Cory Barlog, Director for the new God of War coming to PS4 on April 20, 2018 has credit for the fan favourite God of War II already, as well as several other titles that he’s been involved with over the years. With development on the PS4 game wrapped up, Barlog has been sharing his thoughts on what has shaped up to be a very different game through various interviews.
In GamesTM Issue 198, Barlog would parallel the journey that he took away from Sony Santa Monica to that of Kratos leaving behind the Greek setting after he devastated the entire pantheon. His experiences with past projects helped him experience different creative angles, which he feels helps inform his decisions now. He explained his motivations behind the game.
“Every game that I play, if there’s not a strong ‘why’ driving me through the game, like ‘There’s just great mechanics and it’s really fun and you can do all of these cool things’, that’s great, but after a couple of hours if I don’t have a ‘why’, if I’m not in there for a reason, if I’m not being driven by something that I care about then I feel like I just lose interest. It may just be me and a small subset of people, but I feel that the games that I’m seeing becoming popular today, the ‘why’ is driving a lot of people and the ‘why’ is human drama. I think that while it’s personal for me, it’s personal in the sense that I’m pulling things from my own life in order to make the drama feel more real, but it is far more of a universal human interaction thing, as opposed to being placed in any kind of time period. It’s not like Kratos and Atreus are going to talk about the proper Twitter etiquette or anything like that,” he stated to GamesTM.
This experience turns out to be a big part of what defined the direction of the new title, with Barlog himself finding that he needs a “why” in order to stay invested in a game. Balrog spoke to that through line being important to him alongside great mechanics, giving a human drama connection that he feels brings a lot of games to life these days. You can check out the full story for the game and get more information in GamesTm April issue. You can subscribe to the latest GamesTm Magazine over here.