God of War Ragnarok may be Sony’s latest showcase for the PS5, but that didn’t stop one fan from almost immediately making a God of War Ragnarok trailer showcasing what the hit action game would’ve looked like as a retro game on the original PlayStation (first spotted by Eurogamer). YouTuber Jackarte created and posted the minute-long trailer on Ragnarok’s launch day, transforming some of the official trailer’s more iconic sequences into pixelated nostalgia – and a few smushed faces.
After the PSX logo disappears, the trailer shows Atreus and Kratos sledding along an ice sheet toward an imposing fortress before switching to a shot of Freya transforming from a raven to a woman and attacking Kratos.
The whole thing is an impressive achievement, though naturally, some aspects don’t transfer quite so smoothly. Atreus’ scene where he shoots an arrow toward the sky, a spectacle in the launch trailer, consists of him just shooting a vast, blank orange expanse, and the model fidelity doesn’t quite survive intact, as you’d expect.
Jackarte is no stranger to this kind of artistry either. Their more recent uploads include a Silent Hill: Townfall demake, The Witcher 3 in PS1 style – which looks surprisingly inviting, despite CD Projekt RED’s next-gen update on the way – and even a Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer in the style of a Nintendo64 game.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
