God Of War (2018)

• There's like a million things to upgrade, so make sure you dig through your menus on a regular basis. In addition to your weapon upgrade tree, you can upgrade your runic attacks, Atreus's summons, etc.

• In addition to being able to damage stuff by throwing your axe, you can also hit stuff with it on its return flight. This will become a necessary technique later so you might as well practice it early.

• You unlock fast travel relatively late in the game so don't bust your ass backtracking for optional stuff early on.

• The sprinting r1 attack and the r1 r1 r1 r2 combo are probably the first two upgrades you should shoot for.

• The one that lets you break enemies' guard by double-tapping L1 is basically essential because it's a hard counter to certain enemy types.

• Atreus becomes kind of a murder machine if you invest in his bow upgrades and skills, so don't skimp on that.

• As far as gear upgrades go, I think you should not bother spending your materials upgrading your early low level gear. As you progress through the game, the dwarf shops will sell you new tiers of basic gear in exchange for hacksilver that outlevels your upgraded old stuff, so you might as well save your mats until you find a nice purple/yellow piece that you want to sink some upgrades into.

• Your axe upgrades are plot-gated; you'll pick up frozen flames from main quest bosses, and you should spend them on axe upgrades as soon as you're able, they're no good for anything else.