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
