GOD OF WAR is the best version of a masterpiece

By Morgan Park

God of War is a PC game. That still felt weird to say as I wrapped up my second playthrough over the holidays. Not far above it on my Steam library sits another game that is ‘of War’ for a different master – Gears 5. Just a few years ago, these two tentpole series existing on the same device was impossible. Now they share a virtual shelf.

Sony’s latest angry dad game is evidence that the PC is the ultimate videogame unifier, and a great reminder of how the platform can bring out the best in games. I’ve killed my way across Midgard at 30fps on a PS4 and 4K on PS5, but I don’t think I can go back to either after 24 hours of buttery smooth monster chopping at 90fps. This is a damn good port, at least on my higher-end PC.

If you skipped the PlayStation release, or haven’t touched the series at all, this is the God of War to play. All you need to know going in is that Kratos was Athena’s best murder man until he was betrayed and decided to kill all of the gods (including his daddy, Zeus). This soft reboot picks up years later. In that time, Kratos left a nowgodless Greece and wandered into the Norse lands, where he gained a wife (who has just passed away at the start of the game), a son named Atreus, and a glorious beard.

Kratos left a now-godless Greece and wandered into the Norse lands

DIVINE WRATH

God of War has its restraint. It’s a small story in a world of gigantic characters. Kratos and Atreus aren’t out to save the world – they just want to spread their wife/ mother’s ashes on top of a big mountain. They’re not actually looking for a fight, but end up walking into a bunch of them because, apparently, Midgard has been a nightmare land of evil trolls, poison witches, and zombies for the last century or so. Much of the game is basically carving a path through this broken world and, unravelling the petty god drama that led to its ruin.