More God of War Production Backstory Released

In a recent series of interviews done by several members of the Sony Santa Monica team, several interesting bits of news have come forth, digging deeper into the production process. Developer Stig Asmussen told Game Informer that God of War‘s main protagonist, Kratos had 2 different names prior to release. It’s not uncommon for finalized details like this to be a work in progress throughout development, but it seems absolutely bat shit that for a while God of War was being led by Dominus then Stig instead of the console defining, Kratos. Not only that but the working titles initially was “Dark Odyssey”, however marketing thankfully stepped in to intercept both and we ended up with one of the greatest games of this generation in the Kratos led God of War.

My king, Cory Barlog, the creative director over at Sony Santa Monica told GameSpot before release, that the team was incredibly close to outright cutting Atreus. Barlog stated that the game would have been very different than what the final product had been, but the higher ups at Sony gave him the green light to proceed with keeping Atreus even though it would cost significantly more for character animations and programming. This year Barlog spoke to Eurogamer discussing how at one point in production they also thought about completely getting rid of Kratos altogether because he was “too annoying”. Barlog battled with developers to keep KRatos as the main protagonist stating how he was meant to be unlikable in the beginning. We can only imagine what type of a dumpster fire God of War could have been without the father-son growing journey of Kratos and Atreus.

Not only is Cory Barlog the creative director for one of the greatest development companies in the gaming industry, but he is also a huge defender of Golden Sun. For those of you who don’t know, Golden Sun is a highly underrated and under appreciated RPG Nintendo franchise that has been dormant for 10 years. Barlog responded to a tweet about Nintendo reviving dead series’, saying emphatically how Golden Sun is the only franchise deserving of a revival. Dom and I have been saying this for years now, so we are here with you Cory may you have our swords, bows, and axes by your side. What game franchise from nintendo would you want to see finally make a comeback?