'God Of War Ragnarök' Combat Includes "Whole New Suite" Of Powers

Santa Monica Studio are keeping particularly tight-lipped about God Of War Ragnarök, despite the fact that the game’s release is just over two months away. Seeing as how the last gameplay reveal was one whole year ago, you can understand why fans are desperate for more. Well, we’re still waiting to see more of God Of War Ragnarök in action, but we do now know a little bit more about Kratos’ expanded combat abilities.

In 2018’s God of War, Kratos had two main weapons: the Leviathan Axe and the Blades of Chaos. Those were accompanied by his Spartan Rage and extra runic attacks that could be imbued into the aforementioned weapons. This time around though, Kratos is set to have a “whole new suite” of powers. Consider me intrigued.

Check out the story recap below so you’re all up to date for God Of War Ragnarök.

Game Informer recently sat down with God Of War Ragnarök’s lead combat designer Mihir Sheth to discuss the upcoming changes, including how they wanted it to feel like Kratos is playing with his food. Huh? I’ll let Sheth explain.

“That's an internal philosophy that we've had since back in the day. Kratos plays with his food. We tried to create systems you want to engage with that are fun, very playful, lots of different routes,” Sheth said, “And when we looked at the combat in the last game, we were like, 'We can push this further; we can find new toys and ways of playing with enemies and strategies.' That's been the guiding principle more than anything else."

Sheth went on to reveal that Kratos will have new ice and fire elemental powers. These are new but will function similarly to the previous games’ runic attacks. Both Kratos’ axe and blade can be attributed to such powers, and you can switch between powers by pressing triangle. Sheth teased the addition of ‘Frost Awaken’ which freezes enemies, and ‘Whiplash’ which creates fire damage.

Sheth also went into detail on Kratos’ updated shields - because there are several options this time around. The Dauntless Shield is perfect for parrying in fast-paced combat (and has a pretty nifty smash attack) whilst The Stonewall Shield can be used to build kinetic energy, creating a pulse that sends enemies flying. Anyone else counting down the days until 8 November? I am.