5 Essential Tips To Know Before Starting God of War

Don’t Sweat Over Blocked Paths

5 Things You Need to Know About God of War

God of War isn’t an open-world game, but it certainly isn’t linear either. There’s plenty of room to go off the beaten track and away from main objectives, with other areas providing points of interest to explore, hidden items to collect, and a fair share of side quests to complete.

From the earliest sections of the game, you’ll run into plenty of paths that are blocked, chests covered by branches, and even doors locked by ice panels. It’s tempting to get carried away looking for a solution to these obstacles as they seem as though they’re blocking progress to an area you might believe to be important at the time. In our first play-through, we were so convinced that we’d somehow missed something obvious that we wasted hours looking a solution. Don’t make the same mistake. The general rule of thumb in God of War is that if something isn’t accessible, it’s because you haven’t reached a stage in the game where you’re supposed to be able to unlock it. It’s highly unlikely to be as a result of something you’ve done wrong.

Later in the game, it will become obvious how to reach these blocked objectives, and it typically relates to something that’s occurred in the story, be it a new item or ability. And if you’re worried that you’ve missed something along the way, bear in mind that God of War allows you to return to every location to pick up collectables.

Handy tip: aiming Kratos’ axe at objects that are breakable or significant will change the icon. If you’re stuck, this often provides a useful bit of direction as to what you’re supposed to do next.

Learn How to Unlock Skills & What Each Stat Means

5 Things You Need to Know About God of War

We’ve already alluded to God of War’s somewhat bloated progression and upgrade system in our review, but the level of depth in its RPG mechanics will likely surprise you even still. God of War is no longer just an action romp, and there really are oodles of skills to upgrade via the skill tree. Yet it’s not always super obvious as to how you’re supposed to unlock them so as to actually give you the option of spending points on them in the first place.

What you likely won’t initially realize is that in order to actually unlock more skills, you’ll need to upgrade Kratos’ axe and Atreus’ bow. The two are interlinked in the sense that one can’t be accessed without upgrading the other. Each time you upgrade one of these weapons, go and check the skill tree to see which new abilities you now have access to.

With regards to the stats themselves, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with just what each actually corresponds to as quickly as possible to get the most out of Kratos in combat. Strength, Defense, and Vitality will be pretty obvious to most, but others can be much more confusing.

Essentially, if you want to use more magic, boost Runic and Cooldown. These dictate both the damage inflicted by magic and how quickly you recover it after use. The Luck stat increases the chance of activating a perk, as well as boosting the XP and Hacksilver earned. Whichever stat you opt to pour points into improving, make sure to keep checking that the numbers are actually building Kratos the way you intended.

Unlock Nornir Chests and Smash Everything

5 Things You Need to Know About God of War

As you guide Kratos through the game, you’ll frequently encounter chests with blue runes on them called Nornir Chests. Each of these is unlocked after completing a basic puzzle which involves hitting three bells/pots. Don’t be tempted to skip over these because they contain valuable health and rage meter upgrades that you won’t be able to find elsewhere.

Keep in mind that the bells/pots you need to strike are always within the immediate vicinity of the chest, so it’s often just a case of uncovering debris around the area to locate them.

You should be smashing everything in site anyway because that’s the easiest way to earn Hacksilver, which is the game’s main currency. You’ll be using this to buy and craft weapons. Most of the Hacksilver you find will be in chests and special locations, but it’s possible to accumulate it by simply breaking different boxes, crates, and vases. If you’ve been pouring stats into your Luck, you’ll find that Kratos comes across much more Hacksilver when breaking things.

Upgrading Armor is Essential

5 Things You Need to Know About God of War

God of War won’t just require an acclimatization for newcomers to the series, even longtime fans are going to have to approach this latest title as an all-new experience. And before you start thinking to yourself that this all seems rather obvious, let us warn you that God of War leans on its RPG mechanics much more heavily than you might imagine.

Initially, the game’s combat is somewhat rudimentary in its opening stages. As you’d expect, perhaps, but things ramp-up quickly after the first five or so hours, and it can catch you off-guard if you’re not being diligent in upgrading armor and weapons. Even once you’ve started to get the measure of its pace and realized this is much less a hack-and-slash affair than a Souls-like combat system that requires careful timing, you really do have to make sure you’re treating this as an RPG rather than a pure action game.

It’s an absolute must to upgrade your armor, otherwise, you’ll find yourself getting completely trounced by tougher enemies. Keep making sure Kratos’ armor combinations are mixed and matched to give him the highest possible resistance to damage. That all being said, don’t get carried away upgrading armor for stat boosts if it isn’t something you’re planning on actually wearing. Check for the “E” symbol which confirms it’s something you’re wearing before you go ahead and splash out on it.

This will all seem like a foreign concept in a God of War title, but it’s a very big feature of this latest entry in the series.

Use Atreus Effectively

5 Things You Need to Know About God of War

Atreus isn’t a kid to be babysat; he’s extremely effective in combat. Make sure you understand how to use Atreus properly because you’ll find that taking out groups of enemies, and some of the game’s harder boss fights much easier with him backing you up. Atreus will attack enemies you’re targeting with Kratos whenever you press square in combat. At first, his effectiveness might seem rather limited as he fails to inflict much damage at all, but he’s an absolute life saver later on once his abilities have been upgraded. His ability to stun enemies is particularly useful, and he’ll also be able to choke out and even inflict magic attacks once he’s reached a certain skill level.

Beyond just combat itself, Atreus records every enemy you encounter in the game in a Beastiary, which can be accessed via the codex. What’s especially helpful here is that it lists the enemies’ weaknesses in combat, so if you’re struggling with a certain type then you can refer to this for pointers.