This page details the main differences between the difficulty settings in God of War Ragnarok. We’ll cover what you should consider choosing between Give Me Story, Give Me Grace, Give Me Balance, Give Me No Mercy, and Give Me God of War.

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Difficulty Settings in God of War Ragnarok.

All Difficulty Settings in God of War Ragnarok¶

There are currently five difficulty settings to choose from in God of War Ragnarok:

Give Me Story¶

This is the easiest difficulty setting that you can choose, and it essentially allows you to experience the story of God of War Ragnarok without having to worry much at all about your enemies. You will feel like a true god of war using this setting, as most enemies will fall after just a few strikes. The health of enemies is at its lowest at this difficulty level, and the damage that you inflict will be massive. In addition, enemies will hit you for pitiful amounts of damage. This setting is perhaps best for not only people new to the God of War franchise, but people new to gaming in general. Or if you just want to relax and enjoy the pretty scenery without worrying about dying.

Give Me Grace¶

This difficulty setting is recommended for those who are finding the default setting a little bit too distracting from the story. If you’re being hit for more damage than you’re comfortable with at the default setting, Give Me Grace will noticeably reduce your incoming damage while increasing your own outgoing damage. The people who might find this setting most useful are those who enjoy a more challenging combat experience than what Give Me Story offers, but who perhaps don’t have as much time to be investing in repeated attempts at the more difficult boss fights.

Give Me Balance¶

This is the default difficulty setting which is recommended for most players. As the name implies, you’ll be able to play with a decent balance between combat difficulty and story experience. This means that you’ll find most boss fights reasonably challenging, and even most of the regular or special enemies might give you some trouble at times. If you enjoy being challenged by a game but you still expect to emerge victorious at the end of each combat encounter without having to retry it too many times, you should stick with this setting. There’s sufficient difficulty here to make the more combat-focused elements of the story all the more engaging and intense.

Give Me No Mercy¶

If you’re a veteran of God of War games and you’re familiar with the basic mechanics, you might want to start off your journey in Ragnarok at this setting, which is equivalent to Hard. You’ll find that all enemies will have more health, they’ll hit harder, and you will need to make good use of all your skills to deal with them. At this level you should be thinking about the combat mechanics in slightly more depth, such as using your Blades of Chaos against frost enemies once you’ve upgraded them to inflict more damage against those enemies, and vice versa with the Leviathan Axe.

Give Me God of War¶

If you’re a glutton for punishment, this is the difficulty setting for you. At this level you’ll need to develop a deeper knowledge of the combat mechanics available to both Kratos and Atreus, using them both in harmony to keep your foes at bay. This means maximizing the use of Atreus’ bow at the same time as striking enemies with the Leviathan Axe or Blades of Chaos, and making good use of powerful Runic Attacks at the right moments.

For example, any AoE (Area of Effect) Runic Attacks should be reserved for when you have a bunch of enemies around you, rather than used randomly against the first foe that you encounter. You should also be thinking about combining weapons and armor to maximize your stats in advantageous ways, or even have specific armor builds set up for specific regions where you’ll get the most out of them. There’s plenty more to discuss about how you can overcome this level of difficulty, but if you’re even attempting this you’ve probably already thought about much of it yourself.

Which Difficulty Setting Is Best for You?¶

Needless to say, if you’re new to console gaming in general you should probably stick with the default setting, or even give yourself some time to adjust while you stick with the Easy or Very Easy settings. However, you’ll often find that you learn most when you’re challenged early on in the game, so don’t shy away from keeping the default setting initially. If you’re finding it too difficult after a couple of hours and you haven’t beaten Bjorn, Thor, or the Huntress in that time, you should probably think about reducing the difficulty a bit.

Unless you’re a veteran console gamer with some experience with previous God of War games, you should probably shy away from the Hard or Very Hard settings until you’ve at least completed the game on the default setting. If you begin to find that most of your combat encounters are easier than you expected, you can always increase the difficulty for a while until you find something that truly challenges you to the point where you’re forced to tune it down. The majority of players will want to stick with the Give Me Balance setting, but don’t be too shy to experiment with the others if you want or need to.