One of the last legacies of the PS4 era, God of War Ragnarok it represented one of the most important watersheds between the past generation and the previous one. The work of Santa Monica, continuing what its predecessor did, is still considered today one of the best ever released on the previous Sony home consolehonored above all for the technical sector. Although the PS4, from a purely development point of view, has inevitably imposed some limits that have slightly slowed down the software house, it must be said that even today God of War Ragnarok remains a technical masterpiece.
After the release of its direct prequel on PC, the wait for the official porting of the title on PC was legitimate to say the least. Now that it is here, we had the opportunity to try it in depth, discovering not only how it behaves from a more specific and technicianbut also some interesting ones novelty which will be of great interest to PC users.
Our review, in fact, will focus mainly on the technical sector, closing with one brackets on the context in which the PC version of God of War Ragnarok is inserted, with all the facets of the case. This choice is not arbitrary, however, as there have been some conceptual flaws which we didn’t appreciate most, which continues to highlight a strange trend on the part of Sony PlayStation, which we will only talk about briefly.
First limits of conversion
Leaving aside some small – or rather, tiny – technical uncertainties which we will talk about later, let’s start by underlining a detail that made us turn up our noses. We were not happy to see that God of War Ragnarok on PCwhose installation is clearly recommended on an SSD, it weighs as much as 190 GB (compared to around 80 GB on the PS5 version and around 100 GB on PS4). Clearly burdened by higher resolution textures, we believe that the title could risk discouraging the purchase of those who have already played it on PS5, while they would still be able to to whet the palate of those who have made the generational leap from PS4 to a high-end PC.
It’s also a shameinability to transfer saves from the console versionalthough this is probably a limit dictated purely by the different infrastructures of the platforms. Let’s hope, though, that Sony realizes that the ability to switch between versions without having to lose progress is something gamers would definitely appreciate, as well as a great way to further solidify its approach to the PC market.
Instead, we stayed much longer happy in seeing how the guys at Jetpack Interactive, who took care of the porting on PC, have handled the initial compilation of the shaders very well. This is because, although there is an indicator on the screen with the percentage of completion of the compilation, it happens entirely in the background, allowing the user to start playing in the early stages of gameplay. For many it may be a detail, but we can tell you that not having to wait those 5/10 minutes to start the game was a detail that we really appreciated.
Another aspect we would like to focus on concerns the technical improvements introduced in this PC version. Those lucky enough to own a high-end setup will immediately notice a number of improvements on theambient occlusioncome on reflexes and above all on bright and volumetric environments. Clearly, we are talking about details that only the most attentive will be able to notice, as well as those who have managed to set up an important PC.
Shadows appear clearly more detailed, and thus the game manages to offer greater depth, especially in the more open gameplay phases. These improvements, although they do not seek to radically alter the visual experience for those coming from the PS5 version, still offer a significant improvement that could justify a second purchase for those who played the work on PS4.
Correct and consistent scalability
In terms of performancewith God of War Ragnarok the situation varies greatly depending on the hardware in use, although we can say that the conversion was carried out in an excellent manner, to say the least, along the lines of what we saw with the prequel on PC. Clearly, those who have setups with more powerful GPUs will be able to push the settings to the maximum and enjoy it the best version of God of War Ragnarok possible. Those with more modest configurations will still be able to enjoy a fluid experience thanks to upscaling options such as AMD’s FSR 3.1 and NVIDIA’s DLSS, available in different modes (DLAA, quality, performance, ultra performance and balanced).
Much appreciated support for ultrawide monitorsfollowing what was done with titles of the caliber of Horizon: Forbidden West or Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. This element, absent on consoles, makes the PC version a particularly interesting option for those who own monitors with a 21:9 ratio and we are happy to be able to confirm its presence.
However, the more pronounced technical problem it is undoubtedly the one concerning the VRAM management. Several users and other specialized figures have in fact reported excessive use of video memory which, in some rare circumstances, can lead to a considerable drop in FPS. Sometimes, just restarting the game will fix the problem, but that’s clearly not a practice we would recommend.
The fact remains that an update is certainly already on the way, but for the purposes of the review we believe it is important to specify this small flaw, especially for those who have hardware with limited amounts of VRAM. Similar speech for NVIDIA’s frame generation which, despite being an interesting feature, does not seem to bring significant changes at the moment, a problem that many users are also experiencing in other games.
Enhanced accessibility and minor VRAM issues
Another welcome news concerns the accessibility options: in addition to those already present in the console version, it was on PC added the ability to listen to audio descriptions of cutscenesa very useful option for those with visual impairments. Additionally, you can choose to reduce or delay companion suggestions during gameplay, allowing players to solve puzzles and make decisions more autonomously.
What really makes us turn up our noses was Sony’s choice of force players to log in to their PlayStation account in order to play to the title. The need seems even more senseless to us if we consider that access does not give any type of advantage to the player, other than seeing the activity of friends on the PlayStation console, and the trophies (which are clearly the same as Steam achievements). The only logical reason that could have pushed Sony to create this limitation is to increase the number of active users on their platform or perhaps – as we hope – to set a precedent for an even bigger presence in the PC market.
We close the review by specifying a detail that you must keep in mind, and which in some way contains our thoughts on what was done with the conversion. Small technical uncertainties should be considered as such: “small”. Starting from the assumption that the most important problems are certainly already being resolved by Jetpack Interactive, you must not forget that we are talking about God of War Ragnarok which – pass the term – it already ran smoothly on PlayStation 4 toonow due to impeccable optimization on consoles, now due to a direction of game and level design that allowed the developers to implement stratagems to make the title appear fantastic even on less performing hardware.
However, except in cases where older systems are present, the work is generally playable on most PCs on the market, thanks to a simply excellent conversion job. True, there are still some points to be ironed out, but we guarantee that this is not something that will stop you from enjoying the legendary adventure of Kratos and Atreus.
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