The one thing that God of War games have consistently delivered on is the sense of scale and spectacle. The games deal with titanic entities and events (literally), constantly upping the ante when it comes to just how big the enemies and environments Kratos has to contend with are. And that, much like many others, was a convention of the franchise that director Cory Barlog wanted to rethink with the new game.
“God of War has always had that sense of the James Bond or Indiana Jones opener,” Barlog told EDGE in their May issue (#318) in an interview. “We got caught in the idea of constantly topping ourselves- so much so that we lost a bit of the ‘why’ and the context, because we were just like, ‘Bigger! Bigger!’ So I said [with this new game] we are throwing all that out.”
The impressive thing about God of War is that it manages to achieve spectacle and scale anyway– it just goes about it in a very different way than the summer blockbuster driven mentality that has defined the franchise until now. It’s very good on Barlog and Sony Santa Monica for recognizing the series was growing stale and losing a sense of perspective, and for trying something so bold and new.
God of War launches exclusively on the PS4 on April 20. You can check out the full story for the game and get more information in EDGE’s May issue. You can subscribe to the latest issue here.