God of War

Yeah, it should be interesting to see how they handle making him a little more human.

I think I probably like old-fashioned heroic characters more than you. I am not so fond of the "grey morality" type heroes that are popular lately, and I generally avoid stories with dark, troubled anti-hero types. I guess I just find it hard to relate, and the stories have a brooding, serious tone that just kind of brings me down. GoW would actually be straying from my usual tastes.

I usually prefer more likeable and relatable characters, characters on the "light" end of the spectrum. I even like the more traditional hero types -- protagonists who are sort of idealized versions of people we might be on our best days. Not too goody-goody, but characters who have a lot of basic goodness to them. Frodo and Sam from LotR, for instance, although they're a bit on the innocent side.

But there has to be a struggle somehow, some emotional wrenching, some physical and psychological pain they're dealing with, a pushing past fear, uncertainty, loss, something. I don't need them to have a tragic flaw, but I do want them to struggle and grow. I liked the way you put it -- "(not) someone who has all the answers." I don't like characters who are just badass, got it all together, never break a sweat, stoic, have all the answers. I find that dull. That's how I perceived Kratos before. I'm glad they're opening him up.

It's interesting because a character can still be a bad ass and fit the description. It's why I like redemption stories. You deal with someone who has immense experience- so much so that the innocence and belief in good and honor are gone. Then comes this thing that intrudes on their closed off cynical world, and they start to find that spark again.

Now they have to leverage the power they gained through that cynicism, experience, and mistrust with doing the harder thing. They make themselves vulnerable and gain sometjing greater, but have to deal with what that vulnerability entails. That giving up of oneself. It's so noble, even in a fallen personage.

I love it. That noble growth. The attainment of honor and abolishment of selfishness.

I never thought I'd say this about Kratos. It's a bit of a triumph, really.
 
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It's interesting because a character can still be a bad ass and fit the description. It's why I like redemption stories. You deal with someone who has immense experience- so much so that the innocence and belief in good and honor are gone. Then comes this thing that intrudes on their closed off cynical world, and they start to find that spark again.

Now they have to leverage the power they gained through that cynicism, experience, and mistrust with doing the harder thing. They make themselves vulnerable and gain sometjing greater, but have to deal with what that vulnerability entails. That giving up of oneself. It's so noble, even in a fallen personage.

I love it. That noble growth. The attainment of honor and abolishment of selfishness.

I never thought I'd say this about Kratos. It's a bit of a triumph, really.

Yeah, that can make for an interesting character arc, the softening of a really cynical/hard person. I sometimes have trouble sticking with them while they're in the cynical/hard phase, but the turning is interesting.

Another type of character I like is the one who is different, eccentric, odd, or an outcast. In real life and in fiction, I like people who are different, odd, eccentric, outcast, or who stand outside the crowd somehow. Kratos is a bit odd, so I guess he qualifies, lol.

Games have made progress. 10-20 years ago, all we got was the stoic or wise-cracking tough guy, with incredibly bad dialog and phony interactions. God that stuff was embarrassing. Characters in games have gotten so much better in last decade. They don't (nor would I expect them to) approach the level of novels, but they're making big progress.
 
Yeah, that can make for an interesting character arc, the softening of a really cynical/hard person. I sometimes have trouble sticking with them while they're in the cynical/hard phase, but the turning is interesting.

Another type of character I like is the one who is different, eccentric, odd, or an outcast. In real life and in fiction, I like people who are different, odd, eccentric, outcast, or who stand outside the crowd somehow. Kratos is a bit odd, so I guess he qualifies, lol.

Games have made progress. 10-20 years ago, all we got was the stoic or wise-cracking tough guy, with incredibly bad dialog and phony interactions. God that stuff was embarrassing. Characters in games have gotten so much better in last decade. They don't (nor would I expect them to) approach the level of novels, but they're making big progress.
I think a huge part of that is that the medium is so relatively young. The writers were younger back then, and as they age, they gain the depth of character and experience to appreciate that rage monsters or ultimate bad-asses are actually very uninteresting without some level of depth.
 
I think a huge part of that is that the medium is so relatively young. The writers were younger back then, and as they age, they gain the depth of character and experience to appreciate that rage monsters or ultimate bad-asses are actually very uninteresting without some level of depth.

