God of War has been out of the public eye for five years, a long hiatus that has built up a level of anticipation comparable to the latest Star Wars or this year's Avengers: Infinity War. While every sequel to the 2005 PlayStation 2 title was always well received, and made small iterations each time, the series was getting a little stagnant.
To silence the naysayers, Santa Monica Studio is effectively rebooting the game – naming a sequel after the first-in-series is a guaranteed sign of a series refresh. And it's worked. The team's sweeping but intelligent changes have won over critic after critic. It should be taught in gaming academies as a case study in adding a best-feasible play experience whilst staying true to the series and making substantial improvements.
The team has been ruthless in cutting away the series’ baggage. The well-trodden Greek mythology which the series started with is out, thanks to a rather conclusive finale in God of War III leaving little space for growth. Norse mythology takes over, which is fortunately wild and violent enough to draw fresh ideas and characters from. Kratos, the God of War himself, has a new voice (Christopher Judge, who did the motion capture performance for him too), now has an axe for a signature weapon instead of chained blades, and rather than mourning his slaughtered family, he must now contend with a living son – Atreus.
A huge amount of emphasis has been put on this new father-son relationship, people depicting it as either a great or a horrendous idea. The reality is – it’s fine. They are two well defined and well performed character archetypes; the wise but stern father and the intelligent but naïve son. The pair grow in the ways you expect them to as they spend time with each other, but the tender moments, often caused by the open wound of Atreus’ recently deceased mother, still find their marks thanks to strong writing and voice acting. It’s an important part of the game, but there are plenty of more dramatic things going on in the story, the twists and spectacles of which are one of the major reasons to play the game. This is alongside the snippets of lore and tales from other parts of Norse mythology that you find in the world.
Where the bond is expressed the best is in the gameplay itself. Detractors’ fears of an irritating child who constantly needs escorting everywhere are unfounded, particularly as the game progresses and Atreus becomes more skilled, both via the story and your own investment into his upgrades. Early on, when commanded to fire his bow, Atreus will launch three arrows in quick succession, followed by a long cooldown period during which you are left to fight alone. After a few enemy encounters, Kratos instructs him to space out his shots instead. From that point, each button press only results in a single arrow, making him a far more versatile companion who only grows stronger from there. This tie between mechanics and the story is game design’s equivalent of film’s golden “show, don’t tell” principle, and demonstrates the game’s solidity and polish that will captivate your attention as soon as you start to play.
In terms of the gameplay, there are more of the RPG elements previously seen in the franchise. Armour and magical abilities can be swapped around and upgraded, and there is a well sized skill tree for each kind of combat Kratos can master, the skills themselves split between new abilities and upgrades to them. You can even pick classes of sorts, by boosting Kratos’ basic stats to certain thresholds, which then unlock extra features on related abilities. It makes the choice between different bracers and talismans more meaningful than simply which has the best overall numbers, and therefore a lot better than many studios which put these elements into their games.
The combat was historically the focus of the series, and still remains so. The system has seen its own overhauls of course; Kratos now wield the Leviathan Axe instead of the Blades of Athena, and the focus on racking up high numbers of combo hits has been reduced too. But launching enemies into the air, throwing magical attacks at them, ripping them apart in cinematic execution animations and dodging their own hard hitting attacks remains just as fun as the preceding titles. The axe on its own is a fantastically fun weapon to use, as the ability to throw it around, then summon it back to your hands partway through a flurry of punches is enjoyable on its own, before starting on its more advanced tricks and techniques.
Though you will run out of baddies to hit from time to time, the slower paced parts of the game don’t feel like a completely separate experience. The puzzles are solved with your weapons, using them to move, freeze, break or power the different pieces to get to where you need to go. Everything flows together in an immensely satisfying way, and is a stunning accomplishment.
This flow applies to the whole environment too. The levels have now been spliced together into a semi-open world around a hub area, both the side quests are actual stories instead of simple sets of goals, even the camera, which has moved from a wide shot to an over the shoulder view, doesn’t cut to different angles when control is taken from the player for cutscenes, but smoothly rotates around in an impressive long shot. Other than the time you spend in the menus, the game as you play it is near seamless.
The new God of War is the developer, Santa Monica Studio, understanding that to keep the series alive and successful, it had to change and refine. Mechanically, visually and narratively, there are few faults to find. Fans who have been on board since the original game may be apprehensive about all the alterations, but it's still undeniably God of War. The development has been five years of deliberate evolution rather than a futile effort to blindly chase short-term industry trends and gimmicks. There is no need to fear the change, as the result is a satisfying experience, and should be celebrated both as the series’ revival, and an outstanding piece of entertainment in its own right.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK