{"id":695,"date":"2026-04-10T09:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/5fab2e07e4b017964f147add"},"modified":"2026-04-10T09:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:37:10","slug":"godfall-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/godfall-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Godfall Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

New consoles have an illustrious history of launch-day games that are fairly entertaining and technically impressive, but don\u2019t make much of an impact on the generation they help debut. Godfall<\/a> feels like a game that will probably occupy that space for the PlayStation 5 (to which it is a timed console exclusive), putting it in the company of games like Ryse: Son of Rome on the Xbox One, Red Steel on the Wii, or even (dare I say) Knack on the PlayStation 4. It\u2019s an amusing loot-based hack-and-slasher with a gorgeous look and loads of loadout choice, but a paper-thin story and a lack of variety keep it from being much more than shallow fun.<\/p>\n

Despite a feature list that includes three-player online co-op, repeatable missions with randomized loot, and a grindable endgame, developer Counterplay Games says Godfall is not<\/em> a \u201cgame as a service\u201d in the same vein as Destiny \u2013 and it doesn\u2019t entirely feel like one, though the influences of that format are clear as day. Instead, the roughly 10 hours it took me to complete its campaign felt like a more linear game wearing the skin of a \u201clive service,\u201d obviously designed for replayability but without the trappings of microtransactions to avoid and an endless update cycle to look forward to.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re Betrayed and Yada Yada Yada You Fight God<\/h2>\n

Part of that skin is an entirely forgettable story that\u2019s the very definition of passable. Godfall\u2019s opening cinematic (which you can watch<\/a> below) does the bare minimum to loosely establish its beautifully designed world and a warring feud between you \u2013 a fallen king named Orin \u2013 and the big bad Macros, your brother who is trying to become a god even if it means destroying the world as a result. Your quest to stop him is a threadbare setup to go fight some dudes that’s mostly told through info dumps at your base, doing nothing to pull me from one mission to the next but also not so bad as to be distracting. Without spoiling anything, its culmination is about as blunt and pointless as the journey there too.<\/p>\n

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The missions that make up this story take place on three open-world maps called realms, which are dotted with a decent variety of enemies to kill, chests to open, and resources to gather. A mission will give you a specific goal or target to head toward, but you\u2019re also free to wander around and find other stuff like chests and crafting materials as you do it \u2013 or even stick around after the mission to complete extra encounters for even more loot. It\u2019s a structure that surprised me, one that reminded me a lot of Warframe\u2019s sprawling, reward-filled levels but with a set layout instead of a procedurally pieced together one.<\/p>\n

Godfall really does look great, with vibrant environments and incredible character, world, and equipment designs. All three of its realms \u2013 earth, water, and air \u2013 are beautiful, and their bespoke designs mean they can occasionally have a logic to them that I appreciated. On the earth map, for example, there\u2019s a large fortress built into a mountain that is visually distinct from the flat battlefield strewn with destroyed siege weapons just outside its gates. That said, part of their \u201cnext-gen\u201d feel is that everything in this world is shining like the dang sun with over-the-top bloom lighting. That can be adjusted in the menu, but the effect is so strong by default that it\u2019s sometimes hard to actually see certain enemies underneath all their glowing particle effects.<\/p>\n

The bespoke maps are amusing to explore\u2026 the first few times, at least.<\/p>\n
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The maps themselves are full of cool looking areas that are fun to run through\u2026 the first few times, at least. They may be extremely visually distinct, but all three realms are functionally identical: basically just a series of plain, mostly circular arenas connected by short paths, with the occasional collectible or easily crossed terrain obstacle (mostly gaps that you clear just by holding Circle) scattered throughout. Godfall\u2019s missions will send you running through these areas over and over again, so while it\u2019s fun to stumble upon hidden resources and neat locations initially, they inevitably lose their luster upon repeat visits.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t help that the mission objectives are all incredibly similar too, with nearly every one of them being summed up as \u201cmindlessly follow this waypoint and kill this specific mini-boss.\u201d You\u2019ll occasionally see simple \u201cfight off waves of enemies\u201d or \u201cbreak these objects\u201d tasks thrown into the mix, but for the most part you are dropped somewhere on the map, pointed where to go, and then fight a slightly bigger baddie when you get there. That\u2019s genuinely fun the first time you do a given mission, but Godfall uses repeat missions to pad out its campaign in a pretty disappointing way (and then builds its entire endgame on that concept).<\/p>\n

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Enemy variety can wear similarly thin, despite there being some cool differences between each type. Assassins dressed in black have to be approached differently than knights hiding behind giant shields, and I enjoyed prioritizing weaker support targets first while having to avoid their stronger but tankier allies. But when missions repeatedly threw the same groups of them at me, smaller fights on the way to my ultimate target eventually became a chore. (Occasionally I would even simply run past them with no consequence beyond the lost opportunity to gain experience.)<\/p>\n

