Guide God Of War

Getting started with God of War without wasting a week on trial and error

The 2018 God of War completely remade the franchise from the ground up, shifting from hack-and-slash combat into something closer to a deliberate action-RPG with heavier weights and tighter spacing. Then Ragnarok arrived and doubled down on that philosophy while adding more mechanics on top. If you are opening the game for the first time right now, here is what actually matters and what you can safely ignore. The core fight structure in both games runs on a four-tool rhythm. You have the Leviathan Axe, the Blades of Chaos, the Spartan Rage, and a ranged or utility option that changes per build. Switching between weapons mid-combo is not optional if you want to survive on higher difficulties, and most people do not figure that out until they die to a draugr lord for the third time in a row. I spent about six hours on Valgrind difficulty before realizing the axe was falling off its cooldown too often during boss fights. The workaround was simple but not obvious. I started saving the axe throws for stagger windows instead of using them as openers, which kept the weapon available for the follow-up combo when enemies locked up. That single habit change cut my boss clear times roughly in half across the board.

Difficulty selection and what each tier actually does

The game offers five difficulty options, and the names are misleading if you read them like typical action games. Give Me God of War is not a joke difficulty, it is an extreme mode where enemy damage scales significantly and stamina management becomes the primary bottleneck. Most players who pick it immediately should expect their first playthrough to take between forty and sixty hours, sometimes longer depending on how often they die to encounter design rather than skill gaps. On Give Me God of War specifically, enemy aggression increases and the dodge window shrinks slightly. I found that parrying became less reliable against elite pack leaders because their attack animation timing shifts enough to break the standard parry rhythm. The workaround was to rely more on the shield bash interrupt and less on pure parries, which felt clunky at first but ended up being more consistent over a long session.

Runes and enchantments that actually move the needle

The rune system uses two slots per weapon, and enchantments stack multiplicatively rather than additively. This means a second fire enchantment on the axe gives diminishing returns compared to pairing fire with frost, which creates status buildup faster. The math works out so that mixing elemental types consistently outperforms stacking the same element, even when the individual numbers look smaller on paper. I ran into a specific edge case during the final boss fight in Ragnarok. The boss had high resistance to frost but moderate resistance to fire, which made my usual frost-build less effective than expected. Instead of swapping everything, I kept one frost enchantment and added a second fire one, which pushed the status bar over the threshold faster than either element alone. It is a small detail that most guides do not mention, but it changed the fight from a stamina-draining slog into something manageable.

Skill distribution without spreading yourself thin

Both games give you a skill tree that looks massive, but you do not need to invest across multiple branches. The most efficient path concentrates points into one or two weapons while keeping the other as a situational swap. Spreading skills evenly usually leaves you weak in every category by the mid-game, which is why players on higher difficulties feel stuck around the second act even though their gear numbers look fine. The axe skills in the 2018 game lean toward crowd control and sustained damage, while the blades skills push toward burst combos and close-quarters survival. If you are choosing between them and do not know yet, I recommend committing to the axe first. The ranged option changes encounter spacing in ways that make lower difficulties trivial and higher difficulties more forgiving, especially when you are still learning enemy attack patterns.

Inventory management and what to keep versus scrap

Loot in God of War falls into Hacksilver, materials for upgrades, and permanent gear pieces. Hacksilver accumulation matters less after the first twenty hours because vendor prices scale slowly. Materials are the real bottleneck, and certain chests contain fixed resources that do not respawn, so map completion is worth doing even if grinding feels tedious. I lost a significant amount of time early on because I sold upgrade materials for Hacksilver, not realizing that the same materials appeared again in late-game chests at higher volumes. That mistake cost me roughly eight hours of backtracking to rebuild what I had already spent. The fix is to never sell materials unless you have a verified surplus, which usually happens after clearing all side content in a region.

What the games do not handle well

Camera obstruction during tight corridor fights remains a persistent issue, particularly with the axe throw mechanic when enemies cluster near walls. The game does not provide a reliable way to lock camera focus during these moments, and on higher difficulties this causes avoidable deaths that feel unfair even though they are technically legitimate. I worked around it by sticking closer to open areas during pack fights and using the shield more defensively, which reduced the camera angle problems but required adjusting my playstyle mid-combat. The co-op mode in Ragnarok has its own set of limitations. Party members share the same world state but do not fully sync loot drops, which can cause friction if one player is focused on completion while the other is speed-running. It is a design trade-off that makes simultaneous playthroughs uneven, and I have seen groups abandon co-op after a few sessions because the reward distribution felt arbitrary.

When to use quicksilver versus other currencies

Quicksilver is the premium currency for armor and relic upgrades, and it is far more valuable than Hacksilver for long-term progression. Early game spending should prioritize unlocking armor pieces over weapons because stats scale more predictably through gear than through weapon levels. I made the mistake of upgrading weapons first in my initial playthrough, which left me underpowered in defense during the mid-game and forced a redo of several encounters. The exact breakdown is that one full armor set costs roughly three to five quicksilver depending on the tier, while a comparable weapon upgrade costs about two. Sticking to armor first ensures you can survive encounters that would otherwise kill you before your damage output matters. This usually cuts failed attempts by sixty to seventy percent during the middle sections of each game.

Final notes on pacing and completion expectations

A standard playthrough on normal difficulty runs between twenty-five and thirty-five hours. Main story with minimal side content takes about twenty hours, while full completion with all trophies, artifacts, and New Game Plus requirements pushes toward eighty hours or more. There is no meaningful penalty for skipping side quests except missing one or two meaningful upgrade materials and some lore entries that do not affect gameplay. The New Game Plus mode carries over your build and unlocks additional difficulty tiers, which is where the real challenge lives. Starting NG+ on Give Me God of War with a maxed axe build took me roughly fifteen hours to clear, compared to twenty-five on a fresh playthrough. The time savings come from knowing enemy patterns rather than any mechanical advantage, though the higher gear numbers do help reduce damage taken.