Yes, you can see the effects of aging/maturity on Corey Barlog, and the way he talks about the evolution of Kratos and his own understanding of character development. He humbly admits that he didn't know anything about characters, and he has only recently learned (through his involvement with George Miller and others). And he is getting older himself, and bringing his own experience into it.

Another factor is that most of the people creating characters and writing dialog 15 - 20 years ago were not writers. They were game programmers/developers, guys who crunched code for a living. And it showed, in the shallowness of their characters and the awkwardness of the dialog. Now game studios are hiring actual writers. And that shows, too.

I also think the audience expects better stories and characters.

I remember back when the movement toward better storytelling and characterization was just getting underway, a lot of people poo-poo'd it, talked about how gameplay (by which they usually meant combat) was the thing, and stories and characters weren't important. I tried to make the point that a good story and characters were a part of the gameplay experience, and having poor story and characters decreased immersion and motivation/engagement. I didn't make much headway.

Anyhow, they were wrong. :) I am so glad the medium is evolving and producing characters and stories with a little depth.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...War.php?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

One of the core pillars in evolving God of War is Kratos' son, Atreus, from both a story and gameplay perspective. Our Engineering Lead, Jeet Shroff (pictured left), discussed the team’s approach to the character.

"At the heart of this adventure, this game is about the relationship that exists between Kratos and his son," said Shroff. "Atreus plays an important role in giving Kratos the motivation he needs to want to change and bury his vengeful past. He looks to the boy as someone he must protect and struggles to bond with him."

"In turn, Atreus aids his father in many ways throughout the journey. To reinforce this theme, we didn’t shy away from limiting their relationship to just the narrative. In gameplay, Atreus plays a key role in autonomously aiding and complementing Kratos while navigating through this foreign land as well as being an extension to his arsenal in combat."

"In addition, the player can use a face button to have Atreus translate runes, solve puzzles and use his full depth in battle from dividing the field to tag teaming and following up on enemies," said Shroff. "Whether the player uses the son strategically or to enhance combos, there are lots of interesting aspects of gameplay that we’ve been striving for with Atreus."

With these goals in mind, our team knew they needed to focus on building a systemic AI for Atreus that would be able to scale and handle the different cases and maintain his believability across both the narrative and gameplay. Shroff commented on the key focal points in building Atreus' AI as well as praising our team’s collaborative work and persistence throughout the process.


"We worked hard on developing his positioning, traversal, progression and combat loops as core systems and not just specific moments of gameplay," he said. "The animation systems also needed to account for the fast paced combat, while keeping things grounded. We had to meticulously plan for all the situations Atreus might be in as he seamlessly transitioned back and forth between narrative and gameplay with the no cut camera (which Dori will go into more detail below)."

"From the outset, we knew this would be a monumental challenge. Having the inclusion of the son in the game made us rethink how we approached every aspect of God of War. The design, tech and animations needed to be in lockstep, and we had to make sure that every team was actively engaged in dealing with the son and coming up with solutions together to bring him to life."

Evolving the God of War franchise, our team created ambitious technical benchmarks that would push the power of the PlayStation 4. Our Principal Programmer, Florian Strauss (pictured right), discussed our team’s visual foundation.

"We’re aiming for a grounded, realistic style, set in an environment that feels like a real place but with fantastical elements. In order to achieve this look, we needed to make the switch to physical-based rendering."

These goals also extended to the rich detail on all of the characters. Florian continued, “We wanted to read subtle emotions on characters' faces and used specific technology to help achieve this, such as pose-space deformation, which was previously only used in films, and very accurate lighting to make the characters look right."

To fulfill these visual ambitions, our development team had to learn a host of new skills on top of using pre-existing development tools. Florian discussed our team’s transition to the new hardware.

"There is much more power available on the PS4 than there was on the PS3, and the hardware does a lot more in order to hide latency, which required a different strategy for getting the best possible performance," he said. "One surprise was that sometimes it was faster to do something brute force than through 'clever' optimizations, as it resulted in better pipelining and an overall better performance.”

At the origin stage of establishing a new direction for God of War, Creative Director, Cory Barlog, challenged our team with a seemingly impossible technical goal: no camera cuts in the game. Our Director of Photography, Dori Arazi, laid out the motivations.

