God of War’s Side Content Will Have Consequences In Potential Sequels, Cory Barlog Says

The new God of War game had an incredible wealth of side content, richly contextualized and fantastic to play through, that arguably represented some of the best content in the game period. It was also content that started a lot of tangential stories (many touching upon the larger world of Norse mythology), a lot of which were not resolved in this game.

Which means that have to carry forward into the sequels, right? According to game director Cory Barlog, the answer to that is yes. Every single story, big or small, started in God of War will feed into the whole narrative that the series will tell going forward.

“Every one of those things is a part of the whole tapestry, they are critical to propping up the whole story,” Barlog said in an interview with GamingBolt. “We are putting a lot of pieces in motion, and when going into the second one, all those pieces are leading into the whole. The whole is a very complex story, that I am trying to figure out how to break down into the simplest elements, so you can push through it with a clear understanding of what your goal is. So, using the example of a beginning of a game, of Fallout 3, it’s a complicated game, it’s a vast and crazy labyrinthian story, but begin that game, you find out “my dad’s Liam Neeson! My dad is missing!” Now find your dad. Right? And that’s the pivotal driver. It’s a reverse Taken.

“And you have a simple way to drive through it, but you have a lot of complicated things happening around. So as we set things into motion in the first game, there’s a lot of pieces now, but it should always be driven by that simple underlying understanding of the pivot. But yeah, everything will continue, there is stuff that is in here that is set up that people will be surprised, that’s not just a part of it, but will be an interesting consequence. Everything in the world has consequences!”

It is good to hear that this content will continue to be built upon in the upcoming sequels- as mentioned already, in many cases, this was the best content in the game, period, and an example of some of the best ancillary content of the generation, right up there with the sidequests in The Witcher 3.

God of War is available now exclusively on the PS4.