With God of War Ragnarok finally slashing its way to the masses on November 9, 2022, gamers everywhere have begun to compile a litany of helpful tips for new players to abide by in order to achieve the most successful playthrough possible. While many of the gameplay mechanics have been retained from the 2018 predecessor God of War, there are enough exciting new wrinkles to warrant a step-by-step guide for beginners who have little idea of what they're in store for.
Whether exploring, collecting items, following Ravens or solving puzzles, gaining XP, combat training and more, the best advice for new God of War Ragnarok beginners will save them valuable time and effort.
10 Explore Surroundings In Main Story Mode
Thoroughly exploring the vast realms of the must-play action-adventure game is paramount to finding as many valuable items as possible. Each realm and biome is loaded with hidden relics, chests, scrolls, and artifacts that also relate to events and side quests. However, a big mistake newbies make is trying to explore remote areas of the map that simply cannot be accessed until the main story mode is complete.
Throughout the map, players will encounter a slew of green doors and smoke-filled air holes on certain structures, which marked a locked area. Do not try to access these areas until the main story objective is completed, otherwise, beginners will waste immense time and effort and end up retracing their steps later on.
9 Open The Lost Items And Nornir Treasure Chests
When exploring the various realms, players will inevitably fail to see valuable items to pick up after combat. Luckily, Brok will lead players to a treasure chest early in the game that contains all the items that a player lost along the way. Players can access this chest and obtain whatever is inside by approaching the glowing blue treasure chest located in each forge.
Additionally, beginners should always keep their eyes out for the Nornir Chests, which require some pesky work to locate open but are definitely worth the effort. Located in most realms, the Nornir chests usually require destroying nearby runes through various methods. Every beginner should make the effort to open these chests, as they will permanently upgrade their health and rage.
8 Train In Niflheim
The intense combat in the highly-anticipated game this fall is so hardcore that its imperative beginners take time to train, practice, and hone their fighting skills before taking on the most brutal enemies. Thankfully, players have access to Niflheim early in the game, which features a dedicated training arena for newbies to learn the controls, explore the recently unlocked skills and abilities, and mount deadly combos without the repercussions of dying or losing XP in the process.
Given how brutal the mini-bosses are in the game, the last thing a newbie wants to do is wander into danger without the ability to protect themselves. Do wise and take the time to train in Niflheim by fighting countless enemy types for as long as needed to master the combat needed to defeat the game's most formidable foes.
7 Complete The Labors Tab Tasks To Increase XP
Once a beginner beefs up their skills in Nilfheim, one of the earliest and easiest ways to earn XP without endangering themselves is to open the Labors Tab in the Goals Menu and complete a slew of basic tasks listed. These differ from The Path main story mission and Favors side quests, and will help newbies learn the ropes of crafting, killing, searching for collectibles, and the like while also granting them points.
Other minor Labor objectives include killing enemies using trees, incurring Burn damage with the Blades of Chaos, and Frost Damage with Leviathan Axe, all of which are great teaching tools for beginners to prepare for the harder parts of the game to come. As such, every novice should complete as many Labor Tab objectives as possible early on.
6 Collect All The Ravens
Also located in Nilfheim is the Crow tree, which features an extremely priceless extra for beginners. In God of War, heeding Odin's ravens wasn't all that important, so it's very easy to overlook and ignore them. But in Ragnarok, the green Ravens lead players directly to a slew of valuable rewards that will increase their chances for survival and help them beat the game.
With roughly 50 Ravens to collect in the game, the more a player obtains, the more treasure chests will unlock to grant players protective armor and impenetrable gear. Even many expert God of War gamers missed this, so beginners should take extra heed when it comes to spotting and rounding up the Ravens as often as possible.
5 Set Auto Pick-Up To Full
While the Lost Items Chest is a great way to keep track of dropped collectibles, there's an even more beneficial perk for beginners to use later on. Under the Accessibility Settings, players can scroll down to Playstyle and set the Auto Pick-Up option to Full. Without this function activated, players will have to manually pick up collectibles in the game by repeatedly pressing the circle button, which becomes way too cumbersome to manage when in combat.
By setting the Auto Pick-Up to Full, the game will automatically pick up every healing collectible for the player regardless of what they're doing at the time. This is incredibly helpful when fighting bosses later on by eliminating the need to press the circle button repeatedly in the throes of combat. A great and easily overlooked health hack!
4 Extend+ Puzzle Times
One of the most vexing aspects of the hotly anticipated 2022 video game sequel is the number of timed puzzles that need to be completed in order to gain rewards and unlock upgrades. However, another must-use tool for beginners to use is the Extended+ Puzzle Timing option located in the Gameplay Settings.
Under the Challenge Level menu, scroll down to the Puzzle Timing tab and adjust the Extended to Extended+ option below the Give Me Balance header. This will grant players more time to solve the in-game puzzles, which will actually save a lot of time and effort. In some instances, the puzzles will slow down and simplify, which is supremely helpful.
3 Tap Vs Hold Weapon Abilities
Combat is the most exhilarating part of GoW Ragnarok, and beginners need to be aware of the distinct mechanical differences between the awesome Blades of Chaos and Leviathan Axe weapons. Early in the game, players will have access to the Flame Whiplash (Blades) and Frost Awaken (Axe) attacks.
To allocate the Frost Awaken ability, players need to hold down the triangle button. However, one common mistake beginners make is then holding down the triangle button to utilize the Flame Whiplash ability as well. Instead, players should repeatedly press the triangle button rather than hold it to optimize the Flame Whiplash attack. By holding the triangle button when using the Axe and tapping it when using the Blades, beginners will experience the full might of the weapon's abilities.
2 Look For Underwater Loot
With Kratos and Atreus spending a lot of time traveling by water, it's important for newbies of the late 2022 video game to always be on the lookout for underwater treasure and loot that drops from tree limbs into lakes and rivers. While canoeing, shimmering gold territories and glowing barrels will appear, which often contain Hacksilver and valuable crafting resources.
By crashing into the barrels, players will be instantly granted whatever item is inside. The golden shimmering areas require pressing Circle to pick up the loot, which also includes stat-boosting dew drops from trees that should always be collected by beginners.
1 Enable Miniboss Checkpoints
Beginners of the game are bound to struggle with the spate of brutal and hard-to-beat minibosses throughout the realms, many of which are more difficult than the main story bosses. Thankfully, players can remedy the problem by turning on the miniboss cCheckpoints in the Accessibility Combat settings.
Once the miniboss checkpoints are turned on, players will have their place saved and their character will respawn with slightly reduced health, giving them another immediate crack at defeating the miniboss in question. To save time and painstaking effort, every God of War Ragnarok beginner ought to enable the miniboss checkpoints.
Source:gamerant.com