God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla uses an old genre to tell a new story

The roguelike expansion to strips Kratos of many of his abilities until you get special Glyphs that restore many of the former Spartan's combat skills with added benefits. Those who reach new sections of Valhalla will choose between doors that lead to different modifiers. These Glyphs act as upgrades to let you slowly build Kratos into a force to be reckoned with again.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Sunday turned his focus to the promise, and shortcomings, of artificial intelligence in the federal courts, in an annual report that made no mention of Supreme Court ethics or legal controversies involving Donald Trump.

In , those looking for an added challenge for extra rewards should look out for the chance to activate Burdens. The Burdens of Valhalla are specific types of challenges that usually last for a specified number of encounters and then reward you for lasting through them. That being said, players should be cautious before activating a Burden, as they could cause far more harm than good.

The DLC for is not necessarily a modest addition to the game, but it isn't a full-blown expansion either. Regardless, it manages to add plenty of new content to the game. Throughout the base game, Kratos and Atreus manage to survive the last days of Fimbulwinter and play a key role in Ragnarok, an apocalyptic event in Norse mythology prophesied to result in the death of numerous gods. takes place after the base game's story in the eponymous mythical location.

In , players can now finally get their hands on the Blade of Olympus. Introduced in, the Blade of Olympus has not made a reappearance since the reboot of the series despite being present in several other games. However, when Kratos is forced to reckon with his past in the new DLC, he can also get this weapon from his past.

The first patch for God of War Ragnarok's new Valhalla DLC is in, and the result is an overall difficulty bump for the already cutthroat roguelike mode. 

Announced at The Game Awards 2023 and released as a free update shortly after, the DLC for sees Kratos fighting through the titular Valhalla in a fashion similar to a roguelite — making multiple runs which restart on death, and which offer both temporary and permanent resources and power-ups to make runs feel varied and distinct. Far from simply being a fun new game mode, however, also makes significant contributions in terms of story, with the DLC's narrative set after the events of and dealing with the disconnect between the classic games and the modern series.

In , players can take Kratos through the new roguelike mode, where they will want to get as many upgrades as possible as quickly as possible. Kratos is relatively weak at the beginning of this free DLC, and in the tutorial, he is cursed and defeated quickly. Luckily, there are permanent and temporary upgrades to get Kratos back up to his full strength.

The free, roguelite DLC for ,, isn't just a tacked-on additional mode, but an epilogue to the base game's story which sees Kratos directly confronting his past as the Olympian god of war. Part of this new chapter has Kratos reconnecting with an apparition of Helios – or more accurately, Helios' decapitated head. In the midst of Valhalla's ever-shifting locales, Mimir's head is occasionally replaced by that of Helios, heckling his murderer as Kratos navigates amalgamations of his memories. While allusions are made to Helios' decapitation and Kratos' motivations for performing it, doesn't expressly delineate the event from and its context.

God of War Ragnarok is an action adventure game created by PS Studios developer Santa Monica Studio for PS5 and PS4, and is the sequel to 2018's critically acclaimed God of War. In our God of War Ragnarok review, we described the title as «phenomenal» and awarded it a 10/10.

God of War Ragnarok’s hotly anticipated free DLC expansion Valhalla, due out later today, will add more Trophies to the game – although they’ll be listed separately from the campaign, so you won’t need to worry about them if you haven’t earned the Platinum just yet. Writing on Twitter, game director Mihir Sheth confirmed the tidbit.

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.