God Of War Ragnarök surprise free download leaves fans stunned

It’s just a few days until the original God of War celebrates its 20th anniversary, but the celebrations are actually already well underway.

Last week, Santa Monica unveiled a number of surprises for fans including a social media ‘fan kit’, an exhibition at Gallery Nucleus in Los Angeles, a two-volume retrospective book, a Cook and Becker print collaboration, a Fangamer Jörmungandr plush, a Laced Records collaboration, an anniversary Insert Coin tee, plus discounts on God of War (2018) and God of War Ragnarök.

Yeesh, that’s a lot of stuff to list - and yet, it’s not quite everything.

Perhaps most excitingly of all, Santa Monica unveiled new free DLC for God of War Ragnarök.

This is cosmetic DLC only, so don’t expect any new quests, but it’s dazzled fans nonetheless.

God of War Ragnarök’s previous DLC was the free Valhalla expansion.

The DLC will become available on 20 March, and will bring back ‘Dark Odyssey’ inspired cosmetics, originally achieved for beating God of War II on God Mode difficulty.

It’ll include the Dark Odyssey Kratos Appearance, and Dark Odyssey Armour Set for Kratos (Breastplate, Bracers, and Belt), as well as the Dark Odyssey Vestment for Atreus and the Dark Odyssey Witch Frock for Freya.

As for your weapons, there are Dark Odyssey appearances and attachments available for Kratos’ Leviathan Axe, Blades of Chaos, and Draupnir Spear, as well as Dark Odyssey appearances for the Guardian, Dauntless, Stone Wall, Shatter Start, Onslaught, and Spartan Aspis shields, plus a Dark Odyssey Rond.

Weapon appearances are only available if you’ve fully upgraded that weapon so that’s worth bearing in mind.

As you can imagine, fans are thrilled to see the game welcoming new, free content.

“Time to replay GOW again!” remarked Twitter user Hi_Vader317.

“Celebrating 20 years of epic adventures! The Dark Odyssey collection sounds amazing,” added xceve21504.

“That collection looks epic,” commented _CryptoJT_.

You do have to question why Santa Monica unveiled all of this ahead of the game’s actual anniversary this week.

Could that remake/remaster of the original game or trilogy be real after all?

I suppose we’ll find out very soon.