It spills over into an ill-conceived skirmish with Washington — one in which you can’t really hurt him, nor can he seem to hurt you as there’s not even a life meter present. Instead I just found myself cloaking to avoid or attacking with my newfound eagle powers only to see him fend off about 70 per cent of my strikes at seemingly random — there was certainly no discernible difference between successful attacks and failures.

Kratos’ primary tool of destruction is once again the Blades of Chaos, though this time you’re able to imbue the blades with one of four powers: fire, lightning, ice and undead. Each element is upgradable via red orbs (as are the blades themselves) with additional combos, damage and magic becoming available. Unlock past games, and there are no supplementary weapons to acquire. Instead, you can find temporary weapons in the environments that degrade, and eventually break, with continued use.

Character models look good, especially Elizabeth, who despite possessing no skill in combat manages to emerge as one of the best NPC partners I can remember. The enemies and ships you encounter have a distinct steampunk feel to them, and the blending of semi-modern technology with turn-of-the-century styling works well. There’s also plenty of bloodshed to be found throughout without ever truly crossing over into gruesome territory.

While there’s no doubt some will enjoy the relative change of pace, others will find it hurts the continuity of the story to be looking at a level breakdown every 5-to-10 minutes. I fall somewhere in the middle. I appreciate that People Can Fly changed things up a bit, but as the campaign advances the sections start to bleed together. This is especially true if you choose to declassify everything as the challenges (low visibility, limited ammo, more enemies, etc.) repeat quite liberally.