Review of "Twilight of the Gods of War": The Final Chapter of Kuiye's Nordic Tour

I felt a bit disappointed when I learned that "Twilight of the Gods of War" (hereinafter referred to as "Twilight of the Gods") would be the concluding chapter of Kratos' Nordic journey. After opening a new storyline in God of War, I believe countless players, like me, hope that Lord Kui can use another trilogy to narrate a brand new legendary story.

But the development time of the game is getting longer and longer, and a complete trilogy may require players to wait for more than a decade. Therefore, Santa Monica decided to end the story of Lord Qui in the Nordic world in Twilight of the Gods. Considering the complexity of the story of "Twilight of the Gods" and the need to fill in various pitfalls dug in the previous plot, coupled with the new game director, the fate of "Twilight of the Gods" seems not as smooth as imagined.

After nearly 50 hours of exploring the nine Nordic realms, I have turned all the content I want to share with you into text. I hope this article can help you better understand how Kuiye's Nordic journey ended.

※ To ensure everyone's gaming experience, this article will not involve the plot details of the game

※※ The following references to "God of War" refer to "God of War (2018)"

Using familiar formulas to create a better taste

It has been four years since the release of God of War, and the changes that have occurred in the real world during these four years can be described as "earth shattering". Similarly, this word can also be used to describe the Nordic and Kuiye father and son in the game.

After bidding farewell to Laurie at the highest peak of the Nordic Nine Realms, the father and son of Bader, the God of Light, did not wait for their imagined peaceful life. They were greeted by a snowstorm that had lasted for a whole three years, as if it was about to freeze everything in the world. As revealed in the prophecy, the "Winter of Fenbul" followed after Bader's death, indicating that the arrival of the "Twilight of the Gods" was one step closer.

Meanwhile, after experiencing the pain of losing her son, Freya is no longer a good neighbor. She immersed herself in the sorrow of the past and continuously attacked the father and son of Kui Ye during these three years. In addition, the robbers were rampaging on Midgard, searching for the remaining supplies in this long cold winter. If it weren't for the protective mark that could have stopped most of the threats for the father and son, that simple wooden house would no longer be suitable for living.

As I was preparing to embark on a new adventure with Lord Kui in this world of ice and snow, I soon felt the familiarity that came with "Twilight of the Gods".

Whether it's tracking the perspective over the shoulder, the way of performing in a mirror, or the feel of Leviathan's axe, it's exactly the same as I remember. Even at the beginning of the game, it was Queye and Atreus who came out to hunt. If it weren't for Atreus becoming more mature and steady, the chill of the Winter of Fenbul would almost spill out of the screen, really making me mistakenly think that I have traveled back four years.

It's not a bad thing in my opinion that the opening experience is so similar to the previous one. This time, the game director changed from Cory Barlog to Eric Williams. I believe many people are most worried about whether the game's flavor is good enough or not in Twilight of the Gods. Obviously, this concern will quickly disappear at the beginning of the game.

When we interviewed the director of this game, Eric Williams, they stated that in order to ensure the continuity of the story and experience, the positioning of this game was to make players feel "both familiar and unfamiliar" from the beginning, and to continue to explore the potential of the God of War series on the basis of the previous game, rather than making significant changes to the game system.

Since the positioning is both familiar and unfamiliar, there must be new content added in addition to the familiar places.

The most surprising aspect of the new content, I think, is the process of controlling Atreus to explore. In the main storyline of the game, the characters controlled by the player will switch from Kratos to Atreus multiple times, and each time they control Atreus, the time is not short.

In the ending of the previous film "God of War", the father and son learned that Atreus's true identity was the giant Loki, and this life was destined to be extraordinary. Driven by curiosity, Atreus often sneaked out of the house while Kratos was not paying attention during these three years, searching for the secrets left by the giants and the Nordic war god Tyr, who had a close relationship with them. In this process, we can more intuitively feel the changes and growth of Atreus, and also explore the Nordic mythological world from a new perspective.

Of course, separating father and son does not mean that they have to fight alone for a long time. In the plot, multiple companions will be arranged to act together with Lord Qui and Atreus, not only to occupy the vacant position during battles, but also to facilitate our deeper understanding of these characters. For example, the Dwarf brothers Cinderella and Block will find in this work that in addition to having fun talking, their relationship is also much more complex than we imagine.

There are also some new content, which clearly shows that Santa Monica Studios has carefully listened to the opinions of players and improved the areas where the experience was not as perfect in the previous work.

Firstly, there are more exploratory scenes available. As the concluding chapter of the Nordic story, "Twilight of the Gods" is no longer just a background board for some of the kingdoms in the Nordic Nine Realms. This time, Lord Kui and his son have wandered through all nine realms, even the headquarters of the Asa Protoss, Asgard, have not been spared.

