God of War (PS4) - Crafting Guide

God of War has a deep and satisfying crafting system that allows players to forge new armour, upgrade existing gear, and customize any perks and bonuses they want to attribute to Kratos and Atreus. In this guide I'm covering a complete overview of crafting including a detailed look at the process, materials, upgrades and much more.

As you progress through the game you'll constantly be finding, buying and upgrading armour to improve your character stats. These in turn make Kratos (and Atreus) more powerful by increasing strength, defense, special moves and several other key areas. On the other hand you'll also be unlocking new Skills to improve your attack combos and fluidity, backed up with more impressive special moves via Runic attacks.

Contents

Hacksilver and XP
Rarity Types
Crafting new armour
Character stats
Upgrading gear
Enchantments and Runes

Hacksilver and XP

God of War's two currencies are Hacksilver and XP. Both are used for crafting, upgrading, buying and unlocking new items in the game. Almost every activity in the game rewards the player with XP whilst Hacksilver is gained from opening chests, completing treasure maps and via random drops.

XP's primary use is to unlock new skills and upgrade Runes (Special Moves). Hacksilver on the other hand, is used as an ingredient in crafting and as a currency for buying new gear.

Crafting materials

Alongside Hacksilver, crafting materials are also required to craft new gear and upgrade others. The resources needed to complete a crafting recipe are shown underneath the items stats and perk description.

How to get crafting materials

Crafting materials are dropped by dead enemies throughout the world. The game does a good job of giving you materials that are appropriate to your progress. For example, Steel is a common early drop whilst Smouldering Ember drops later in the game.

Here are some examples of crafting materials:

Hardened Steel
Frozen Flame
Smouldering Ember
Ancients Heart

Rarity Types

God of War has four tiers of rarity, which are highlighted in game by a set of colours. The rarities and colours are:

Green (Common)
Blue (Rare)
Purple (Legendary)
Gold (Epic)

The best items in the game are Gold variants, offering the highest stats, best perks etc. Not many Gold items will appear at the start of the game, but towards the end you'll depend on these top tier weapons and armour to defeat the toughest BOSS fights.

Crafting new armour

Players craft new armour in shops, usually found in NPC populated areas. Early in the game there are 6 crafting choices at a shop: Chest Armour, Wrist Armour, Waist Armour, Atreus Armour, Axe Pommel and Talisman.

The image above shows the Chest Armour crafting screen with 8 possible crafting choices. There are 3 Gold (Epic) items, 2 Blue (Rare) and 3 Green (Common) items available. Each crafting option costs a certain amount of Hacksilver, and in some cases crafting materials are also needed, such as Smouldering Ember in the example above.

As you hover over each item in the crafting menu, the character stats on the right increase/decrease to reflect the change in stats should you proceed and equip this new item.

Character stats

Kratos has 6 character stats, each one maintaining a particular value. The available stats are:

Strength - increases damage for all standard attacks.
Runic - increases both Runic Attack and Elemental damage.
Defence - reduces all damage taken.
Vitality - increases maximum Health and decreases the severity of hit reactions from enemy attacks.
Luck - increases Perk activation chance. Increases XP and Hacksilver gains.
Cooldown - reduces recharge time of Runic Attacks, Runic Summons, and Talismans.

The value of each stat is determined by the armour you equip and the enchantments you select. Generally speaking, higher rarity items will increase character stats the most.

It's worth remembering that stats are not evenly distributed in the game. It's up to the player to equip armour that benefits the stats they care about the most. In some cases, switching an armour piece may reduce stats in one area whilst increasing them in another. It's a careful balancing act between choosing the best stats and perks for you playstyle and for the challenge ahead.

Upgrading gear

All of the armour and weapons in God of War have a Level. Levels range from 1 to 10 and naturally the higher the level, the better the item. Players can upgrade individual items to increase their level, say from 1 to 2.

Players can upgrade all of Kratos' armour (Chest, Wrist, Waist) in addition to the games weapons that include the Leviathan Axe, Talon Bow (for Atreus), Talon Quiver (for Atreus) and some others (no spoilers here).

Depending on the rarity of item, the base Level may be higher or lower. For example, upon finding a Green (Common) item, the Level may start at Level 1 but be upgradable to Level 3. Whilst a Gold (Epic) item may start at Level 4 but be upgradable to Level 6.

As you can imagine, it's a fine judgement between spending XP or materials to upgrade Level's, or wait for a better rarity item that might be just around the corner.

Enchantments and Runes

Enchantments are like special gems that slot into Sockets on your armour pieces, to further improve the stats and perks of your character. Players are limited by the number of available Sockets on their gear to the number of Enchantments they can equip. Runes on the other hand are powerful Special Moves that you'll love to unlock and experiment with.

I've covered Enchantments and Runes in more detail in this related post:

Enchantments and Runes explained