Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have done an exceptional job bringing Kratos’ second Norse journey to PC. Much like the 2018 reboot, God of War Ragnarok brings a host of welcome additions to the PC version, while also bundling in the excellent Valhalla mode, making the final chapter in Kratos’ Norse adventure a brilliant experience on PC – whether you’ve already experienced it or are going in for the first time.
Ragnarok on PC supports a handful of nifty features to fully take advantage of higher-end systems. Chief among those is the option to unlock the frame rate, making the game feel much snappier, as well as being able to play the game at native 4K if your setup supports it. Playing the game on higher settings will also net you enhanced reflections and lighting, alongside increased geometric detail over the PlayStation versions.
Of course, you’ll need a decent gaming rig to be able to support the added detail and unlocked frame rate. Thankfully, Jetpack Interactive hasn’t skimped on upscaling options. The game supports DLSS 3.7, AMD FSR 3.1 and Intel XeSS 1.2, giving you a wide range of upscaling options – no matter what kind of system you’re playing on.
I was able to easily maintain a consistent 4K 60fps on the game’s high preset with my 7800X3D and 3080 Ti-fuelled build while having DLSS on the ‘quality’ setting. Throughout my time it felt like the game didn’t skip a beat, even during busy sequences. The game runs brilliantly and looks incredible.
There’s a range of options available by way of graphics customisation as well, giving you enough tools to tinker with things until you find something that suits your rig. Like most modern titles the game has a VRAM indicator in the settings menu, allowing you to see how your finetuning will directly affect performance on the GPU. While the game initially shipped with a 6GB VRAM requirement to launch the game, that’s since been pulled in the latest update. Mileage may vary depending on the GPU you’re currently running, so be sure to check the game’s minimum spec requirements.
Taking the experience over to my Steam Deck OLED garnered somewhat mixed results. While the game’s opening chapter ran really well, hovering between 40 to 60fps on a combination of low to medium settings with upscaling settings on, the game tends to struggle the more you progress. If you’re looking to play Ragnarok the entire way through on a Steam Deck (or any of the other handheld PC options available right now), be aware it may not be the smoothest of experiences.
I only have a few qualms with the game’s port, and they’re fairly minor issues. The first is the lack of any benchmark tool to stress test graphics settings, which would help get a better idea of how systems like the Steam Deck would fare later on in the game. Another is the lack of a borderless fullscreen option. While the latter isn’t a major dealbreaker, I do like having the option to drop my resolution on borderless fullscreen in order to crank those frames and quality settings and I’m sad to not see it included.
I’ve also experienced a handful of various UI glitches during my time with the game, the most notable being a touchpad prompt appearing while I was using an Xbox controller, which left me a little confused.
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God of War Ragnarok is the first PlayStation game on PC that requires a PSN account to play, as well. It’s a baffling decision considering the game is a single-player only experience, so keep that in mind if you aren’t keen on signing up.
With all that said, Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have delivered a fantastic PC port of a stellar game with all of the glorious graphical bells and whistles included. For more information on what we thought of the game itself, read our full review of God of War Ragnarok here.