And this time, Santa Monica specifically designed several town scenes in "Twilight of the Gods". In the main storyline, she can also enter a certain city and follow the tour guide to stroll through it. No longer the same as the previous work, both the main storyline and the freely explorable part take place in the wilderness mountains, and apart from the Nordic gods, there are not many living people.

Another major change is the visible increase in the number of elite monsters. The storyline boss battle design of the previous generation of God of War was excellent, but when it came to elite monsters, players were greeted one after another by changing skin mountain monsters.

Internally, the studio must know that everyone privately refers to "God of War" as the "Mountain Monster Simulator". In "Twilight of the Gods", not only is the frequency of the Mountain Monster's appearance significantly reduced, but its debut in the game was even used as a meme by Santa Monica. If you have played the previous movie "God of War", I believe you will also be amused by the debut of this old friend, Mountain Monster, just like me.

It can only be said that Santa Monica really understands the psychology of players and has a very good grasp of content improvement.

Let me show you some game details again:

Some people in the previous generation complained that Kui Ye's equipment was not enough and that "Warlord Warmth" was not fun enough to play. This time, Kui Ye has more equipment, which not only spawns more combat genres, but also allows for more freedom in dressing choices. The studio is even worried that you will be exposed to rain and dew, and want to upgrade any equipment, resulting in no resources to make good equipment in the later stages of the game. So before the final battle, we will give you a set of equipment with appropriate strength for free.

Previously, the transmission methods between countries were not intuitive enough, and it was too troublesome to have to run to a dedicated transmission room? It's okay, the new transmission system is arranged here, with nine countries arranged intuitively together, and even which country has unfinished tasks is clearly marked.

The limited time challenge of the Three Goddesses of Destiny Treasure Chest was too timed and the experience was very bad? This reduces the number of time limited challenges and provides options in the auxiliary options to relax the time limit.

Speaking of auxiliary options, Santa Monica has really put a lot of effort into researching the auxiliary system of Twilight of the Gods this time. In addition to UI and text resizing, there are also detailed difficulty adjustments that are most commonly encountered by ordinary players. The production team also considered the group of players with physical defects, hoping that they can play the game normally with the help of auxiliary systems.

It is not difficult to see from these places that Santa Monica's approach in making "Twilight of the Gods" was to prioritize making the familiar "God of War", then add ingredients to it, continuously improve the small details of the experience, and strive to use familiar formulas to create a better taste.

Both father and son are the main characters on the battlefield

After discussing some details of the game, let's turn our attention to the combat experience of this game.

As mentioned in the previous section, in "Twilight of the Gods," there is an opportunity to control Lord Qui and Atreus respectively. The experience of using Old Father and God of War is very different.

Let's talk about Lord Kui first. His combat style has not changed much compared to his predecessor. In the early stages of the game, players can obtain the "Leviathan Axe" and "Chaos Blade", and there will be no situation where the previous game's Chaos Blade did not have enough experience upgrade when it first arrived, and the strength of the two commonly used weapons is inconsistent. And whether it's combos, weapon combat feel, or rune attacks, they are not much different from the previous installment of God of War. I believe that after a few battles, veteran players will soon remember Kui Ye's fighting style.

As for Atreus's experience, it can be summarized in four words as "melee archers.". In Twilight of the Gods, the simple bow and arrow damage is very low, but it is easier to use the bow and arrow to knock the enemy out of a dizzy state. At this time, you can deal a lot of damage to the enemy by executing. This also means that even if Atreus's weapon is a bow, he cannot stay too far from the enemy during combat.

In addition to archery, Atreus also has melee attacks. Initially, I thought he would use the small knife left by his mother for melee, but I didn't expect Atreus's melee style to be to directly hit the enemy with his bow, which is very simple and rough.

In the game, there is also a character who will accompany the father and son of Kui Ye to fight together and resist Odin's rule. However, his identity is quite unique, so I won't mention his name in the review. I will only briefly share his combat experience.

Firstly, players cannot personally control this character, they can only give instructions to it during the battle, just like when Qui Ye and Atreus fight together; Although she is also a character who uses bows and arrows, she can use magic to imprison enemies or inflict damage on them. She can also use some of the Valkyrie's skills, and her combat experience is different from Atreus's. Finally, this character has a separate skill upgrade page, which is significantly different from other battlefield companions.

In addition to being able to control new characters, the changes in character positioning on the battlefield also make the combat experience significantly different from the previous game.

In the previous installment of God of War, both Lord Kui and his son Atreus were able to become the main output characters on the battlefield, especially Atreus, who not only dealt high damage in the later stages of the game, but also had the ability to control the field with special bows and arrows. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether the restarted God of War is referring to my old father Kratos or my son Atreus.

