God of War Kratos and Atreus Upgrades Guide

In our God of War Upgrades Guide, we have detailed everything you need to know about upgrading Kratos's weapons, armor, and Atreus' weapons and armor.

By Ali Asif

In this God of War Upgrades Guide, we will be guiding you on different upgrades and powerful skills that you can purchase and equip in God of War 4. For the first time in any God of War game, we have the ability to upgrade both Kratos’s armor and weapons as well as Atreus’s weapon and armor.

This time around, you have the option to upgrade Kratos’s weapons, armor, equip different Runic Attacks, and purchase powerful skills to help you in combat. In addition to this, you also have the option to craft new armor now.

God of War Upgrades

Below you will find different weapons upgrades that you can purchase. Along with the weapon upgrades, we have also detailed different Runic Attacks and Summons, Skills, Pommels, Talismans, Enchantments and Armor upgrades that you can purchase and equip.

God of War Weapon Upgrades

This section will tell you about all weapons that are owned by Kratos and Atreus and how many upgrades each weapon has.

Leviathan Axe Upgrades

Leviathan Axe is one of Kratos’s weapon and it can be upgraded once you return the Frozen Flames to Brok or Sindri. It has a total of six upgrades. Here is how you get them:

  • Upgrade #1 – Unlocked by Default
  • Upgrade #2 – Escape Ruins and Meet Brok
  • Upgrade #3 – Defeat Ogre in the Foothills
  • Upgrade #4 – Defeat Jarn Fotr in Heart of the Mountain
  • Upgrade #5 – Defeat Magni and Modi at Thamur’s Corpse
  • Upgrade #6 – Purchased from Shop in Niflheim Center Chamber Chest for 5,000 Mist Echoes

Blades of Chaos Upgrades

Kratos’s signature weapon, Blades of Chaos, return in God of War and this time they are better than ever. You will have to return Chaos Flames to Brok or Sindri first to start upgrading them. They come with five upgrades:

  • Upgrade #1 – Unlocked by Default
  • Upgrade #2 – Defeat Mattugr Helson in Helheim
  • Upgrade #3 – Defeat Trolls in Tyr’s Vault after acquiring the Black Rune Stone
  • Upgrade #4 – Defeat Hel-Traveler during the Helheim Escape
  • Upgrade #5 – Purchased from Shop with Raging Inferno of Muspelheim, Defeat Valkyrie Gondul at the top

Talon Bow Upgrades

Talon Bow is Atreus main weapon and you will be using them frequently on the journey. We recommend that you upgrade them as well along with Kratos’s main weapon because they are very useful.

You can upgrade them at Huldra shop if you have enough Hacksilver and Svartalfheim Steel.

  • Upgrade #1 – Unlocked by Default
  • Upgrade #2 – Reach the start of River Pass
  • Upgrade #3 – Reach the Lake of Nine
  • Upgrade #4 – Return to Midgard after Alfheim to unlock the 4th upgrade
  • Upgrade #5 – Return to Mountain Summit and obtain Mimir’s Head to unlock the 5th upgrade for the Talon Bow.
  • Upgrade #6 – This upgrade will unlock once you heal Atreus.

Quiver Upgrades

You can upgrade Atreus’s Quiver 4 times to unlock additional abilities for it.  Here is how you can acquire all 4 upgrades for the Quiver.

  • Upgrade #1 – Unlocked by Default
  • Upgrade #2 – Reach Lake Nine to unlock the 2nd upgrade for the bow.
  • Upgrade #3 – Go back to the Mountain Summit to unlock the 3rd upgrade for the Quiver.
  • Upgrade #4 – The last quiver upgrade is available after the second water drop

Armor Upgrades in God of War

Kratos has a three-layered armor that includes chest, wrists, and waist. The armor plays a vital role in affecting different stats and bonuses. As you progress through the game, you can unlock better gear but even the basic set of armor can be upgraded at shops to make it further.

Furthermore, the armor pieces come with Enchantment Slots where special enchantments can be equipped to make it even more effective.

At maximum, a piece of armor can equip three enchantments. Upgrading armor increases the number of enchantment sockets as well. You can also craft armor pieces yourself if you have the required materials.

Similar to Kratos, Atreus’s armor can also be upgraded. He has a single-piece armor so it is quite simple to upgrade his armor. You can upgrade his armor from shops by spending the required materials for the upgrade.

