God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla uses an old genre to tell a new story
By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.
As I battled my way through God of War Ragnarök’s new roguelike expansion, Valhalla, I was dying to learn the next part of Kratos’ story — and that story is what’s made me push through even when the game got tough.
God of War’s recent entries — the 2018 reboot and Ragnarök — are renowned for their cinematic storytelling. The tight camera makes you feel like a direct observer to Kratos’ every move, and the excellent motion capture, writing, and voice acting make the characters of myth in the games seem like actual living beings. But Valhalla takes things one step further by using the structure of a roguelike — where you make attempt after attempt to overcome increasingly difficult challenges to beat the game — as a narrative tool to let Kratos grapple and come to terms with some of the worst parts of his past.
It’s a clever conceit. The roguelike trappings are all fairly standard: you’ll work through areas filled with monsters, collecting buffs and upgrades along the way, eventually reaching a final boss, and if you die, you start the whole thing over. However, as you make trips through Valhalla, Kratos and Mimir (and other characters) have deep, open discussions about Kratos’ past and what it means to live with some of the bad things that he has done.
If that all sounds like God of War: Therapy, you’re right! And as Kratos got a better grasp on his mind, I got a better grasp on playing the game. It all created a virtuous cycle that makes each run feel more meaningful than just chasing a high score. I also loved the dialogue that’s designed to keep Kratos
Read more on theverge.com
