God of War “Was A Much More Ambitious, Crazier Game”

Aside from its critical reception and commercial success, SIE Santa Monica Studio’s God of War was widely acknowledged for its scale and storytelling. One of its few core criticisms, however, was regarding the number of boss fights, and how some were very similar to others (most notably, the Trolls). While we covered how bosses were cut to accommodate the game’s development time and resources earlier, director Cory Barlog offered even more details to Noclip in a recent video.

Barlog noted that there were meant to be “so many more” bosses from the outset. The game itself was a lot more ambitious as well. “We cut a lot of bosses. A lot. We had so many more. It was a much more ambitious, crazier game. And as you go through development, you start realizing, ‘No, it’s too big, we can’t do this.'”

One single boss required a team of 30 developers working for about 18 months, so cutting the total number was necessary to meet deadlines. “One boss takes like 30 developers a year and a half,” Barlog said. “It’s an absolutely massive scale when you really consider it, and you measure it against other games in which we finished the game in a year and a half.”

That’s not taking into account the fact that the team working on the bosses had other things to do in the development process. “It became a reality that some of these things will have to be cut,” said Barlog. One other interesting detail is how the Trolls were never meant to be boss fights from the outset. Check out the full video below for other intriguing details.