With God of War Ragnarok only a little over a year old, it’s safe to assume that it’s going to be a while before we start hearing about the series’ next mainline title, but luckily enough for fans, it seems like there’s still something to look forward to in the near future. With recent leaks claiming that an expansion or Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales-style half-sequel is in the works for last year’s action-adventure title, here, we’re going to take a look at a few things we’d like to see from it if it turns out that the rumours are actually right.
NOTE: There are spoilers ahead for God of War Ragnarok.
ANOTHER WEAPON FOR ATREUS
With Sony Santa Monica having confirmed in no vague terms that the next mainline God of War game will move on from the Norse mythology setting, and given this alleged title’s nature as a smaller expansion (or half-sequel) sprouting from Ragnarok, it wouldn’t surprise us in the slightest if it turned out to be focused on Atreus as the primary protagonist. And if that is the case, hopefully, he’ll be getting access to a new weapon.
Atreus’ playable sections in God of War Ragnarok were obviously nowhere near as fleshed out from a mechanics perspective as the Kratos sections were- which made sense, because he was nowhere close to being the main protagonist. But if he does end up taking the lead in the expansion, Sony Santa Monica would need to beef up his gameplay side of things significantly. Specifically where combat is concerned, our hope is that that will entail a new weapon, because using just Atreus’ bow for both melee and ranged combat throughout the experience would likely get boring pretty quickly.
NEW LOCATIONS
Santa Monica Studio let players travel to every single one of the Nine Realms in God of War Ragnarok, but even though there was no shortage of variety in the locations we got to explore, we’d still love to see some entirely new places in the rumoured DLC. Ideally, we’d love to see large, new maps in Realms that we saw relatively less of – like a new explorable area in Jotunheim, perhaps – but even new areas in places like Svartalfheim, Midgard, Vanaheim, or Alfheim would be more than welcome additions.
Regardless of which of the Nine Realms these new hypothetical locations will be in, we desperately hope that they take plenty of cues from the incredibly designed Crater map in Vanaheim. The Crater is easily the best location in all of God of War Ragnarok, whether it’s the content and enemies that it houses that you’re talking about, its visuals and art style, or the incredible level design, and we’d love to see more of the same in Ragnarok’s rumoured DLC.
PICK UP RAGNAROK’S CHARACTER-SPECIFIC STORIES
We can probably assume that the next chapter in Kratos’ story is being saved for the next mainline game in the series, but even though Ragnarok was the last major entry in God of War’s Norse saga, it did still leave plenty of character-specific narrative threads hanging. Atreus and Angrboda are the obvious ones, of course, and presumably, they’ll both get plenty of screentime (assuming the rumoured DLC does put Atreus front and center).
Beyond those two, however, there’s also Thrud, who inherits Thor’s hammer at the end of Ragnarok. What’s going on with her? Will we get to see her using Mjolnir? If the story does indeed focus on Atreus, it would make sense for Thrud to have a role to play as well. Additionally, if the story is still set in the Norse realms (which, again, it probably will be), we’d be surprised if Tyr didn’t have more screentime as well. In fact, we’d be disappointed if he didn’t, given the fact that the vast majority of what we saw of Tyr in God of War Ragnarok was actually just Odin masquerading as him. Maybe give us some time with the actual Tyr too?
EXPLAIN THE MASK
God of War Ragnarok’s story builds up many captivating mysteries throughout the game’s runtime, and though many of them do get resolved, there are several that don’t- including some pretty major ones. The biggest of them all is the Mask, which is central to not only Atreus’ arc, but also Odin’s. Of course, by the time the game comes to an end, the Mask has been destroyed, while the rift that Odin wanted to look through with the help of the mask has closed as well. But the nature, purpose, or origins of the rift or the mask are never really explained.
It’s a major unresolved mystery, and it seems like too major of a plot thread for the series to just never bring up again. After all, Odin describes the rift as a tear in reality, and believes that through it lie all the answers to the greatest mysteries about the nature of the universe and its very existence. With that in mind, are we to assume that the rift and the mask will somehow tie into future games’ stories? And if that is indeed the case, could they come back to play a major role in the DLC’s story as well, perhaps as a way of setting up what the series’ next mythological setting will be?
Oh, speaking of which…
SET UP THE NEXT SETTING
Even before God of War Ragnarok launched, Sony Santa Monica confirmed that it would be the last game in the series’ Norse saga, surprising a great many people who had assumed that the Norse saga would instead be a trilogy. It will, of course, be a while before we see what mythological setting God of War will use as its setting next, since presumably Ragnarok’s rumoured DLC (or half-sequel, or whatever it ends up being) is going to stick with the Norse realms, but it could nonetheless serve as a great way for Sony Santa Monica to start planting the seeds for the series’ future. When God of War Ragnarok comes to an end, even though it leaves plenty of threads unresolved, it doesn’t really give much away about how the series is going to transition away from its Norse setting, so one would naturally expect the rumoured DLC to serve as a bridge between the current setting and the next one.
In all probability, the DLC will follow Atreus and Angrboda’s quest to find the Giants, so we’re not expecting to travel to a new mythological setting just yet, but hopefully, the story will at least have a few hints about where Kratos and co will be headed in the future. Maybe Atreus finally manages to look through the rifts about gets a glimpse of the mythological realm that the next God of War game will be set in? We’re certainly keeping our fingers crossed, that’s for sure.
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