Spoilers for God of War Ragnarök

During The Game Awards, Sony Santa Monica dropped an early Christmas present on us gamers with the reveal of free DLC for God of War Ragnarök in the form of a Roguelite mode called Valhalla. It would be easy to assume that because of this type of subgenre, the game would be nothing more than an arcadey combat area, with its sole purpose being just to give you more chances to experience the gameplay. But what’s shocking is Valhalla is so much more.

Valhalla takes place after the events of Ragnarök, meaning Kratos and Atreus have parted ways. But despite his son forging his own path, Kratos isn’t exactly sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs. He’s received a mysterious invitation to Valhalla, where he’ll test his might against a series of difficult trials. Who sent the invitation and why is just part of the fun, as Valhalla actually has quite a bit of story content that serves as both an epilogue to the Ragnarök plot line and also as a satisfying payoff for those who have been playing the series since the original series, set back in Ancient Greece. With the help of Mimir, the two venture into Valhalla, which subjects Kratos with harrowing visions of his past, all while he contemplates his future.

Valhalla is a Roguelite-style game and if you’re not familiar with that subgenre, here’s the breakdown as you’ll experience it in the DLC. Kratos docks on shore and immediately loses all his armour, upgrades, and runic abilities from the base game, forcing you to start from scratch. From there, you enter a series of rooms, each one a representation of one of the realms you see in the base game. Each room has a set of enemies and a chest (or two!); each chest contains randomized loot such as a perk or an ability. As you play, you naturally get stronger and collect resources, some temporary, some permanent. The terms “roguelite” and “roguelike” take their name from the 1980 game Rogue, which was one of the first procedural dungeon-crawler games (although Beneath Apple Manor predates it by two years).

But if you die, you go back to the beginning and start from scratch, barring the permanent resources you’ve collected that you can trade in for something like a health boost. The game incentivizes you to change up your playstyle a bit each time you die though. For example, you’ll get a reward for using all the shields in combat, so each time you die, it’s a good idea to swap your shield. The objective then is to clear five full stages, each one with a boss at the end. As you try and fail, you do get stronger and you push further than your last attempt until you beat the stage. All this is done without a companion as well, making the experiences that much harder.

The DLC could’ve just stuck with this formula and it would’ve been a fun time, but Valhalla also serves as a story epilogue, with new cutscenes and storybeats featured. There’s a surprising amount of narrative threat that pulls back from the original games, both from gameplay perspectives and storywise. So if you remember, say, a certain caged Athenian soldier from the original game, you’ll be immensely rewarded. And that’s just scratching the surface here. This mode is a huge payoff for those who experienced Kratos’ full arc.

So if you have a PS4 or PS5 and God of War Ragnarök, you should go and download it as soon as possible. You need to update the game and then install the DLC, so it’ll take two downloads to get going. And if you don’t have God of War Ragnarök, now’s a great time to pick it up. It’s a meaty game that improves upon many aspects of the first, specifically combat while serving up another solid story. I think I like the story more in the prior God of War, but I like Ragnarök’s moment-to-moment gameplay more, as it has way more enemy variety, better bosses, and level design. So getting more of both for the low cost of nothing (if you own the game already) is a no-brainer. This DLC is so much more than it appears.