Santa Monica talks about God of War Ragnarok on PC: “We were impressed with the mods”

After a certain period of exclusivity on PlayStation consoles, God of War Ragnarok arrived on PC in Septemberin a port carried out by Santa Monica in partnership with Jetpack Interactive, the studio that also brought the 2018 game to computers. In an interview given to Voxeltwo studio representatives spoke about the experience of bringing the title to the computer.

Steve Tolin, technical director of Jetpack, and Santa Monica producer Matt DeWald, commented on the challenges involved in the port, in addition to the new features exclusive to the computer version. According to the duo, the team has always prioritized optimization in the game, but without neglecting the possibilities brought by the PC.

Furthermore, the duo also commented on the power of the modding community on PC, which can bring impressive results without official support.

Devs wanted to overcome limits with port, but without forgetting scalability

During the interview with Voxel, Steve Tolin and Matt DeWald commented on the collaboration between the Jetpack and Santa Monica studios, which certainly made the task of bringing Ragnarok to the PC easier. According to the duo, the team wanted to expand and overcome limits on some fronts, such as implementing new ultrawide resolutions and support for high-frequency monitors, but without forgetting scalability.

God of War Ragnarok arrived on PC optimized for high-budget PCs, but also for the Steam Deck.

The proof of this is the fact that the game runs on the Steam Deck. According to Tolin, the team already had everything planned to make the game work well on both powerful PCs and laptops, which made the job of ensuring quality on Valve’s laptop easier. “It’s all part of our scalability plan. We had our minimum requirements plan and knew it was possible to launch on the Steam Deck as we have done this in the past [com God of War 2018]”, explains the Jetpack Interactive representative.

According to Tolin, the Jetpack team has experienced developers who are already familiar with the optimization process, which is essential in the PC port, as there are different hardware on which the game must run. “We have a long history of optimizing, just like Santa Monica on consoles, and no matter what the hardware, there’s always some way to achieve a little more.”

Frame Generation is the biggest new feature in the game

For more powerful computers, DeWald highlighted the importance of serving the public with updated upscalers, such as the new versions of Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel Xess. The producer from Santa Monica said that the team already has experience with this type of technology, which guaranteed good results in the game, and the big highlight now is the frame generation technologies.

“We are very familiar with upscaling technologies, but the big news in Ragnarok is Frame Generation from AMD and Nvidia,” says DeWald. “There are some technical complexities in getting everything to work correctly and making sure it works well.”

God of War Ragnarok arrived on PC with recent versions of DLSS, FSR and Intel Xess.

According to Tolin, Frame Generation was new to the Jetpack team and dealing with “different timelines” to deliver more frames can seem very complicated. However, upscaling solutions are increasingly modern and companies, such as Nvidia, are receiving feedback from developers to facilitate the implementation of technologies.

Matt DeWald also mentioned the future RTX 50 series of graphics cardsfrom Nvidia, and who is eager to see the game running with all these technologies with a lot of firepower. “Everyone wants more fidelity, but with more speed and FPS, even if the frames are generated”, says the producer.

According to the Santa Monica representative, the team’s objective is to ensure that the game is prepared for the future on PC, with technologies that will guarantee compatibility with new hardware in the future. “I’m interested to see how our work will continue to grow. With these unblocked games, how far [o hardware] Can you really take them?”

“We were impressed with the community”

Those responsible for the God of War port were also impressed by the power of the community on PC. While Tolin highlighted that he is amazed by the creations coming from Photo mode, DeWald showed his appreciation for the people who build modifications for the game.

God of War modifications impressed the developer.

“I’m always impressed with what they can do because even internally, for us, making a new model and redirecting animations is quite a job”, reveals the producer of God of War Ragnarok on PC. “Seeing people who don’t have our tools making is incredible.”

The Santa Monica representative recalled the iconic 2018 God of War scene with Kratos and Baldur fighting, which gained alternative versions thanks to mods. According to DeWald, he can’t wait to stop and check out all the creations that will be made with the clash between Thor and the God of War in Ragnarok.

God of War Ragnarok is currently available on PC, PS4 and PS5. Have you already played the game? Comment on Voxel’s social networks!