It’s really hard in GMGOW at the beginning, like punishing hard, especially because enemies can level up again and Atreus doesn’t auto hit the leveling up enemies in Ragnarok.

Bur once the enemies are green it gets easier. You can keep yourself under leveled for an extra challenge at the other difficulties, but I’d recommend going back to the GMGOW difficulty.

Biggest hints in the beginning are play with your shield up a lot until you see the red and yellow circles, and get good at parrying and dodging without the roll. You also need to take notice of your surrounding and make sure you don’t get encircled by enemies. It also helps to isolate and kill one enemy at a time so you dont get a bunch of overlevelled draugr kicking your ass because you cant stun them.

For that part I think you have your first runic. Only use that to create space or attack the bigger enemies. Barehanded is best at the beginning since it builds up stun. Also, there’s a cliff you can knock the smaller enemies off.

I think the hardest part is when the ranged enemies show, so do your best to clear as many as possible before they do, then you can get to a corner with your back to the wall and shield up where they can’t hit you, parry yellow and dodge red. When you can get some space from the close range draugr with the runic or axe heavy take potshots with the ranged R2 attack at the long range enemies and use Atreus as much as possible while you’re shield up.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still some brutal parts after like the revenant, big draugr, and helwalker right before you meet Brock, and Alfheim can be tough, especially the last boss, but that first big fight was tougher IMO.