Tips For Playing God Of War That Will Help You Before You Get Started

When booting up God of War, it becomes obvious fairly quickly that it’s an overwhelming game. It takes several hours to get a proper grasp of many of the mechanics, so I’ve provided you a spoiler-free head start with some of the tips that I think will help you battle through.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ATREUS IN COMBAT

Early on in the game, I’ve often forget to use Atreus in combat, but he’s super useful. As you continue to upgrade him he’ll actually become necessary to beat some of the tougher enemies. His arrows will keep respawning too, so you can pretty much just keep mashing square during combat in order to chain his shots between enemies. You’ll also be able to use him to expose enemies and fetch things for you.

MASTER THE STATS

One of the first things that will surprise you in the new God of War is that there’s six stat categories, that you can upgrade based on elements that you apply as well as which armour/gear you’ve got equipped.

Most people will probably opt for Strength/Defence, but the others are very useful too.

  • Strength – increases damage for all standard attacks
  • Runic – increases elemental damage
  • Defence – reduces all damage taken
  • Vitality – increases maximum health and decreases the severity of hit reactions from enemy attacks
  • Luck – increases XP and Hacksilver gains
  • Cooldown – reduces recharge time of runic attacks, summons, and talismans

SMASH EVERYTHING (WITH THE LUCK STAT BOOSTED)

Almost every thing in God Of War is breakable, and most things will give you Hacksilver, which is very useful to purchase almost anything in the game. Chests, vases, crates and many other things can be smashed, and you’ll often miss things as they blend into the world, so it’s better to be safe rather than sorry and just smash everything in sight. As we just mentioned, if you’ve got the ‘luck’ stat turned on, you’ll get even more loot from everything that you break.

MASTER THE PARRY

The Parry becomes one of the most useful combat techniques in the game. When you’re fighting some of the optional bosses, you’ll need to use the Parry by timing your block just before your enemy hits. You’ll then be able to get the upper hand and deal some serious damage.

ONLY UPGRADE CERTAIN ARMOUR AND GEAR

This is a mistake I made early on in the game. Make sure you don’t keep buying armour and upgrading it. There’s probably only 3-4 times in the game you should purchase armour and upgrade it to the full potential. Once you reach the late game, you’ll be better served to upgrade what you’ve got rather than just purchasing armour consistently.

PLAY SIDE MISSIONS AS YOU GO THROUGH

I can’t stress enough that you take time to explore the world as you play through the game. Some of the best parts of God of War are optional, and whilst you’ll be able to go back later, it makes a lot of sense to do it as you play through the game as a lot of the rewards really help in your journey.

SELL ALL COLLECTIBLES AND ARMOUR

Another really important part of the game. You can instantly sell any collectible that you pick up. There’s a lot of different types of collectibles, but selling them won’t stop you from being able to collect each kind. They literally serve no other purpose either. Secondly, there’s honestly no reason for you to have more than one piece of armour on hand at any time, so sell whatever you’re not using (you can buy it later if you want it).

KEEP CHECKING THE BESTIARY CODEX

This is one of my favourite parts of the game. Atreus will constantly be updating his journal based on every enemy that he comes across. He’ll then go one step further and provide tips and weaknesses each time you meet this enemy.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE CURSOR WHEN THROWING AXE

The cursor when throwing the axe will give you a good indication of what you need to do in certain parts of the game. For instance, it’ll go red when you come across frozen enemies that are about to come alive. Or it’ll change to a solid arrow if it’s something that can be hit with your axe.

KEEP SAVING

Like a typical old-school game, you can manually save God of War at any time. You can even create multiple save points.