God Of War: Ragnarok Trailer Highlights Improvements To Combat And Enemies

Ahead of its early November release, a new trailer for God of War: Ragnarok has detailed some of the changes to the sequel's enemy design and combat.

At the start of Ragnarok, Kratos has both his Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos, giving players far more combat options than the start of the previous game. This has allowed enemy design to be more complex from the get-go, too, with Sony Santa Monica focusing on providing both more variety and more mini bosses for you to tackle. As one combat designer states in the video below, it's all about balancing "frustration and engagement."

A new mechanic highlighted in the video centers on Kratos' shield. In the prior game, your shield was single purpose, blocking damaging and giving you options for parrying. In Ragnarok, you can choose to home in on one or the other. Smaller, lighter shields are more adept at parrying and provide a bigger window to return an attack but block less damage. Other larger ones provide the opposite, with additional variations hinted at.

Atreus and his behavior in combat has also been updated to better reflect his progression in character. With Atreus being older and much more confident in his offensive abilities, you'll likely see him chaining together lengthy attack combos or initiating enemies before you. His range of magical abilities also seem to give him an edge in combat, at least beyond the arrows you can have him fire.

In our latest preview for God of War: Ragnarok, editor Tamoor Hussain highlighted the game's more diverse roster of enemies and their ability to make combat suitably engaging again. "Maybe I'm just a bit rusty, but it feels like the enemies in God of War Ragnarok are much less forgiving; there are often more of them and they hit a little harder," writes Hussain. "Not to mention that I've already fought my fair share of strange and very dangerous beasts--at times it felt like I was in a Monster Hunter game, carefully watching these animals to learn their patterns and exploiting brief windows of opportunity with specific moves."

God of War: Ragnarok launches for PS5 and PS4 on November 9.