God of War game design challenges explained

God of War Director on Game Design: ‘We Have to be Bold’

At the moment, Sony’s God of War is getting more attention than any other game in recent times. It’s quite astonishing that in this day and age, with competition around every corner and expectations at their highest, SIE Santa Monica Studio actually did it. They took a big franchise and gave it a proper current-gen wrapping. It’s not just PS4 owners who are hearing about this one.

Just take a look at how much effort went into making this game. This wasn’t just another project Sony had in the pipeline. The creative people behind it really had the urge to push the boundaries. The goal wasn’t to make God of War 4. The goal was to go beyond what the previous installments have accomplished.

Speaking about production challenges, and game design in general, GoW director Cory Barlog said that they didn’t want to do the same thing. Their idea was, in fact, to reinvent the franchise. But of course, this was not easily to do because “the sort of big change, the bold change, takes constant convincing. Constant. Years of ‘just trust me, just trust me,'” said Barlog.

Cory also uncovered that apart from Sony’s first-party titles like Uncharted, Horizon, and such, they were influenced by other titles.

“We were influenced by all the games around us. We came to the table with our love of Metroid, Castelvania, Resident Evil, Onimusha,” Barlog admitted.

You could say that there’s a little of every major game franchise in the latest iteration of God of War. For the past several months, I’ve heard so many Xbox One and PC gamers talking about this game, and how much they are sad that they don’t own a PS4. God of War dominates right now, and it’s a system seller. More than that, you could say that GoW‘s incredible success is a testimony to how much people crave triple-A single-player games with strong narratives.

[Source: GameSpot YouTube]

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