God Of War Ragnarok: Best Difficulty Settings [Explained]

God Of War Ragnarok has finally been released, and it is the direct sequel to the original God Of War 2018. There are five different difficulty modes in the game as opposed to the four difficulty modes of its predecessor. Players might feel conflicted about the best difficulty settings in God Of War Ragnarok, but we will explain the best one for you in complete detail as we’ve done an in-depth review of God of War Ragnarok!

The Best Difficulty Mode In God Of War Ragnarok

There are five different difficulty modes in God Of War Ragnarok which are;

• Give Me Story
• Give Me Grace
• Give Me Balance
• Give Me No Mercy
• Give Me God Of War

The best difficulty setting to play on is undeniably the Give Me Balance difficulty mode in the game. It is the best setting to play the game on for your first run, even if you’re skilled. Challenging difficulties should always be used while doing subsequent runs in games like God Of War. 

Give Me Balance is a perfect mixture of fun gameplay that is both challenging and rewarding paired with the masterclass Storytelling of God Of War Ragnarok. This difficulty allows you to enjoy the best of both gameplay and narrative in the game.

The easier difficulties that include Give Me Story and Give Me Grace just don’t feel rewarding to play on. Every enemy becomes easy to deal with, and boss fights turn into a cakewalk. Investing into skills and learning various combos won’t feel rewarding if enemies die in just one or two hits.

Give Me Balance allows you to play against challenging yet balanced enemies, which are not too punishing but still require you to strategize properly. Additionally, difficulties like Give Me No Mercy and Give Me God Of War are just brutal and require you to have quick reflexes, which is why they are recommended for subsequent runs.

The best difficulty settings don’t end here! God Of War Ragnarok features a plethora of accessibility options that directly or indirectly affect your gameplay. Some of these accessibility settings completely remove irritating things from the gameplay, while other allow you to test out new things in the game. Now we will discuss some accessibility settings that enhance your gameplay in Give Me Balance difficulty.

Gameplay Tips And Tricks

There are various accessibility settings that you can play around with in God Of War Ragnarok, and these can indirectly affect the difficulty that you’re playing in the game. Following are the accessibility settings that we recommend using;

Puzzle Timing

The difficulty is not just limited to enemies and boss battles. You will face many hard and challenging puzzles in God Of War Ragnarok as well. Some of these puzzles are time-based, and you have to complete them within a certain time limit, like ringing the bells.

This can become a little irritating when the time frame allocated is small. Thankfully, there is a setting that allows you to increase the time frame of these puzzles. The setting is available under the Challenge Level section of the Gameplay menu and is called Puzzle Timing. 

Just toggle the setting to Extended+ so that you have the maximum time frame in order to solve these puzzles. It is a great accessibility setting that lets you decide the difficulty of the puzzles in the game. Players who want to enjoy the combat and don’t like to solve difficult puzzles should tune the Puzzle Timing to Extended+.

Auto Pick Up

This is one of the best additions to God Of War Ragnarok and is available under the Playstyle section of the Gameplay menu. You don’t have to continuously mash the pick-up button in the game over and over again. Kratos will now pick up everything automatically when the auto pick-up setting is toggled on.

There are three different variants of the setting additionally, which include Essentials, Economy, and Full Auto Pick-Up modes. When the essential setting is turned on, Kratos will only pick up health and rage stones. At the same time, the economy setting will make Kratos auto-pick up hacksilver and other loot. 

We recommend that you turn on the Full Auto Pick Up mode. Kratos will pick up everything automatically that’s on the ground, and you will get more time to focus on combat. Auto Pick Up is very helpful in certain challenging situations where you don’t even have the time to pick health stones. This setting really comes in clutch on almost all of the difficulties and allows you to have a seamless gameplay experience. 

Traversal Assist

It is another great accessibility option that helps around in gameplay with any form of difficulty. The setting is available under the Playstyle section of the Gameplay menu. It makes the combat and gameplay even more seamless, just like the Auto Pick Up setting.

Kratos will now automatically jump over ledges and perform all sorts of acrobatic actions by only moving the Left Analog Stick. It is a very useful setting that is especially useful if you play on higher difficulties in the game.

Touch Pad Shortcuts

Sony Santa Monica really went above and beyond with their accessibility options that help the player with any type of difficulty. All of Dual Sense’s amazing features have been utilized in the game. You can map the touchpad swipes to various actions that you can perform in the game.

