God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla is not to be confused with Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok.
Kratos standing ready at the gates of Valhalla.

The Game Awards included the usual array of surprises both big and small this year. One such surprise was the announcement that God of War Ragnarok is getting some DLC called Valhalla.

Now, this DLC has some interesting things going for it. First off, it will be completely free. Secondly, it will be released to everyone that owns the base game on December 12, 2023.

Valhalla will ben a bit of an epilogue to the events that take place in God of War Ragnarok. Kratos will go on a "deeply personal and reflective journey" that just happens to include a bunch of slaying baddies. Kratos, along with Mimir, will tackle a variety of trials to "face echoes of his past." The trailer reveal already included a glimpse of a cyclops from the older God of War titles and it included the old God of War main theme, so expect to see a lot of those past foes from Greece pop up quite often. We thinking Zeus? Yeah, Zeus is probably gonna be a battle if I were to put money on it.

The team here at Santa Monica Studio challenged ourselves to make something different from anything we have done before in God of War history. God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla celebrates the combat you know and love from God of War Ragnarök and blends it with fresh, experimental elements inspired by the roguelite genre.

Each attempt in Valhalla will encourage you to master different aspects of Kratos’ arsenal as you face new combinations of enemies and some surprises along the way!​
As this will be a roguelike style game mode, Kratos will be able to use resources earned from previous attempts towards permanent upgrades. These upgrades can be applied both to Kratos and to Valhalla itself. There will also be per-attempt rewards dished out to help Kratos in his battles.

Kratos will have access to all his weapons and fully-upgraded skill trees at all times, but must commit to a shield and path of Spartan Rage for each attempt. As you overcome the trials of Valhalla and explore its depths, you will make choices between temporary Glyphs for which Stats to upgrade, which Perks to select, which Runic Attacks to wield, and more. Each attempt can play out differently based on the rewards you choose, so keep your strategy in mind when making selections!
Santa Monica Studio says that Valhalla will be a separate experience from Ragnarok that you can play at any time. That means you don't have to worry about hitting certain story beats in the base game to access Valhalla. Of course, you may want to hold off on playing through Valhalla until after you beat the main game, because there are going to be some obvious story spoilers in this DLC.

In fact, if you haven't yet beaten Ragnarok's story, maybe don't read the PlayStation Blog announcement for this DLC because they just flat out talk about the ending of the game in one of the paragraphs.


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Choose your challenge
God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla has five difficulty settings that have been specially crafted and tuned to the unique gameplay of the DLC. Each difficulty setting increases the rewards you’ll gain from battle, and you can swap freely among them between attempts (including to and from the highest difficulty setting, Show Me Mastery).

As your skills grow, we encourage you to try out some of the higher difficulties to earn more rewards and test your mastery over Kratos’ arsenal!

Between the five options, you will be able to select the level of challenge that is most fun for you. To help further customize your gameplay experience, the DLC will continue God of War Ragnarök’s standard for accessibility settings.​