"The reason we went for this type of camera boils down to two concepts: we wanted to create a very immersive story with a lot of empathy for the heroes. This required a new approach in how we frame the action for the series. Gameplay in general is a non-interruptive camera experience, but when the camera cuts to a sequence of controlled narrative, you're now breaking that sense of immersion."

The end result was an amazing combination of creative inspiration, new uses of tried-and-true technology, and physical camerawork that had to be perfect. Dori explained, "We spent a lot of time tweaking the virtual mocap equipment to figure out how to get the right controls on the camera, operate it for a significant amount of time while doing this in real-time and not shooting the camera in post. Our team also did an amazing job in creating a gameplay camera that the player can control that has the same sensitivity and sensibility of a documentary camera."
 
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Sounds like they've done a ton of work on this game, to implement all the changes. Certainly no iterative sequel here.

These sorts of "hack and slash" games centered on violent, bloodthirsty protagonists are really not my cup of tea, but I feel like I have to play this game anyhow, just to see it for myself.

No camera cuts in the entire game? Huh. Have other games done that? I don't remember any.
 
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Sounds like they've done a ton of work on this game, to implement all the changes. Certainly no iterative sequel here.

These sorts of "hack and slash" games centered on violent, bloodthirsty protagonists are really not my cup of tea, but I feel like I have to play this game anyhow, just to see it for myself.

No camera cuts in the entire game? Huh. Have other games done that? I don't remember any.

I am so glad they've made the changes that they have, GOW was growing stale and it was hard to keep wanting to root for Kratos when he was just an angry ball of rage all the time. They have really changed just about everything they could and still be able to call this god of war, just like UC4 it seems more like the series has matured a bit from the previous titles and that's what the series needed to do IMO.
 
I've never played any God of War game. I'll be popping my cherry on this one.
 
No camera cuts in the entire game? Huh. Have other games done that? I don't remember any.

Who knows. The big knock on God of War was that it only looked good because it had a fixed camera and it's a QTE fest. Looking forward to what people come up with next to downplay the franchise.

Oh yeah, they already found something. It looks and plays too much like TLOU now. Which is odd since TLOU is another Sony owned franchise so not like they're really stealing someone's concept. I guess when you compete with yourself because there's no competition it's somehow a bad thing.
 
Who knows. The big knock on God of War was that it only looked good because it had a fixed camera and it's a QTE fest. Looking forward to what people come up with next to downplay the franchise.

Oh yeah, they already found something. It looks and plays too much like TLOU now. Which is odd since TLOU is another Sony owned franchise so not like they're really stealing someone's concept. I guess when you compete with yourself because there's no competition it's somehow a bad thing.

Yeah it's just like the last of us, Norse mythology, gods, a little boy who can shoot lightning arrows and a story about redemption and being a father. If I read that description without knowing what the game is I'd think TLOU for sure LOL, who's saying that? are you making that up as a joke or have you really read that? if so those people are just plain trying to downplay what looks like an awesome game.
 
Yeah it's just like the last of us, Norse mythology, gods, a little boy who can shoot lightning arrows and a story about redemption and being a father. If I read that description without knowing what the game is I'd think TLOU for sure LOL, who's saying that? are you making that up as a joke or have you really read that? if so those people are just plain trying to downplay what looks like an awesome game.
Look, sometimes you gotta get pro-active in the 'war. Pre-emptive strikes and shiiiii'
 
Yeah it's just like the last of us, Norse mythology, gods, a little boy who can shoot lightning arrows and a story about redemption and being a father. If I read that description without knowing what the game is I'd think TLOU for sure LOL, who's saying that? are you making that up as a joke or have you really read that? if so those people are just plain trying to downplay what looks like an awesome game.

I think he might be referring to the observation, not criticism, that shared tech between Sony's studios can create a similar look to certain franchises.

And what Froz said. Lol
 
It was something I heard when the game was first shown. Some posters at GAF said the developers were just copying the TLoU formula. Which is a really stupid thing to say -- as if TLoU was the first story ever about a father and a child -- but console wars put some people's brains in vapor lock.
 
I think he might be referring to the observation, not criticism, that shared tech between Sony's studios can create a similar look to certain franchises.

And what Froz said. Lol

I don't think those studios really use shared tech though, not that they couldn't but they all seem to use their own technology, I know Bend is using UE4 for Days Gone and ND and SSM seem to have their own engines as well. People just see games that take place with realistic outdoor areas and say it's the same, at least that's how it seems to me. Gotta say that there's nothing about TLOU and GOW that look the same IMO.
 
