Sony / RabidRetrospectGames

Good stuff, right? But here’s the red flag: When you start a new game plus in God of War, you start with the Blades of Chaos already unlocked. Kratos is literally wearing them in the very first scene (along with whatever armor you had equipped at the end of your first playthrough).

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That’s not a “spoiler,” per se, nor does it ruin any plot twists; if you’ve played the game, you know Kratos digs up the Blades of Chaos. But it totally defangs the game’s most emotionally impactful moment. It’s also just…weird.

Following the news, first reported by Bloomberg last month, that God of War Ragnarök would likely come out in the fall, I decided to replay its predecessor. I initially started with new game plus. Having the Blades of Chaos from the very start just didn’t feel right. And since God of War forces you to commit to a game mode from the start of a save file (in other words, you can’t move from new game plus to new game minus), I had to make a choice. I knew the Blades of Chaos would bother me. I couldn’t continue.

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It’s not like playing on the vanilla mode is a pain in the ass, at least personally. God of War is, after all, hailed as one of the best games ever, and deservedly so. It’s reached a level of acclaim that’s only clarified with time. Four years later—with my understanding of combat and knowledge of puzzle solutions covered in a thin layer of mental dust—replaying God of War almost feels like playing a totally new game, even without the new game plus.