Barlog says the change tells a more personal story, and that shift inspired the rest of the changes about how the game functions. Instead of the locked-in, pulled-out views of previous games where players were just along for the ride, God of War brings the camera right over Kratos’ shoulder and hands control over to the player. But gameplay in God of War has been completely redone, and it all starts with the camera angle. God of War is still, well, a God of War game, and that means that there are still plenty of giant monsters, brutal battles, and hordes of enemies to dispatch along the way. That doesn’t mean there’s no spectacle at all. Barlog has spoken before about how Kratos’ journey has been shaped a lot in the game by his own experiences as a father, and there’s a level of emotional depth to the proceedings here that is new to the series. The story starts with the relationship between Kratos and his son, Atreus, who joins players as a companion on the adventure.
I recently had the chance to play through the first two hours of the game, and early on, the more personal nature of the experience is on full display. Just calling it God of War instead of God of War 4 is a telling move on the developer’s part. Players of the earlier games will be rewarded with additional context that will further deepen the experience. “I want to take a character that everyone thinks that they know and show that there’s actually hidden depth and dimension.” Hence the quasi-reboot for the story, which is self-contained from the previous games.
“I wanted to tell a far more intimate story,” says God of War director Cory Barlog.
It zooms in on Kratos as a person and father instead of just the rage-filled warrior of past games. Instead, the franchise looks to be taking an interesting turn toward telling a deeper, more personal story.
After the previous events in the series - the last of which started with Kratos storming Mount Olympus and ended with him killing almost the entire Grecian pantheon, culminating with Zeus himself - it’s hard to imagine how the new God of War could go bigger than that.