After the Olympic massacre, Kratos moved north in his old age, where he grew a beard, exchanged the blades of chaos for the icy edge of an axe and felling trees, won the heart of a beautiful woman and fathered a son, Atreus, with her. However, the peaceful idyll of the snowy landscape with deer hunting, fishing and, above all, rarely interrupted silence cannot last forever, because Kratos' chosen one comes from the ranks of ordinary mortals. In order to at least partially come to terms with her departure for eternity, father and son set out to fulfill her last wish, to scatter her ashes from the highest place in the world. After all, this should not be a problem for the god and his offspring, when the path to the majestic peak of Midgard leads almost directly from their garden. However, the death of his wife and mother sets off events much more serious than one small family drama. The presence of the retired Spartan invader has not gone unnoticed, and the last thing the Norse pantheon needs is a mass extermination by an enraged mountain of muscles and a freezing blade. Kratos would rather forget his past and carefully hides his divine origin from Atreus in an effort not to repeat the mistakes of his own father Zeus, which makes him a cold and taciturn pedant right from the start, whom his son cannot please at any cost. "You are not ready for this journey," he repeats to him over and over again, criticizing his impatience while hunting, his explosiveness, and his inherited temperament.

Does this seem surprising to you, given the previously furious fear of all deities? Kratos has definitely aged. He has become wiser and more serious. And it worked out well for him, because mindless slashing at everything that moves, while roaring loudly, can only entertain for a relatively limited time, which he has seriously filled with seven games. The hatred and distrust of the corrupted and spoiled gods remained regardless of latitude, as did the Spartan anger, but over the years he has also developed another, much more human side. Which does not mean that we would be deprived of that slashing.

I appreciate the greater emphasis placed on the story, which manages to seem mature, exciting and avoid glaring clichés, while in the environment of something as boiled down as Greek and Norse mythology distilled over centuries. 85%

The first ten hours were fine, then I got sucked in, but the last few hours ran out of steam from all the backtracking for collectibles. It feels a bit more dated than I expected, and the gameplay is perhaps a tad too streamlined for my tastes, but apart from that it's a pretty big game with nice aesthetics, a good story and voice acting, and absolutely fun and varied combat.

Very good very nice