God Of War: 10 Best Abilities You Must Unlock First
The best survival tools for your first few hours in Midgard.
No matter how hard Kratos tries to lead some semblance of a normal life, fate always finds a way of pulling our ashen-skinned hero back into action.
With the ashes of his dearly departed other half secured and his young son in tow, the pair set off on a personal journey that soon becomes one fraught with dangers of the Nordic variety. Survival isn't guaranteed, but some wise choices on your behalf can make the quest less daunting than it needs to be.
God of War's opening hours will ease you in with a slimmed-down pool of abilities to familiarise yourself with, restricting the flow of experience to ensure you've got a hang of the basics.
That being so, spending the precious resource efficiently early on can make a world of difference for how difficult each player finds the first handful of combat encounters. There's no progression path that will make the journey impossible, but there's a handful of useful skills Kratos can prioritize that will make life a lot easier for all involved.
For the best chances of surviving against the odds, you'll be doing yourself a favour by unlocking these abilities as fast as possible. The Nine Realms are not forgiving.
10. Freezing Burst
Excluding the odd occasion where God of War decides to take things easy on its two heroes, the majority of combat encounters will see Kratos and Atreus vastly outnumbered. For every self-exiled Greek God and his progeny, there's a rabble of draugr or dark elves baying for the pair's blood. You need to be fleet-footed and aware of your surroundings at all times to survive.
Freezing Burst, however, aims to alleviate the strain of requiring constant spatial awareness by allowing Kratos to lodge his frost-tipped weapon of choice in any enemy, forcing them into a cooling-off period and essentially removing them from the fight for a few precious seconds.
The caveat, of course, is that it only works on one enemy at a time, so your best course of action is to single out the strongest member of the pack and put them on ice, thus giving you plenty of time to dispatch with the low-ranking fodder without fear of taking a beating from the king of the pack.