![]() Players know what memories dredge up in Kratos’s mind as he contemplates who and what he and Atreus encounter on their journey. Series veterans know what Kratos isn’t telling Atreus when the boy asks why his father so deeply hates the idea of worshipping gods, or how he can be so inured to encountering the world’s wonders. He’s resolute to give his son all that he needs for his survival but rarely what he wants, especially since what Atreus wants, more than anything, is to know and possibly become his father. The big difference is the once-bloodthirsty Kratos is taciturn. The series’s trademark finishing moves are more grounded and straightforward than before but harder to execute thanks to a new Stamina system. Enemies remain as quick and bloodthirsty as ever, which can result in some cheap, unblockable hits if the player doesn’t exercise cunning, patience, and situational awareness-none of which have been God of War staples prior to this entry but are incredibly gratifying and well implemented now. Attacks, magic, blocks, and dodges are more deliberate affairs, and Kratos pays deeply for missing his mark or charging into a fray too recklessly. ![]() For much of its campaign, however, God of War doesn’t so much suggest its ready-to-rumble predecessors as it does a more forgiving Dark Souls, in both its pacing and pensive tone. ![]() The journey to the mountain is riddled with undead, magical dangers that must be swiftly and brutally addressed. As Kratos spent much of his days hunting for food for his family, the journey is the first time he needs to provide for his child in more than the material sense. At the start of the story, Faye has died, leaving Kratos and Atreus with one seemingly benign task: to cremate her body, take her ashes to the highest mountain, and scatter them from the peak. His new weapon of choice is a magical axe, used mostly to chop wood and slay game. His skin-still a sickly white from the grafted remains of his last attempt at a family-is now a deep topography of wrinkles and scars. His Scott Ian goatee has grown into a full, graying beard. He married a woman named Faye, with whom he has a son, named Atreus. Kratos left Greece and went to Scandinavia. In the game’s masterful and restrained opening sequence, we’re meant to piece together Kratos’s life in the interim since putting an end to almighty Zeus. His nihilism was profound, silent, and complete, and this latest title in the God of War series is interested in him as the One True God of Nothing. The Kratos this game is fixated on is the one from God of War III’s final hollow and haunting moments, where the victorious character has spilled every drop of deified blood in the Greek pantheon. This, however, isn’t the picture of Kratos that 2018’s God of War is drawn to. Traditionally, God of War’s barbarous antihero, Kratos, has long been synonymous with severed heads and limbs and all sorts of other delirious horrors visited upon his enemies.
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