I don't think those studios really use shared tech though, not that they couldn't but they all seem to use their own technology, I know Bend is using UE4 for Days Gone and ND and SSM seem to have their own engines as well. People just see games that take place with realistic outdoor areas and say it's the same, at least that's how it seems to me. Gotta say that there's nothing about TLOU and GOW that look the same IMO.
I think it was in reference to the far slower, more cinematic and emotional tone/style. Obviously, GOW is a hack and slash, not a survival horror. Apparently a lot of GOW faithful didn't like that, so it was hardly a war issue. It's possible fanboys ran with it, of course, but the change is very welcome to me.
 
I think it was in reference to the far slower, more cinematic and emotional tone/style. Obviously, GOW is a hack and slash, not a survival horror. Apparently a lot of GOW faithful didn't like that, so it was hardly a war issue. It's possible fanboys ran with it, of course, but the change is very welcome to me.

Even then it's really nothing like TLOU other than an adult and a kid there isn't much else in common with it. Telling a mature story where an adult and a child are involved doesn't make two games like each other, especially when one is in a total fantasy world. I'm not saying you agree with that but the people who may have said that clearly are just upset that a series has grown up a bit and has basically been rebooted in every way possible other than Kratos becoming a woman.
 
This looks much better than TLOU, in my opinion. Granted, I didn't like TLOU, but this looks right up my alley. Then again, I loved God of War 3, even though God of War 4 is a new direction. I like this new direction.
 
Even then it's really nothing like TLOU other than an adult and a kid there isn't much else in common with it. Telling a mature story where an adult and a child are involved doesn't make two games like each other, especially when one is in a total fantasy world. I'm not saying you agree with that but the people who may have said that clearly are just upset that a series has grown up a bit and has basically been rebooted in every way possible other than Kratos becoming a woman.

I agree with your assessment. Those people were unhappy that they were changing up the game to a very large degree. It is absolutely what they (and many other franchises, imo) needed to do. There are still people that want the lame rage machine he was. I much prefer this idea of Kratos actually trying to get a grip on that anger. You know, depth. The struggle is mighty interesting. Throw in the kid, the tonal change, and I have a reason to actually play and enjoy this one. I've played large chunks of the other games, but was never compelled enough to actually finish.
 
Yeah it's just like the last of us, Norse mythology, gods, a little boy who can shoot lightning arrows and a story about redemption and being a father. If I read that description without knowing what the game is I'd think TLOU for sure LOL, who's saying that? are you making that up as a joke or have you really read that? if so those people are just plain trying to downplay what looks like an awesome game.

People said it. Think i mentioned that in my post on the first page. Whatever though, people are going to come up with anything to write off a game. Same sort of thing happens with Xbox exclusives, to me and others they're all very gun and sci-fi focused for the most part. The characters might be different but that's about it.

Halo and Gears, you go from point A to point B, shoot some baddies, and push a switch. All games are similar in the end but thankfully God of War is going in a completely different direction from what it was. Not that i didn't love the old formula but it was time.

Not trying to start a war here. So let's leave it at that.
 
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I reckon they will have a big reveal in January if it is coming out in March when they are much closer to the release date. They have a 20 hour game and they have showed one 10 minute footage, a 4 minute trailer and 2 minute gameplay footage. Something doesn't add up though, Horizon coming out in February last year by this time had an E3 2015 trailer and gameplay, a release date trailer, a new gameplay at E3, a massive GI coverage with new footage and a trailer at PSX plus the game was playable. Either Santa Monica are hiding a lot of this game till early next year for a gigantic preview or it is not coming out in early 2018.
 

Cool story and neat concept ruined by the narrator. It didn't have the right execution, imo. It felt more like Fable than GoW. The narrator was too light-hearted, and by the time it got tense, it didn't meld for me.
 
I find this extremely surprising, and I’m looking forward to it:

 
I don't preorder anymore. If I do, it's like a week or two before the game comes out.
 
I find this extremely surprising, and I’m looking forward to it:



Some people fear change. I'd be hyped for DMC5, but if they changed it to a Dark Souls clone i'd not even bother....even if it was a good Dark Souls clone.