God of War Ragnarök PS4: How does previous-gen version compare?

How well does God of War Ragnarök run on PS4?
Now that God of War Ragnarök is out on both PS4 and PS5, you might be wondering how good the game is looking on Sony's previous generation console.
The PS5 console is easier than ever to buy at the moment in terms of availability — there are PS5 bundles including God of War Ragnarök available on Amazon right now (in fact, at the time of writing) — but still, not everyone will be able to afford that investment in the current climate.
The PS4 sold hundreds of millions of units and lots of players are still using theirs, so how good is the PlayStation 4 version of God of War Ragnarök? Read on to find out!
Yes, God of War Ragnarök is out now on PS4. Players who haven't already picked up some PS5 stock will be very glad to hear that.
You can order God of War Ragnarök on PS4 from retailers such as GAME and Amazon, or you could just order it directly on the console's built-in store.
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If you've played a big new game on your PS4 in the last few years (The Last of Us Part 2 is one that comes to mind here), you might be wondering if God of War Ragnarök will make your trusty old console sound like it's about to explode due to overexertion.
We haven't been able to play Ragnarök on PS4 ourselves, given that our PS4 was traded off to CeX a while back, but we were pleasantly surprised to hear that it "looks and performs stupendously on the base PlayStation 4", according to a report from The Washington Post.
The article adds: "The image is sharp and crisp, especially with incredible high dynamic range color application. Even during its busiest action sequences, my eye was not able to perceive significant frame drops."
Do expect some noise from the older console, though. The report notes that "the PS4 fans will kick into overdrive for much of the game. I tested the game on a PS4 slim model […] the fan was audible from a few feet away."
If you are planning to play on PS4, another thing to expect is loading time increases. The report states: "On PlayStation 4, loading into a save took about 50 seconds, as opposed to the mere handful of seconds on PlayStation 5."
Now that the game is out, graphics comparison videos have started doing the rounds online as well. The one below is worth checking out as it does side-by-side shots of the PS5, the PS4 and the PS4 Pro. Take a look below to see what you're in for!
As with the 2018 God of War game, you'll notice that all the loading should be hidden away once you're actually into a game, which remains a very nice touch. (We suspect that the travel between realms segments might take a bit longer on PS4, but that's not much of a price to pay.) And so, the end is not yet nigh for the PS4. There's life in the old dog yet.
Read more on God of War:
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