Beginners Guide: How to Get Started

Find the best way to tear your way through the realms with our beginner's guide for God of War: Ragnarok. We've got the best tips & tricks to get you through early, mid, and late-game.

God of War Beginner's Guide

Beginner's Tips
Basic Controls for Combat Use Your Entire Arsenal How to Parry Often Adjust the Difficulty Craft Armor & Upgrade Often Use Atreus Strategically

Basic Controls for Combat

The controls in God of War: Ragnarok are largely the same as the previous God of War. If you're finding yourself a bit rusty on the controls here's a quick refresher.

Basic Controls
	Signature Weapon Ability
	Interact
	Atreus Action
	Evade
	Block/Parry
	Aim
	Light Attack
	Heavy Attack
	Swap Weapons
	Lock-on/Finisher
	Sprint
+	Spartan Rage

If the default button settings still don't click after awhile then feel free to remap the buttons to a more comfortable configuration in the Options menu.

God of War Ragnarok has tons of settings for you to tweak to better your experience both mechanically and performance wise. Check out our guide for the best settings for more info.
Best Settings for Graphics and Performance

Use Your Entire Arsenal

Don't just stick to one weapon, God of War Ragnarok's combat is often like a puzzle and you'll need to use everything at your disposal to solve it.

Freeze weaker enemies with the Leviathan Axe to temporarily remove them from combat while, you cleave down others with the Chains of Chaos.

Use Kratos' fists to increase the enemy's stun gauge while your Axe is away, then call it back for a brutal Execution.

Parry Fast and Parry Often

Similar to the previous game, Kratos will be punished for spam blocking or only evading. Pressing L1 just before an attack hits will parry the attack will give you enough time to go back on the offensive.
Its best to practice this on weaker enemies early on as it will only get increasingly more difficult as you progress and fight harder enemies.

Just watch out for yellow ringed attacks as they will break your guard if they aren't parried or dodged , and red ringed attacks as they are unblockable.

How to Quickly Heal

Kratos can and will get overwhelmed by numerous enemies or beat down by bosses, so its important to heal quick and heal often by smashing the Healstones that drop about the battlefield. Exploiting a boss's weakness can even make them drop additional healstones as well.

How to Heal and Increase Max Health

Adjust the Difficulty

If the enemies within the 9 realms are hitting a bit too hard or you're up for a challenge, then don't be afraid to adjust the game's difficulty.

All Difficulties and Differences

Craft Armor & Upgrade Often

The key to keeping Kratos and Atreus alive throughout God of War: Ragnarok is making sure all of your best equipment is set, the best skills unlocked, and favorite skills and equpiment are upgraded.
Check your inventory menu often, as you may have picked up a shiny new piece of gear since you last checked.

Equipment Stats

There are 6 stats that gear can improve for Kratos & Atreus.

Stats and Which to Upgrade

Use Atreus Strategically

This time around Atreus is a lot more active in combat. Use Atreus wisely to extend combos, juggle enemies and perform necessary interrupts to keep the pressure off of Kratos.

For an in depth look at God of War: Ragnarok's combat system take a look at our dedicated guide

Combat System Explained

God of War Ragnarok Related Guides

Tips and Tricks

All God of War Ragnarok Tips and Tricks Guides