This is Santa Monica Studio’s 2018 God of War, set years after the original series where demigod Kratos went around having a grand old time tearing limbs off the gods of Mount Olympus. He’s moved far beyond their reach to Scandinavia, where he’s become a dad (again) and a widower (again), with a son to raise (as yet not a victim of filicide, nor had his ashes embedded in his dad’s skin). Turns out, Scandinavia has petty gods too. Uh oh. It’s the poster child for the daddification of video games in the tensies but it’s really nice. The old games were ha-ha-hilariously edgy, revelling in sadism with delusions of a mature plot. This new one is actually very sweet. Still has all manner of murder and mutilation but feels less like the sketches in the back of a 14-year-old’s geography book. I care about this tired old man, his excitable little fella Atreus, and the friends they make along the way. Great spectacle with big landscapes and bigger beasties too. And the murder’s pretty fun. As for the PC version, it will pack support for 4K resolutions and 21:9 ultra-widescreen ratios, unlocked framerates, Nvidia DLSS, Nvidia Reflex, and graphics options including “higher resolution shadows, improved screen space reflections, the addition of GTAO and SSDO, and much more.” Control-wise, it’ll support gamepads as well as keyboard and mouse with customisable binds. God Of War is coming to PC January 14th via Steam and the Epic Games Store. It will cost £40/€50/$50. Sony’s announcement noted the game has sold 19.5 million copies on PlayStation 4 as of August 2021, which is impressive. The sequel, God of War Ragnarök, is due to hit PlayStations in 2022. Reckon we’ll be waiting a fair while for that. Sony’s adventures in releasing older PlayStation exclusives on PC started with Horizon Zero Dawn in 2020, followed by Days Gone earlier this year. Uncharted 4 is coming our way too, though Sony haven’t yet confirmed a PC release date. OKAY, BUT BLOODBORNE?
