God Of War Ragnarök dev says more enemy variety was a big priority

The combat team behind God of War Ragnarök has gone the extra mile to make sure the enemies in the new game are as formidable, exciting and faithful to the foundations of Norse mythology to put players through their paces.

Of course, God of War Ragnarök is now in the hands of the critics ahead of its release in two weeks time. Check out Ewan's preview of the bloodstained first five hours of the game, which he says is on par with the iconic opening sequences of The Last Of Us and Uncharted 2. Oof. A lot to look forward to.

Check out the trailer here!

Speaking in a new video covering combat and enemies in the upcoming game, a number of Sony Santa Monica developers including lead combat designer Stephen Oyarijivbie shed a little light on what the process looks like. "After the last game, we heard the community cry out for more mini-bosses, bigger creatures, and enemy variety," said Oyarijivbie. "In God of War Ragnarök, you're going to be travelling to all Nine Realms and each realm is going to have its own theme of enemies that are very unique to that space."

Already, the snippets of what we've seen is soaked with colour and sheer spectacle, so I'm sure players will be satisfied with the immense work that the team has done to take the lessons of the 2018 title and elevate the experience into a new odyssey.

"Our design philosophy for creating new and memorable enemies is basically making them a combat puzzle similar to chess, and focusing on the chess pieces," they continued. "Each piece has its own theme and its own use." While Oyarijivbie kept shtum on how these new enemies work, saving the surprises for the players, senior animator Kim Nguyen shared some more on the origin of these enemies.

"Each one looks so much different from the next one and each of them has their own play style. If you are really into Norse mythology, you'll be very interested to see how [the studio] has taken some of these creatures and interpreted them," they said.