Sony's Santa Monica Studio has released the first patch (v. 05.03) for PlayStation 5 exclusive God of War Ragnarok's Valhalla expansion, which changes up the difficulty of the roguelike mode.
Released on Santa Monica's website, the patch notes outline fixes for several bugs alongside increases in difficulty to some areas and decreases to others. The developer made "tuning adjustments" to The Forum to make difficulty "more appropriate", for example, while also increasing the difficulty of some arena challenges.
The Spear kill perk has also been slightly nerfed, and Santa Monica has made various other "combat tuning and balance updates". For those solely focused on the story, the difficulty of the first Týr fight has also been reduced on the lowest difficulty setting, Show Me Will.
As for bug fixes, out of sync cinematics have been addressed alongside actual gameplay changes. These include an issue where Greek Labyrinth Mastery would not increase in the Open Greek Chests value if Kratos forfeited a reward selection after spending Fleeting Echoes to open a chest, an exploit when using the Spear against Ormstunga, and an issue where Týr would teleport away and not come back. You can read the full patch notes below.
The Valhalla expansion was announced earlier in December and released on December 12, giving fans of the beloved sequel an excuse to return. It lets players travel between different environments to take on new enemies, while also including some new story elements that fans are already sleuthing over.
In IGN's 10/10 review of the base game, we said: "God of War Ragnarok is an almighty achievement and creates a new high that makes many of its peers look mortal by comparison."
God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla v. 05.03 Patch Notes
CINEMATICS
- Fixed an issue where audio would not play and characters would be out of sync during the first cinematic after death
- Cleared lingering Draupnir Spear particles when cinematic starts
GAMEPLAY
- Reduced difficulty of first Týr fight on the 'Show Me Will' difficulty setting
- Increased difficulty of some arena challenges
- Tuning adjustment to 'The Forum' to make difficulty more appropriate
- Slightly reduced health gain and chance of proc on Spear kill perk while in Valhalla
- Various combat tuning and balance updates
- Fixed an issue where Greek Labyrinth Mastery would not increase in the "Open Greek Chests" value if Kratos forfeited a reward selection after spending Fleeting Echoes to open a chest
- Fixed an exploit when using the Spear against Ormstunga
- Fixed an issue with the encounter not ending when kicking Einherjar outside of the arena
- Fixed an issue where Týr would teleport away and not come back
- Fixed an issue where not all Hunter armor pieces were available
- Fixed an issue where encounter would not end if Nightmare was ejected from a creature near the arena boundary
- Fixed an issue where Kratos could erroneously stay in Spartan Rage when interacting with Shield Maidens
GENERAL STABILITY
- Resolved multiple crashes including when opening certain chests or rifts, non-English language specific crashes, and memory leak on PlayStation 4
- Fixed an issue where Kratos would be falling through the world
- Fixed an issue where Kratos would fall out of the arena when interacting with a rift on the Aegean Ship
- Fixed an issue with Kratos falling through the world after walking through a Mystic Gateway
- Fixed some issues with textures not streaming in properly when entering arenas
UI/UX
- Fixed an issue with the "Time Extended" message displaying in timed challenge trials when it should not
- Fixed an issue with subtitles overlapping UI when in vendor menus
- Fixed some instances of the navigation assist pointing to incorrect locations
- Fixed an issue where the timer would overlap the Warrior Soul health bar
- Fixed instances where the "Elites Killed" counter would remain after timer expired
- Corrected the "Costly Damage" burden to show appropriate duration in description
- Fixed the King of the Hill challenge timer overlapping progress bar
- Fixed an instance when the timer would never reach zero on the Aegean Ship encounter
- Fixed an issue which would cause a screen reader to read the Tablet of Reflection prompt twice in a row
- Fixed instances where subtitles were not formatted properly
- Fixed an issue where "Flawless Kills" and "Flawless Parries" Challenge UI updated any time Kratos was hit
- Added a 'Download in Progress' screen if attempting to launch God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla before God of War Ragnarök is fully installed
- Fixed an issue with the options menu displaying when opening the glyph tutorial for the first time
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