It is recommended that you use these shortcuts for certain shield attacks or Spartan Rage and Quick Turns. These are really helpful for fast inputs during boss battles. You need to capitalize on these shortcuts on any difficulty that you’re playing.

Button Mapping

There is a whole menu allocated to mapping the buttons on your controller in God Of War Ragnarok. It is very important that you map these buttons according to your personal preference. You can utilize this feature to remap dodge and attack buttons to those buttons that you can use efficiently to land combos on the tougher enemies in the game.

God Of War Ragnarok All Difficulty Settings Explained

Now that we have explained the best difficulty settings alongside some other tips and tricks for God Of War Ragnarok. It is time that we discuss all of the other difficulty modes in complete detail as well so that you get a general idea of what the game is offering. There are 5 total difficulty modes as opposed to the 4 difficulty modes that we had in God Of War 2018.

Give Me Story

This setting is for players that want to experience the story of God of War Ragnarok only. God of War 2018 has set a standard for creating one of the best narratives in a video game, and Ragnarok only improves upon that factor while continuing the Norse Mythology Saga.

It is the most basic difficulty mode and is a very easy mode in simpler terms. It is focused on giving you a narrative experience of the game with easy combat encounters and less difficult boss fights. However, Give Me Story difficulty is not fun in the gameplay department as you’ll be shredding through almost everything in the game and that applies to boss fights as well. 

Give Me Grace

This is the second difficulty setting that you can choose in God Of War Ragnarok. It proves to be a little more challenging than the first difficulty setting. However, it is still an easy mode compared to the other difficulties that we have on the list.

You will be able to enjoy the gameplay as well, to some extent, in Give Me Grace difficulty, but it will mostly be in boss fights or mini-boss battles. The game will still go easy on you, and you’ll be able to enjoy the story more in the Give Me Grace mode, although with a little bit more challenge.

Give Me Balance

This is the best difficulty for playing the game on your first run. You get a perfect mix of both gameplay and storytelling in Give Me Balance, and we have already discussed it in complete detail. It is basically the normal difficulty mode for God Of War Ragnarok, and players should definitely opt for it if they want the best experience in the game.

Give Me No Mercy

Give Me No Mercy is basically the hard mode for God Of War Ragnarok. It is a very punishing mode, and skilled players should opt for it on their first run. Even if you are skilled enough, we still recommend that you go for the balanced difficulty in order to learn about the new gameplay mechanics. Difficulties like Give Me No Mercy should be opted for in subsequent runs.

Enemies deal more damage here and are more aggressive. Most of the combat situations are more intense, and there is little room for error. The Give Me No Mercy Mode really tests your skill in God Of War Ragnarok, and it shows. The game has a bigger variety of difficult enemies as compared to the original God Of War 2018 additionally.

Give Me God Of War

This is the final difficulty mode on our list and is the most punishing difficulty in the game. If you thought that the Give Me No Mercy mode was hard, then Give Me God Of War just tunes everything related to the difficulty to the maximum. 

Enemies deal so much more damage here, and you mostly die in 2 or 3 hits. There is NO room for error here. You need to be perfect in your movements and quickly think out your strategies amidst combat. Enemies are extremely unforgiving additionally.

Give Me God Of War has been designed to kill the player, and the mode is only recommended for the best players. However, the developers have made certain changes to the mode as well. You don’t get stomped with an artificially difficult barrier now. Instead, the enemies scale properly, unlike the Give Me God Of War mode from God Of War 2018. However, the model is still just as hard in the later parts of the game and in earlier parts, too, for an average player.

Thankfully the developers let you revert back to other difficulties if Give Me God Of War feels too hard for you. Previously, you had to start a fresh run in God Of War 2018 if you wanted to change the difficulty from Give Me God Of War. However, once you change back from the difficulty, you cannot go back to Give Me God Of War again in the same run. 

Summary

God Of War Ragnarok had a lot of hype before its launch, and the game actually lived up to that hype additionally. It received a Metacritic score of 94 and kept the tradition of Quality in the franchise. The game is an amazing end to the Norse Mythology Saga, and the gameplay mechanics are even better than the first game. There is thrice as much content here as compared to God Of War 2018.

This concludes our guide for the Best Difficulty Settings in God Of War Ragnarok. We not only explained the best difficulty setting that you should play on but also gave some tips and tricks to help you around in that difficulty. All of the other difficulty modes were also discussed in complete detail. Let us know what you think about Kratos’ latest adventure in the Nine Realms in the comments below!

DISCLAIMER: This difficulty setting is based on our opinion after having played the game in different modes, and your opinion may differ.