God Of War Ragnarok review: calm down now, I’ve known this wolf for ninety seconds

Spoilers throughout. TLDR: fun, generous, beautiful animation and cinematography. Worked mostly fine on my PC. I would not have given it the best narrative award if it were up against Gran Turismo 7. Writing of the frigid framing of Clockwork Orange’s atrocities, the film critic Pauline Kael asked: “is there anything sadder - and ultimately more repellent - than a clean-minded pornographer?” The lavishly directed and animated universe of God Of War Ragnarok is far from repellent, but it also feels spiritually squeegeed; a world of pulpy violence so chirpy and chaste as to strain belief that the scars that haunt its reformed anti-hero could have ever been inflicted there. Read more

Developer: Santa Monica Studio, Jetpack Interactive Publisher: PlayStation Publishing LLC Release: Out now On: Windows From: Steam / Epic Games Store Price: £50/€60/$60 Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-12600K, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 2070, Windows 10 Spoilers throughout. TLDR: fun, generous, beautiful animation and cinematography. Worked mostly fine on my PC.

I would not have given it the best narrative award if it were up against Gran Turismo 7. Writing of the frigid framing of Clockwork Orange’s atrocities, the film critic Pauline Kael asked: “is there anything sadder - and ultimately more repellent - than a clean-minded pornographer?” The lavishly directed and animated universe of God Of War Ragnarok is far from repellent, but it also feels spiritually squeegeed; a world of pulpy violence so chirpy and chaste as to strain belief that the scars that haunt its reformed anti-hero could have ever been inflicted there. Part Disney film that says “fuck” a lot, part loin-clothed gorefest that cuts away before the grizzly bits, and part spandex-souled comic book subversion of the Prose Edda, Ragnarok is the follow up to God Of War (2018).

That game, despite its success in escaping from the series’ rut, still found its most stirring moments in direct confrontation with a difficult past that Ragnarok feels emotionally evasive of. 2018’s focus is here replaced with a meandering plot plagued by fits and starts, but its scope is wider, combat deeper, setpieces more elaborate, a.