Look, I go into a pulpy western, I'd like to rob trains or something, not sell snake oil. The samey mission structure doesn't help. But I love the combat.

As for narrative...the overtly whitewashy nature of the various subplots (eugenics feels like it gets a thumbs up, of all things?) and the breathtakingly bad dialogue ruin the overall expereince. It's all misanthropic and unpleasant, which is fine if you know what you're doing, but they don't. Watch this scene to see what I mean about it being flabby. It takes place about halfway through, so spoilers. The Coen Brothers this is not.

But phoo-wee, the gunplay is fun.

What happened? How is this narrative so flabby? You can look at the good God of War games, including this one's predecessor, and pinpoint what the story's really about. In 2018, the narrative is about a man trying to connect with his son, despite wanting to protect him. The entire narrative bends through that lens. What is going on here? There are so many narrative threads and none of them really go anywhere. I could tell there was a major change in writing staff before I looked it up because man oh man, it shows. The settings are very uninspired. In 2018, you go around a big lake with a big temple. You go into the corpse of a giant your paranoid, ubiquitous antagonist has slain. In this one, you go through tropical rainforests, including one where people have attached feathers in their hair, in an attempt, I think, to make them look "indigenous". One setting (the sandy part of Alfheim) is great because of its concept (the stars) but the rest of it...pfft.

Then the gameplay is messy. When it works, it's awesome. But the need to wind-up the chain + the constant yammering NPCs have about puzzles is condescending. It's like someone who worried you'd have the attention span of TikTok needed you to keep pressing buttons or risk you yawning.