Down with Olympus - Talking Old & New God Of War Speedruns With Ragnell

With the release of God of War’s new look and different style of gameplay, now is a great time to look back at the monumental God of War 3, a highpoint of the series for many fans. While the speedrun of God of War 3 can be impressive, it’s not near as impressive as God of War 2, which has more tricks and techniques throughout. There are a lot of unskippable cutscenes in God of War 3, which in most cases would make it a poor run, but this also makes it a fairly accessible run.

We’ll be focusing on the Any% New Game Plus and chatting with speedrunner Ragnell once more.

Of course, God of War 3 picks up where the last game left off, with Kratos ready to enact vengeance on Zeus while riding the back of Gaia the Titan. Things don't go quite as planned though, as Zeus and his mates strike down the Titans, leaving Kratos to claw his way back to the top of Mount Olympus. There were three years between these games, so there was a lot of energy swelling up, plus players were eager to see the massive scale available to the PS3. Now, due to the overpowered items that one can acquire after a few playthrough or two, combat becomes almost trivial, so those looking to master the ins and outs of the combat should probably attempt harder difficulty levels.

Really there are only one a few movement tricks to learn and then it’s all about knowing where to cross boundaries to get to areas early. Skips that are missed can be attempted again by reloading a checkpoint in most cases, so even failure can make for a quick run.

Of course with Ragnell running just about every God of War game (and will likely go for some runs for the new release) he’s a great source of information.

We first asked Ragnell how to pull off a certain type of unique movement used throughout God of War 3 runs. “It’s called "Jet Dashing" where you cancel an air dash with a bow draw, and cancel that same bow draw with a block in the air. It causes the dash to continually reset over and over again. Kratos moves at incredible speeds, so it is fairly hard to control. Outside of that technique, there aren't too many high jump techniques. We just jet dash across large horizontal areas to skip segments of the game.”

Before the run even begins, there is a glitch that allows for destroying an obstacle early. This is used in the Any% NG+ category. “we can use the NG+ glitch to obtain the Nemean Cestus, and break the chain within Hades directly at the start, causing end game. The run itself is barely over 50 minutes long.”

The best runners use this to really take the time down. Currently runner Godzika holds one of the top spots with a 52 minutes and 47 seconds time on the PS4. It’s pretty wild to watch this player zoom through each playable area, but again, much of the run is waiting for cutscenes to play out.

“About 85% of the run is cutscenes, so you have to get used to seeing some over and over again. Otherwise, it is the easiest God of War game to learn, so it is a great beginner run if you want to get into the series,” said Ragnell.

While it’s been a while, Ragnell still holds one of the top times on the PS3.

All in all, God of War 3 is worth looking into for speedgamers that are fans of the series and enjoy runs with some downtime. Speedruns can be strenuous on the hands in some cases, so the more laid back nature of this run may be appealing.

Ragnell is also an Admin at speedrun.com for the newest God of War and runs will likely be pouring in for the first few weeks after release. Time will tell if the game stays a viable speedgame or how long before players discover exploits to make for faster times.

We asked Ragnell what his estimate for early runs would be. “I'd say 5 hours at the start but I'm sure we can take it down pretty far.”

There we have it folks, over under five hours for the first God of War runs? We’ll take the faster end of that, but we shall see.

Lastly, we asked Ragnell if he could convince someone to pick up any game in the series as a speedrun, how would he do so? “I'd say they would need experience speedrunning 3D games. A lot of speedrunning nowadays is in 2D and shifting to 3D can be a little overwhelming.”

There are also a ton of guides available here and jumping into the Discord is also a great way to learn from others running the series. As with any other run, research usually comes after picking a game, so watch plenty of runs and get some practice attempts in before setting the timer for a full run.

You can find Ragnell streaming on Twitch and we can likely expect to see some new God of War action very soon.