God of War Ragnar?k photo mode releasing after launch
And "boy" is gone.
God of War Ragnarök is less than a month away from its highly-anticipated release. However, its photo mode will not be present at launch.
Rather, it will be coming after the fact, much like it did with 2018's God of War.
Sony Santa Monica confirmed this news in a tweet, stating it will share more details on Ragnarök's photo mode further down the line.
Meanwhile, the latest behind the scenes video from the developer has put the spotlight on Ragnarök's enemies.
The team is increasing the variety of encounters players will come across for this release, with each of the nine realms having their own enemy "theme" that is unique to that area. These foes will be diverse, with some being small, itsy-bitsy creatures for players to do battle with, while others "will take up the entire screen".
"Each one looks so much different from the next one and each of them has their own play style... If you are really into Norse mythology, you'll be very interested to see how Sony Santa Monica has taken some of these creatures and interpreted them [within the game]," senior animator Kim Nguyen shared.
In addition to this, the Santa Monica developers also spoke more about Kratos' relationship with Atreus in the upcoming sequel.
Several in-game years have passed since 2018's God of War release, and this shows in the duo's dynamic. Atreus will be more assertive in Ragnarök, and his abilities will reflect this. The puzzles players will come across will see more collaboration between the father and son, and Atreus' magic will have a "different flavour" to Kratos'. You can see this full video below.
Meanwhile, for those hoping to keep count of how many times Kratos says "boy" during the game's reported 40 hour length, well, you will be able to do it on one hand.
In an interview with GamesRadar, director Eric Williams revealed the team was done with this line. Instead, Kratos will refer to his son as Atreus throughout.
"The last game you had Atreus just always being told what to do by adults. Anybody asks a question and they never give him an answer. But we wanted to be a lot more grey," Williams explained.
"Now we're getting into Atreus being like, 'Well, I don't think it's like that'. And [Kratos and Mimir] are like, 'Oh, are you being sassy? Or should we actually have a real conversation about this?' We really took the idea that it takes a village because Kratos can't answer a lot of the questions that are being asked of him... I love those parts that Kratos struggles with because he can't beat them up."
God of War Ragnarök is coming to PlayStation 4 and PS5 on 9th November. Our Chris had some hands on time with Ragnarök earlier this month. You can read all about his impressions so far here.