Runic Attacks and Summons

New to God of War, these Runic Attacks and Summons are special abilities and moves that you can equip to unlock special moves and skills. Each weapon can be equipped with a unique Runic Attack, which then can be performed by pressing the corresponding keys. If you want to unleash a Light Runic Attack, press L1+R1 otherwise press L1+R2 for a Heavy Runic Attack.

If you want to use Atreus’s Runic Summon, you can press square. All these special attacks can be used once they are charged. They need to be charged after every time so you must time them carefully and use them only when you really need them.

However, you can further improve these Runic Attacks and Summons to reduce their cooldown timers and attack power.

Skill Upgrades

You can use the XP that you earn while playing the game to earn some cool new skills. These skills are specific for each weapon, which are Leviathan Axe, Blades of Chaos, Guardian Shield and Talon Bow. You can also unlock some skills for the Rage Mode.

Apart from the Guardian Shield, all weapons must be upgraded to unlock more skills. Each upgrade unlocks new skills for you to purchase and use.

These skills provide you with different types of bonuses for a specific stat. The condition of these bonuses is that the stat must reach a specific level in order to trigger the bonus.

The level required for Cooldown stat is 125, Defense stat is 300, the Runic stat is 250, and Vitality stat is 225. You may also require special gear for utilizing these bonuses and reaching these levels.

Best Skills to Upgrade First in God of War

Here are the 10 Best Skills to Upgrade First in God of War 4. We’ve ranked these based on their effectiveness.

Permafrost

This skill is good for crowd control and slowing down enemies as you’ll deal frost damage with each hit once your combo builds up high enough.

Pride of the Frost

Use the following combo ( R1 + R1 + R1 + R2) to perform a heavy finisher at the end of the combo that deals an insane amount of damage.

Countering Strike

An unblockable counterattack that deals massive damage but requires a little practice to master.

Precision Throw Combo

Allows you to deal 2x damage on every other axe throw. This lets you deal with weaker enemies before they can even get close to you and even cripple strong enemies, allowing for easier finishers.

Precision Frost Burst

A crowd control ability that deals splash damage at every other Axe throw.

Leviathan’s Fury

An almost unavoidable attack that lets Kratos charge at his enemies and leap forward to knock them back. You can even throw enemies off the map using this skill.

Teamwork

Atreus becomes more useful and starts distracting enemies during combat.

Ferocity

Allows Atreus to stun enemies so that Kratos can follow up with deadly finishers.

Executioner’s Cleave

Let’s Kratos charge his finishers to make sure that no one escapes his fury, especially the late-game enemies who have health regen abilities.

Acrobatics

Atreus will help you build your combo and the overall feeling of combat will improve as Atreus becomes a lot more useful.

Pommels

In addition to Runic Attacks, you can also equip pommels on Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos. They provide a unique perk and increase the overall stats of each weapon.

You can upgrade these pommels for increasing their effectiveness of increasing the weapons stats even further in the shop. For a complete list of pommels, you can check our Pommels Guide by heading over to the link.

Talismans

Talismans can be equipped by Kratos for increased stats and sometimes a bonus attribute. These Talismans can be specifically targeted at a certain stat or could benefit multiple stats as well.

Some Talismans also come with an ability that you can activate anytime you like. Some of the later game Talismans are very effective and are worth all the trouble of finding them.

The usefulness of a Talisman depends on its rarity as God of War 4 has Talismans divided into 3 rarities;

  • Rare
  • Legendary
  • Epic

Epic Talismans have the best abilities and are very helpful during combat.

Enchantments

Enchantments are equipped in special sockets in armor or sometimes talismans to increase base stats and bonus perks. They help you achieve desired builds as you can increase a certain stat with their help or go for an all-rounder effect.

Upgraded armor pieces have more enchantment sockets allowing you to equip more on the same armor piece. They cannot be used if your armor does not come with Enchantment Sockets and only one enchantment is equipped in one socket.

You can check out the complete list of enchantments in our God of War Enchantments Guide by heading over to the link.

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Ali Asif

Ali is a passionate RPG gamer. He believes that western RPGs still have a lot to learn from JRPGs. He is editor-in-chief at SegmentNext.com but that doesn't stop him from writing about his favorite video ...