In the latest episode of a series of podcasts about God of War that are posted on the game’s official site, we get to learn a lot about the game’s level design, different environments, and much more in a conversation between Lead Environment Concept Artist Luke Berliner and Lead Environment Artist Nate Stephens.
There’s a lot of information packed into this podcast. First of all, we learn that Stephens’ team of Environment Artists consists of around 30 to 40 people. While the plan was to initially go for a minimalist and realistic design, this idea was later scrapped. This game will still appear more realistic as compared to previous entries in the series, but realism will not be a main point of focus. Next, we learn that there are nine different realms in the branches of the Yggdrasil tree and they’re all connected. Each of these realms is unique and will feature their own unique look and environment such as Alfheim, the realm of the elves which will surely look ‘elflike’ to some extent.
It’s evident that the team at Sony Santa Monica have put a lot of effort into this game. The team visited Iceland and Scotland to learn about these places’ ecology so as to inform the Norse environments that Kratos will travel through. The team has also faced a lot of challenges this time around since there’s no longer a fixed camera as was seen in previous and the team has had to figure out how to make all this happen.
There are a lot of new things we can expect to see in the game, including some design elements that we’ve never before seen in other games. Also, this game is going to be much larger than previous games in the series and the team is still working on polishing up different aspects of the game.
God of War is set to release exclusively for the PS4 on April 20.