Fafnir's hoard - in the second room, there is a poison device, two grunts and a lvl 5 purple bar hammer guy. He kept one shorting me, so I went off and did a huge chunk of story before returning to it and he no longer had a purple bar, but he was now lvl 7 and killed me in two hits, as i'd picked up a health upgrade. Still I was better so I finished him off

rhe easiest way to do it is to chip them all down and then finish them off in quick succession - Atreus arrows work well for that

I’ll be honest and say the ending caught me by complete surprise - I think I had assumed that Kratos and Atreus were gonna be kept separate from the Norse mythos, simply because Kratos himself is a foreigner and I had, perhaps lazily, not put much though into the fact that his kid wasn’t. Of course, I knew he wasn't Greek, but I had been seeing him as an attachment to Kratos’ lineage up until that point, and not a cog in the main lore of the land. So yeah, I was blindsided and I loved it.

The low-key ending was beautiful, and I really like that it came off the back of that showdown with Baldur. That whole sequence perfectly demonstrates why I think the game is so impressive. A final boss fight of immense scale (for this God of War game, at least) and yet the stakes felt personal - I was worried about Freya, and desperately didn’t want to cause her more pain. And so, to come off of that and finish the game with a lovely walk with the kid up to the top of the mountain was special - this was the climax of the game, and this is what was important. Then the credits roll and we make our way back down the steps. It’s really indicative of how much care and attention had been put into the game by a group of people who evidently paid attention to every little detail.

Honestly, I think everything from getting the black rune on was really special. That place, getting through the traps and opening doors to solve the Hel’s Wind puzzle was really great. Then all that came after, all the way to underneath Tyre’s temple, flipping the temple to access the secret door, and running through a second trap area, this time more complex and with enemies. Following that with the world serpent, straight into the showdown and then finally entering the land of the giants, was a sequence of areas and set pieces which are scarily consistent in quality - like much of the game.

As far as the sequel goes, I don’t see how it can’t happen. The remaining threads - Freya’s rage, the disappearance of the giants, and the gaze of Thor and Odin - have now been properly established. Thankfully, they don’t feel like cliffhanger sequel-bait, and this is a story which feels complete in its own right. If / When they do a sequel, I just hope they maintain the tone and intimacy, even if the likes of Thor will, by definition, ramp up the scale.

Violence will be inflicted upon the boy and daddy Kratos - that’s unavoidable. Even if there were no sequel, they wouldn’t be living peacefully in the woods. They’re wanted men.

I’d like to see God of War 2 act as a counterpoint to the old GoW3. Where in that game he selfishly brought down the gods and damned all of mankind to suffering purely as a means to reach his own ends, in the new one he would act as a successor to Tyr or even take on that mantle. A God of War who believes in peace who would fight gods that would endanger what remains of the world and hope to guide Loki into adulthood.

One point you raised in the link really hit me though - they have to ditch spartan rage next time. Maybe even replace it with a power which does the exact opposite, pure calmness in absolute chaos, with time slowed down.