected to a wifi network: It uses the internet to authenticate the install – which creates a problem if you’re on a plane flying to another city and decide to break out the Steam Deck to play some God of War Ragnarok (like I wanted to recently). Dear PlayStation, could you please update the game to get rid of online authentication requirement as it means I can’t play the game when I’m anywhere there isn’t a wireless connection.

Apart from that, this is an excellent port of a PlayStation game to PC that plays wonderfully on the Steam Deck. Frankly, God of War Ragnarok is a must-play for fans of Santa Monica Studio’s first God of War.

What more is there to say other than. It’s another great PlayStation port, Boy!