In this game, the output mainly depends on the character currently controlled by the player. Although combat companions still have strong output abilities, their field control ability is weaker compared to the previous game, greatly enhancing their ability to knock enemies out of a dizzy state, allowing players to be responsible for executing enemies and leaving the opportunity for output to the players.

This would prevent the situation in the previous installment of God of War where Atreus had a stronger output than Lord Qui during a specific period, and his damage was solely due to his son. And in the process, we will also encounter different combat companions, whose attack methods are diverse, including not only bows and arrows, but also explosives and magic, making the gameplay more diverse.

At the same time, due to this change, we will see more frequent execution animations of Lord Kui in "Twilight of the Gods". Whether facing the plot boss, elite monsters, or ordinary enemies, the execution performance is still full of courage. In addition, there are more enemies appearing, and the execution animation is rich enough. I didn't get tired of watching the execution animation until I passed the level.

At the end of this section, I would like to talk about one thing that I personally love about the combat experience in the latest two installments of God of War, which is that its battles and plot are not completely separated.

After fulfilling Laurie's wish, Qui Ye trained Atreus in the backyard for 3 years, so he could clearly feel that his son's injury was high from the beginning, rather than a clumsy little kid who knew nothing; Kui Ye usually only brings a Leviathan's axe when he goes out. After realizing that the two of them have been targeted by Odin and his small cabin is no longer safe, he decisively picked up the Blade of Chaos and enriched his combat skills. Not only because Kui Ye's heart knot has been untied, but also corresponding to his idea in this work that "no matter what, we must prioritize ensuring the safety of our son".

It can really be seen from many details in the game that Queye and Atreus have been preparing for the twilight of the gods for the past three years, ensuring that they will not become victims on the Nordic battlefield, but will become the protagonists on the battlefield, playing important roles in the twilight of the gods.

Becoming a witness to the twilight of the gods

After all, choosing "Twilight of the Gods" as the subtitle of the game, the focus of the plot of this game is naturally the disaster that the Nordic gods fear the most. In the game, we will fully experience the entire process from the winter of Fenbul to the end of the twilight of the gods from the perspectives of Kratos and Atreus.

Even though the story of "Twilight of the Gods" is vast and complex, Santa Monica has not given up telling every aspect of the story well, and the details in the mythology are also well restored. If you have knowledge of Nordic mythology, I believe you will be interested in this version of the Twilight of the Gods.

Firstly, many giant monsters that appear in Nordic mythology will appear as bosses in the game. For example, the Hellhound Gam, in Norse mythology, was the watchdog of the death god Hera, the child of Loki and Angelberda, and died with Tyr at dusk among the gods; There is also the Black Dragon Nedhogg, which in mythology constantly gnaws on the roots of the World Tree. When it bites off the roots, the World Tree begins to wither, and the twilight of the gods will also come.

If according to the Norse mythology, Gam should be a companion of our camp like Yemengarde, but he has become a rival to Lord Qui, and we all know that this usually does not have a good ending. One of the highlights of the plot is why these mythological monsters appear as bosses and how they affect the process of the gods at dusk.

In Nordic mythology, besides these giant monsters, we are also familiar with the faces of the Nordic gods. The dusk of the gods is a major event involving many deities. The father and son's Nordic trip basically saw all the heads and faces of the gods in Nordic mythology, and the most important one among them was the Nordic god Odin.

Like in Norse mythology, Odin treated Loki, also known as Atreus, very well in the game, giving Atreus unexpected freedom and trust. Atreus also collaborated with Odin for a period of time.

If other characters didn't take the trouble to denounce Odin's hypocrisy and express their anger at Odin, it would be easy to forget that Odin is a Nordic god who has patiently prepared for hundreds of years to avoid the gods at dusk, and has arranged countless eyeliner in the ninth world, and likes to let everything be under his control.

Thor, who had already appeared in the trailer, naturally had many scenes in Twilight of the Gods. Thor's image in this work is not that of a towering, omniscient and omnipotent deity, but rather like a big boy with powerful combat power and a beer belly. Although military force was recognized by my father, it was not treated as an adult, to the point where I simply gave up thinking and became a tool to obey orders.

Both father and son, Kratos and Atreus have a completely different way of getting along than Odin and Thor.

Kratos, like before, made every effort to avoid a war in Northern Europe, and this former war god knew well how much damage war would bring. Unlike the previous generation, Lord Kui trusts Atreus more, turns a blind eye to his son's little secrets, and also listens to Atreus's opinions when making plans. Even agreeing to embark on a new adventure with Atreus without knowing the specific reason.

It is easy to feel from Kui Ye's words and actions that he has regarded Atreus as his only one, intending to cultivate him as a successor who will not follow his own path, and the proportion of the image of an old father has further increased. Sometimes even without the need for dialogue, a few subtle expressions can perfectly convey Kratos' complex emotions while taking care of the child to the player, understanding Kratos' feelings and thoughts at this moment.

