Getting Started With The Early Sections
The beginning of God of War Ragnarök throws you into Fimbulvetr with almost no hand-holding. You start on the frozen shore after the prologue, and the game expects you to figure out combat basics while also tracking story objectives. Most players waste about forty minutes in that first area just because they don't realize the Leviathan Axe throw has a recall cooldown built into the animation rather than a separate button press. It's easy to mash X repeatedly expecting it to reset faster. The first real checkpoint you need to understand is the transition from the tutorial zone into the Wildwoods. The game gives you the Axe, a basic combat combo, and the Blade of Chaos later on. Between those two weapons, there's a resource management system most people ignore until they're under-leveled for a boss fight. Runes are your primary damage scaling tool. Each rune has a cooldown, and equipping the wrong combination early can make normal enemies feel surprisingly threatening if you're not careful. I hit a wall on my first run trying to beat the first major enemy encounter near the bridge. I had maxed out the Spartan Rage ability because it looked cool in the menu, but that left me with almost nothing in the combat tree. The workaround was simple: reset my skill points, put everything into basic axe attacks and the throw-and-recall combo, then respec again after I reached the next story gate. The game doesn't penalize resets beyond the collected mistletain shards, which are relatively easy to farm early on.
One thing the walkthrough videos usually skip is the Nornir chest placement logic. Those require three golden keys to open, and the keys are tied to puzzles scattered through the early areas. If you open every chest you see before moving forward, you'll be fine. But if you're rushing to meet a time trigger or skip a section, you'll notice the difficulty spike around chapter two because you missed the armor upgrades those chests contain. The difference between normal and hardened mode at that stage comes down almost entirely to whether you found the chest behind the first water puzzle in the Wildwoods. The combat system in this portion of the game runs on a timing window that's not obviously explained. Enemy attacks have a brief startup animation where their weapon glows or they raise their guard. Blocking too early wastes your stamina bar. Blocking too late means you take damage. The sweet spot is usually a half-second after the tell starts. Once you internalize that rhythm, even the tougher enemies in the early sections become manageable without relying on healing items, which are in short supply during the first three hours. There's a known issue with the optional skill unlock conditions during this part. The game occasionally fails to register that you've defeated the required number of enemies in a single combat encounter if you pause the game mid-fight. I lost progress on one skill tree because I paused to check the map and then resumed, and the enemy count for the unlock stayed at zero. The fix is to avoid pausing during combo chains or ability triggers. If you need to check objectives, do it between fights, not during them.
Story progression in these early chapters also hinges on a dialogue system that many players accidentally skip past. The game uses a subtle prompt to continue conversations, and if you press the wrong button fast enough, you can miss key lore entries that actually tie into later puzzle solutions. One puzzle in the second act requires knowledge from a conversation you can easily breeze through if you're hitting skip. Reading every interaction takes maybe ten extra minutes total across the first section, but it saves you from having to backtrack later.
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Common Pitfalls New Players Miss
Resource scarcity is the biggest design choice in this part of the game, and it's intentionally punishing. Hacksilver and enhancement materials do not respawn between play sessions. What I mean is, if you clear a section and spend all your resources upgrading gear, there's no way to go back and farm more without replaying the entire area from the save point. The game saves frequently enough that this isn't as annoying as it sounds, but it does mean you should upgrade conservatively in the first hour. Prioritize the axe and blade trees over the passive ability slots. The damage numbers scale better early on than the survivability perks. Another issue that comes up constantly is the difficulty scaling. The game has several difficulty tiers, but the recommended setting for most players is actually "Give Me God of War," which is the second-hardest option. Don't start on the easiest setting thinking it will carry you through. The later sections in Part 1 scale with your difficulty choice, and starting low means you'll face the same enemy HP and damage modifiers at chapter three as someone on the hardest setting. There's no real benefit to easing into it. The game balances around the assumption that you'll learn the systems through trial and error, not through generous health pools. The traversal mechanics also deserve attention. You get the Grapple Cord relatively early, and it opens up shortcuts that most walkthroughs don't emphasize. Using the grapple to swing across gaps saves significant time compared to backtracking through the main path. On the other hand, the rope mechanic has a strict range limit, and if you try to grapple past it, Kratos just stops mid-swing and takes a fall. I've lost several minutes more than once misjudging the distance on a jump that looked visually shorter than it actually was. Always account for the full cord extension before committing to a swing.
If you're following this as a structured guide rather than playing freely, here's a practical order that works without getting stuck. Clear the immediate tutorial area, unlock both weapons, find the first Nornir chest, complete the water puzzle for the second key, then proceed toward the story gate. Do not attempt to explore every side path before reaching the gate because the difficulty curve steepens noticeably once you move past the initial safe zone. The game expects you to have a basic understanding of both weapons before introducing mixed combat scenarios. I should mention that the game does have a few moments where the walkthrough approach actually breaks down. Certain stealth sections require you to avoid detection from specific enemies, and the patrol routes can vary slightly depending on your previous actions. If you've already triggered certain events earlier, some guards change their positioning. This isn't documented in most guides because the change is subtle. If you find a section unexpectedly harder than the walkthrough says it should be, check whether you accidentally killed an NPC or triggered an earlier event that shifted the enemy AI paths. The audio cues during combat are also more important than the visual ones. The game uses a distinct sound for when an enemy is about to break through your guard, and it's easy to overlook if you're focused on the health bars. That sound is a low metallic hum, different from the normal attack whoosh. Training yourself to listen for it reduces the number of times you get staggered mid-combo, which is usually what kills players in these early sections rather than raw damage output.
