Curse the Gods! An Interview with God of War Speedrunner Ragnell

While speedrunning is indeed a niche hobby, there are sub-genres within speedrunning that are worth exploring and often do not get as much exposure. We’ve seen everything from Wii Sports Golf, to Job Simulator, to Tetris, to even getting kicked out of Club Penguin when that was a thing. One gaming genre though that seems like a counterintuitive speedrun are hack-and-slash games, which usually stop the player from progressing unless they defeat all of the enemies in an area. Ragnell blows that expectation out of the water with his various God of War speedruns.

God of War is a series that, again, doesn’t seem like it would make much of a speedrun. However, with expansive knowledge on boss cycles, some new game plus assistance, and some mastery of the game’s combat the game can be bested in about an hour. Couple this with knowing which battles can be avoided or which barriers can be hopped over and there are few moments of downtime in these runs. 

We interviewed Ragnell over Twitter about running the God of War series, with a particular focus on God of War II.

Like many players of the era, God of War blew players away with its impressive graphics and brutal violence. Each game subsequently took things to more grand vistas to fight larger and larger monsters from the Greek pantheon, all while "hero" Kratos trampled over the bodies of anything that stood in his way. “I've loved the series since I was a teenager,” said Ragnell, “I played the first one and fell in love with it. I continued buying every new game on release day except the PSP titles, but those are still great games too. I found the gameplay addicting and the mythology to be well presented.”

As a fan of the series, Ragnell eventually found another runner, which eventually pushed him to try the series as a speedrun. “About a year and a half ago, I became interested in the series as a speedrun because I finally found someone who actually ran the series (Exe_de). It motivated me to purchase stream equipment to showcase my runs.”

Running the God of War games is a challenge for sure, but it was partly a lack of other players attempting those runs that got Ragnell excited to get his name on a leaderboard. “Well, there is barely competition. Especially in God of War II, where my time has become unbested for over a year, with 3 minutes difference between my time and 2nd place. GoW2 in particular is quite intensive, with little downtime between tricks. It has moments where one mistake can make or break the pace.”

Luckily, a lot of the story can be cut out of a run. “All cutscenes can be skipped, so there are few breaks to work with. I think the game looks cool with skips because the techniques/high jumps are similar to inputting a fighting game combo continually to gain enough height to breach over walls. My only complaint about the high jumps is the in-and-out of the menuing that goes along with every jump. This is only an issue with God of War II.”

When it comes to cutscenes, while main ones can be skipped, action sequences using button prompts known as Quick Time Events have to be hit correctly to truly make a good time on some fights. “The developers give you a generous amount of time to hit the randomized QTEs scattered through the run. Just don't rush it.”

In some of the God of War games there is an ability that can be gathered later on that does the QTEs for the player automatically. Ragnell said this can be a great asset in a run, but “even then, sometimes the games that let you skip QTE don't skip all of the QTEs.” In some instances, missing a crucial input in these events can cause minutes of time loss.

Aside from skipping cutscenes and hitting events properly, knowing the game’s combat, unique movement, and how enemies tick is a big part of putting together a successful run. “Some of the games have very unique methodologies with its momentum system.” said Ragnell. “The main trilogy which includes Ascension all have access to LAM (Lenient Air Momentum), a technique in which you carry over an aerial attack's momentum into a grounded jump. This causes Kratos to become much more floaty and rise much higher. Over time this momentum decays, so runners are forced into a ticking clock scenario to get the inputs correct to utilize your momentum while it lasts. Kratos sinks like a stone if you run out of momentum.”

Of course one of the most exciting parts of the God of War games are the bosses, each more intimidating than the last. Ragnell says that bosses are not much of an issue in a speedrun. “Boss cycling is nothing special. Bosses can be readily cycled into a pattern that is optimized. Except the fight with Lahkesis near the end of God of War II, her movement once airborne is completely dependent on her positioning, your positioning, and RNG.”

For other runners that may look into picking up a God of War game, Ragnell gave some encouragement. “I would definitely say it's a good game series to speedrun. RNG has its place in each of the runs, but it's nothing unmanageable.”

Of course, with any speedgame, practice is what separates the best from the rest. Ragnell did add though that. “If you develop a speedrun, you will learn about how your brain adapts to the techniques, and they almost become mindless. It's a great experiment in brain to muscle functionality.”

When it comes to the technical setup of capturing a speedrun, Ragnell explained how he goes about it, “I try to stream in 720p 60fps so that most people will have a middle ground quality to view. I actually use an old 2014 ‘gaming laptop’ and it seems to run the stream well with an Elgato capture card. Lighting is a challenge though, because I continue to procrastinate buying a decent lighting setup.”

While the God of War series has been on many PlayStation consoles, the releases on the PS3 are what Ragnell uses to capture and perform his runs. “I run the PS3 God of War Collection, the Origins Collection, and Ascension all on my PS3, and the PS4 release of GoW3.” Hooking up a capture device to a PS3 or PS4 is also usually much easier than a PSP and there are some performance advantages as well.

Soon a new type of God of War will be hitting PS4, ditching the zoomed out, over-the-top style for a more grounded third-person narrative. Ragnell was skeptical, but said “I just don't know how much God of War it will be.” That title will launch in mid-April; it will be interesting to see how it compares to past titles and the legacy that Kratos built.

Because Ragnell has played hundreds of hours of one of the more violent video game franchises out there, we wanted to see what he thought of the proposed correlation between real life violence and violence in games. We asked Ragnell if he thinks there is a connection there at all, “I don't personally think so. If you are a decent human being who was raised to be a morally centered person, the differentiation between real life and the video game world is established from childhood. It begins with the parents.”

“ESRB ratings exist for a reason. They should be followed.”

Ragnell’s future looks to be incorporating a larger challenge with his runs, similar to what Strizer86 did with the Mega Man series. “I call it the Saga Speedrun,” said Ragnell. He of course also wants to have better times in each game and somewhere along the way getting the Twitch Partner status is something he’d love to have.

Find Ragnell streaming God of War runs on his Twitch channel.