The conceptually clever enemy designs extend to bosses and mini-bosses as well. All of them have unique abilities and specific strategies to take them down, and I really enjoyed the challenge they could initially present. Mini-bosses include a giant alligator that can turn invisible, a spectral knight that summons ghosts, and an absolute jerk of an assassin who will throw knives at you and teleport away when you get close. The big bosses that (mostly) cap off each realm are even larger and more elaborate encounters with special arenas, and they are really fun\u2026 again, the first few times you face them. By my count there are only around 12 or so mini-bosses and six proper bosses, the former of which are recycled during the campaign itself and all of which are reused in Godfall\u2019s endgame. Even before the story is over, it becomes fairly clear Godfall has mostly run out of new stuff to show you, and that\u2019s when it quickly stops being novel.<\/p>\n

The feeling that some chunk of content is missing here is very real.<\/p>\n
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And if you can abide a bit of speculation, it strikes me as incredibly conspicuous that there\u2019s an earth boss for the earth realm, a water boss for the water realm, and then inexplicably the fire and air bosses are both in the air realm, with one of them unlocked mostly by repeating previous missions. If that doesn\u2019t scream \u201cwe had to cut the fire realm to hit the PS5 launch date\u201d I don\u2019t know what does \u2013 but even if I\u2019m off base with that assumption, at least the feeling<\/em> that some chunk of content is missing here is very real.<\/p>\n

Pick Your Poison<\/h2>\n

What keeps Godfall going for as long as it does is that the combat itself can be very amusing. While it is certainly clunky at times \u2013 for example, there\u2019s no way to easily swap between locked-on targets, and while the camera is pulled in close like God of War, the indicators for what enemies are doing outside of your vision are significantly less clear \u2013 but the rhythm I eventually settled into was satisfying and impressively flexible. Godfall has loads of different combat mechanics to explore, all of which feel like powerful avenues no matter which of its distinct-feeling weapons you decide to use.<\/p>\n

Some of it is familiar, like using heavy attacks to quickly build up an enemy\u2019s Breach gauge, exposing them to finishing moves and more damage when full. But while that emphasizes leading with heavies (especially against guarding enemies), the novel Soulshatter mechanic encourages the opposite: on top of their regular damage, light attacks will essentially bank part of an enemy\u2019s health bar, and when you follow up with a heavy hit it triggers that effect to deal all of the damage you banked in a single burst. Use that to finish an enemy off and they\u2019ll actually explode in a lovely puff of particles. Soulshatter adds an engaging and easy-to-understand combo mechanic to every fight, and I enjoyed trying to figure out just the right amount of light attacks to hit with before using a heavy to pop an enemy like a balloon.<\/p>\n

On top of that, there\u2019s also the Polarity system, which is an interesting method of incentivizing you to both stick with and also swap between your two equippable weapon slots. Dealing damage with one weapon will charge the Polarity of the other, and switching to a fully charged weapon will empower its attacks for a while \u2013 but if you switch too early, the charge starts over. Gear effects can use this in interesting ways, too: I spent a chunk of the campaign using a Longsword (which provide a good balance of speed and power) that charged Polarity faster, while my secondary weapon was a set of Dual Blades (a much quicker alternative) that would cause a status ailment when it had its Polarity buff active. It\u2019s a neat mechanic that made my choice of secondary weapon feel just as important as my primary.<\/p>\n

Soulshatter makes for a fun and accessible combo system that lets you pop enemies like balloons.<\/p>\n
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There\u2019s even a Weakpoint system that reminded me of Fortnite of all things, occasionally adding little symbols to parts of an enemy that you can point your reticle at while swinging to deal even more damage. Layer that with dodges, a parry with a very forgiving activation window, and a whole bunch of ways to modify all this with equipment and Godfall certainly gives you a lot to mess with and think about during combat. The main thing that sells this all a bit short, however, is how well straight up hacking and slashing can work too, at least on the Normal difficulty setting (which also undercuts things slightly by making death almost entirely inconsequential, sometimes even respawning you directly in front of the enemy that just killed you). Playing in co-op with friends is of course a welcome treat, but it makes this issue even more apparent as you all swing madly at whatever enemy is unfortunate enough to be in front of you at the time.<\/p>\n

But Godfall gives you plenty of tools to flex your playstyle preference, most noticeably in your choice of Valorplate \u2013 basically a suit of armor that slightly alters your capabilities and looks incredibly cool. There are 12 total that are unlocked at a fairly fast pace as you progress, and each one shares your overall character level and equipment. Every Valorplate is designed to amplify one of Godfall\u2019s other mechanics: one increases Breach damage while another increases Soulshatter buildup, and there\u2019s one for each status ailment, including Ignite, Chill, Shock, and Poison. One of my favorites for a time was Bulwark, a Valorplate that increases Bleed chance, since I could pair it with powerful weapons that also caused Bleed and dealt extra damage to enemies affected by it.<\/p>\n

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Every Valorplate in Godfall<\/p>\n