Sony has now officially confirmed what leaks have been reporting for weeks: God of War will be released for the PC! We have all the important info on the Reveal.
Leakers’ legends have come true: God of War (the 2018 reboot) is indeed coming to PC! After Horizon: Zero Dawn and Uncharted 4, it’s the third big Sony hit to switch platforms. Find out why this is damn good news for action and story fans and what exactly is known about the release in our FAQ.
But before you start reading, enjoy the official PC trailer:
Table of Contents
All the info about God of War on PC
Release: When will God of War be released?
God of War for PC will be released on 14 January 2022. From this date, you will be able to experience the story of the god of war Kratos and his young son Atreus for the first time on PC – it is the first part of the series ever to make this leap and appear on our home pixel servant.
Content: What’s inside, which versions are available?
God of War will be released on PC on Steam as well as in the Epic Store While there are no different editions for pre-orderers, all buyers of the PC version will receive the following bonus items:
- Death Oath armour sets for Kratos and Atreus
- Guardians of the Banished shield design
- Fist Shield of the Forge-Shield Design
- Soul Shield of the Light Alves-Shield Design
- Dökkskjöldur-shield design
Graphics: What about ray tracing and co.?
The PC version of God of War will feature higher resolution shadows, improved screen space reflections and particularly high quality ambient occlusion via GTAO (Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion) and SSDO (Screen Space Directional Occlusion). The game also supports the Ultrawide 21:9 aspect ratio.
Owners of an Nvidia Geforce RTX card can look forward to support for DLSS and the Nvidia Reflex technology. The latter is supposed to greatly minimise input lag.
Unsurprisingly, the developers emphasise that you can accompany Kratos and Atreus on their adventure in native 4K resolution and an unlimited frame rate. An extensive graphics menu should also allow you to get the game running on weaker systems.
First impressions of the PC version of God of War can be seen here:
System requirements: What kind of PC do I need to play God of War?
Instead of just naming a few hardware components for minimum and recommended gaming experience, as has been the standard for decades, the God of War developers have unpacked the info mace and created five scenarios at once, which are defined by an FPS target in addition to the resolution.
If you only want to play at the absolute minimum (720p@30 FPS), you can get started with a very old Geforce GTX 960 or an AMD Radeon R9 290X in combination with the unkillable Intel Core i5-2500K (release 2011!) and 8 GB RAM.
For many of you, the far more important gaming experience in FullHD at a smooth 60 frames per second and “original” graphics settings – by which I assume you mean a quality like in the beautiful PS4 version – is available with a Geforce GTX 1070 or a Radeon RX 5600 XT as well as a Core i7-4770K or a Ryzen 7 2700. 8 GB of RAM is still sufficient.
Unfortunately, it is not yet known which hardware is required for a smooth and, above all, picture-perfect gaming experience. Neither on Steam nor in the Epic Store are system requirements to be found at the moment. The only exception: According to initial information, God of War requires 80 GB of storage space on your PC.
However, looking at Sony’s latest port, Horizon: Zero Dawn, the game should run on a wide range of computers thanks to numerous graphics controls. Let’s hope that the game finds its way onto the PC as bug-free and stable as possible, because that wasn’t the case with Aloy’s adventure, at least not at first.
But there is already information about the controls: Of course, God of War should be just as easy to control with the controller on the PC as on the console. Among other things, the Dualshock 4 and Dualsense controllers are officially supported. But you can also use the mouse and keyboard and freely change the button assignment.
What kind of game is this anyway?
If you haven’t really got to grips with God of War yet, we’ll give you the short (and of course spoiler-free!) summary here: In the action adventure, you take on the role of the Spartan god of war Kratos, who is actually retired after a life full of violence and loss. But together with his son Atreus, he gets caught up in an epic adventure in icy Scandinavia.
You will encounter gods and legendary figures such as Valkyries, trolls and the undead, and every now and then you can expect a crisp and graphically extremely impressive boss fight – for spoiler reasons we won’t reveal anything at this point. But connoisseurs of the Nordic saga world probably already have a few ideas anyway. The battles are an important part of God of War, but the story and the crafting system also motivate you to keep playing.
Of course we don’t yet know how well God of War will play on the PC and how much the new computing power can get out graphically. But the action adventure doesn’t stand at a dream Metacritic score of 94 (9.2 in player reviews)
for nothing.
Do I need to have played the prequels to understand the story?
This is where opinions differ, as countless discussions on Reddit and the like prove. Basically, you will have no problem understanding the adventurous journey of father and son even if you don’t know the other games in the series. It is, after all, a reboot. However, Kratos is a character who has undergone many exciting developments over time, and if you are familiar with them, you will naturally notice many more details than if you are completely new.
But don’t let that stop you if God of War interests you! After all, it has its own unique appeal to reacquaint yourself with the series with an unclouded eye.
Is God of War: Ragnarok also coming to PC?
The sequel to God of War is scheduled for release in 2022 and will bring the Norse saga to a close. While it’s not out of the question that it will eventually make an appearance on PC, it will most likely be exclusive to Sony’s PS4 and PS5 for at least a few years. After all, it took God of War a good three years now too.
What do you think of the announcement? Have you played God of War yet or are you looking to catch up now on PC? Feel free to tell us about it in the comments – but please be considerate to your fellow readers and let them know if you write spoilers!
