Highlights

  • The Valhalla DLC for God of War Ragnarok offers a ton of story-related content, making it feel like something greater than just a DLC epilogue.
  • The plethora of shields in the game ensures that all play-style preferences are met, but there might be too many options with many falling by the wayside.
  • The abundance of relics in the game can make them feel less significant in combat compared to finding powerful runic attacks or health, suggesting that they could be streamlined in future sequels.

Like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the Valhalla DLC for God of War Ragnarok is a perfect distillation of the original game’s combat and gameplay. Miles Morales was a standalone half-sequel while Valhalla is a DLC epilogue, but the latter’s distinction seems unfairly reductive when considering how much story-related content it has. Realistically, God of War Ragnarok’s Valhalla DLC could’ve easily been marketed as something greater or at least cost players, and yet it was fully free and added a ton of fun content.

That said, this DLC also brought to light some God of War elements that could easily be trimmed down in a sequel. There’s a lot for players to consider before hopping into their subsequent runs and a lot of resources they can allot into permanent goodies to take advantage of thereafter. Then, right before players pass through a doorway, they select their preferred relic, shield, and Spartan Rage. The Rages all have unique effects that can be beneficial in certain circumstances, but relics and shields have arguably become too prolific in their options and could benefit from having fewer, more efficient options in the future.

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God of War’s Valhalla DLC is Evidence That Shields and Relics are Abundant

God of War’s Shield is Great, But Perhaps There are Too Many Now

Having a plethora of shields is a surefire way to know that any and all play-style preferences will be met. Nobody can say that there aren’t enough shields, for instance, though there’s an argument to make now that six shields is too many for God of War Ragnarok—the Spartan Aspis, Dauntless, Onslaught, Guardian, Shatter Star, and Stone Wall.

Because players enjoying this DLC are likely all players who have already experienced the base game, they’ll also probably already have a particular shield they favor over the others. Of course, Valhalla is wonderful in how it creates worthwhile incentives for players to experiment with their arsenal and select armaments or abilities they might not otherwise choose, and that’s where a bevy of shields can generate interesting nuance.

If players aren’t immediately familiar with what their chosen shield’s primary functions are, the run will be much harder and much more rewarding. The same can be said for which Rage is chosen before the run starts, as well as which consecutive glyphs, runic attacks, and perks are selected from chests. In a sequel where this kind of variation isn’t an intrinsic part of the game mode, it would be great to see far fewer shields that maybe combine functions from the ones shelved or provide fewer functions to streamline them more.

God of War’s Relics are Either OP or Unmemorable

Relics are even more guilty of being prolific in God of War Ragnarok and the DLC made that a whole lot more apparent. Indeed, relics are seemingly meant to provide clutch abilities in the heat of battle for when cooldowns haven’t expired and Kratos’ back is against a wall, and with so many available in the catalog it can be easy to forget what all of them were or what all of them do.

Likewise, not all of them are as elementary as creating a Realm Shift and don’t provide an instant advantage in combat, which makes them seem less significant in the grand scheme of combat, especially when players are more concerned about finding a heavy runic attack or scraping together enough health before progressing onto their next Tyr boss fight in God of War Ragnarok’s Valhalla DLC.

Kratos’ Rages haven’t grown to the point of being overwhelming or unmemorable yet, and in fact the Legacy Spartan Rage granting Kratos the Blade of Olympus is a phenomenal addition that should definitely carry over into Kratos’ next outing. Shields and relics, on the other hand, could hopefully be trimmed down substantially without alarming too many players.