It is also this kind of protective thinking that made Lord Kui return to the familiar God of War halfway through, daring to rise up and resist fate. If necessary, he can even directly kill at the doorstep of Odin's house, completely disregarding the profound impact of killing the God.

Atreus remains innocent and kind in "Twilight of the Gods," but has shed his childishness and become more mature; Having one's own perspective on things, and also trying to find solutions independently; Sometimes there may be conflicts with Kui Ye's ideas, thinking that he is conservative in his actions, but still respects his father in his heart.

However, Atreus's ideas were not as firm as those of Lord Kui, who had already become accustomed to the world. Despite growing up in my heart, I often suspect that I haven't made the best choice afterwards, and I don't know how to face my background and destiny. Should I play the role of Loki in the twilight of the gods as predicted.

This often makes me curious outside of the game about Atreus's positioning of myself, whether it is his father's good child Atreus or the giant Loki, destined to stir up the Nordic world.

The conflict between the enemy and us regarding the twilight of the gods and family values not only propelled the development of the plot, but also led to multiple discussions on "how to view fate" and "how to handle family relationships well" through the behavior of the characters in the game. The most valuable thing is that when discussing these issues, the game does not have any preaching flavor, and in the ending, it provides a satisfactory answer that I personally think is quite satisfactory, effectively ending the theme that the game wants to explore.

In addition to these characters who have a large proportion of roles, I also want to talk more about my feelings about the role of Angelberda. I have seen controversies about this character in many places, and even some players are worried that the appearance of Angelberda may mean that Twilight of the Gods has become a product of political compromise.

Angelberda's positioning in the plot belongs to Atreus, a rare peer in the Nordic world, as well as a guide to his own destiny. She gives me a feeling in the game that she is closer to a neighbor who plays well with her son and knows the secrets of the Giant Clan, which won't make me dislike her. I don't think this should be a reason why you dislike Twilight of the Gods.

Important figures were introduced in a circle, and finally, I will share some of my views on this story.

There are many Nordic gods appearing in the game, but you don't have to worry about not understanding the story. Not being clear about the details of the gods at dusk does not affect the player's progress in the plot. However, this time Santa Monica has made many modifications to the details of the Twilight of the Gods. If you have the ability, I still suggest that before starting the game, you should have some relevant background knowledge to gain a deeper understanding of some characters' attitudes towards fate.

Furthermore, as Santa Monica previously announced, "Twilight of the Gods" is truly the concluding chapter of the Nordic story of Lord Quirrell. Not only did he visit all nine realms of the Nordic world, but the Nordic gods suffered heavy casualties due to the twilight of the gods. Moreover, the mission of raising a son to adulthood has been achieved, and Atreus has also become a person who can adventure alone in the Nordic world. The story ends just right at this time.

There are only a few foreshadowings reserved in the previous installment that have not been retracted. For example, in the previous installment, Yermongard injected snake venom into Leviathan's axe. I thought it had something to do with Thor, but it was completely useless. I don't know if the screenwriter forgot about this, or if there were other arrangements.

However, like the previous game, "Twilight of the Gods" cleverly separates everyone at the ending and presents us with a new prophecy mural. As for how to interpret the content, this important task is entrusted to everyone.

An unforgettable and fulfilling journey

It took me almost 35 hours to complete the game "Twilight of the Gods". During this period, besides the adventures of Lord Kui and his son, what left a deep impression on me was the rich and interesting game content. Even after completing the main storyline, this sense of fulfillment did not disappear.

The side quests in this game were done very carefully, and many of the storylines were related to the close relationship between the father and son of Kui Ye. Some quests even came directly from the characters on stage, making the side quests a part of shaping the characters. Compared to the commissions from unknown ghosts in the previous game, this side quest will be more motivating to complete.

Similar challenge tasks to the Valkyrie still exist, but compared to the Valkyrie fighting alone, there will be multiple bosses appearing together this time, making the entire battle situation even more chaotic. However, I personally feel that the overall difficulty is lower than that of the Valkyrie, and I can quickly discover the attack pattern of the boss. Only a few challenges will be very challenging, and the pressure from the enemy is not inferior to that of the Valkyrie.

Whether you want to make the game platinum or complete the side storyline, you can still feel the sincerity in "Twilight of the Gods" after completing the level.

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You can see that the game content is very considerate of the player's feelings. Based on previous interviews with the game director, the positioning of this game is not to recreate a game that subverts player imagination, but to repair the game on the basis of the previous game, so that more people can come into contact with and love this work.

If you haven't been exposed to God of War before, the rich content and solid combat feel of this game will bring you surprises; If you already love God of War (2018), I guarantee you will still love Twilight of the Gods of War.