God of War III - New Trailer

With God of War 2‘s Art Director taking the helm of Game Director for God of War 3, Ken Feldman has stepped into the role. We talk to him about how he thinks they can make God of War 3 a fresh, epic experience that’ll make Kratos weep for joy.

UGO: Clearly people are pretty familiar with the setting of God of War. How do you strive to make God of War 3 a unique-looking experience?

Ken Feldman: First off, this is the first game that we’ve been able to make on a PlayStation 3 and the team is excited about that. Obviously we have a much more powerful machine and we get to learn a lot of new techniques. What we’ve always wanted to do on God of War 1 and 2, whether it was the first time you saw Hades or you were fighting the hydra on the ships, or even meeting up with Atlas in God of War 2, there were things we really wanted to do on that game, but were absolutely limited by that technology. We’re not limited by the technology anymore, so what we’re able to do is go back to those games and start redefining these moments we wanted to bring to fans. Not that we’re going to have the hydra in this game or you’re going to battle Atlas in this red environment, by any means. But we can take those types of experiences and bring that stuff into God of War 3 in a fantastic, epic manor.

UGO: So it kinda feels like a best-of?

KF: I think it feels like the third game. It’s the third game in the story. It picks up exactly where the second game left off. It’s just that it’s gonna be that much larger in terms of scale and feeling. At the end of God of War 2, we’re riding Gaia up the mountain. We’re gonna go up there and take down the temple on Mount Olympus and take down everyone involved in that ‘cause of the torment they’ve done to Kratos. So we’ve got this tormented character, we’ve got this battle that’s brewing between the titans and the gods and that’s where we’re starting with the story for God of War 3.

UGO: When you were looking back at some of the old enemies from the series, how did you strive to reinvent them for the PS3? Do you look at the original designs and just add to that?

KF: Some of it is going in and taking concept art that we’ve had before and reinventing it. Other things are taking a cyclops that may have existed in a previous game and reinventing the play mechanics for that cyclops, so you’re not doing the same thing with them. So what you see in the trailer, now he’s almost like a mountable tank.

When we started with God of War 1 and the creature design, one of the reasons we picked Greek mythology was ‘cause there’s a familiarity that the public had. They knew who medusa was, cyclops, etcetera. But the impression they had in their minds was what was done in the ‘70s with Clash of the Titans and we were a little bit fearful of that ‘cause we didn’t know if that would translate to a modern audience. But that was our goal. Take an evil twist on these characters and translate them to a modern audience, but still make sure they fit within a greek world. I think that we did a pretty good job at that.

The other thing that was always our goal was that, in God of War 1, Raiders of the Lost Ark was a big influece on [David] Jaffe. That movie, it was creepy, it kinda scared you, there was some disgusting stuff in that, but at the same time, it was for a mass audience. That feeling of adventure was always there. With Kratos and this game, there’s a lot of gore. There’s a lot of kinda evil stuff that happens. But we didn’t take it too evil. We haven’t taken the character design or the beast design into a horror genre. Even though there’s guts, even though there’s gore, this is not horror. It’s still very much a high adventure game. Sometimes I even want to add more horror and more evilness and I think we push that a little more in this game, ‘cause the story that we’re trying to tell is a little bit darker than the other two games. But we still have to remember who our core audience is. I don’t think people want to pick up this game and all of a sudden they’re playing Silent Hill.

UGO: Who makes the decision, “Ok, we’ve gotta kill the cyclops, and we’ve gotta make it look bad ass.” Is that you guys saying how it’s going to look?

KF: Well, my job is to define how this stuff is going to look. The combat team needs to come up with how this stuff is used in gameplay. Then it comes to me and they’re like, “This is what we have now. We need a violent killing and kinda rip this guy’s eye out.” Ok, then where can we take that to? So we get the cord of the eyeball in there and it’s like, “No, we want that to be twice as thick ‘cause the player can’t see it. We need more blood or we need less blood.” There’s a vision that Stig has and it’s really our job to make sure that that comes across to the player.



UGO: In terms of settings, is there anything in the game that’s really distant from what we’ve seen in the past in God of War? Like something futuristic?

KF: (laughs) You’re not going to learn that Kratos is a being of the future, no. There’s not going to be any weird text that comes up or anything, none of that stuff.

UGO: I guess the titans are the new element, but we’ve seen some of them before.

KF: Well you know Atlas was in God of War 2 and you got the impression that you were playing on the back of Atlas, but he really wasn’t moving. In this game, when you’re on a titan, like the forest on the back of Gaia that you see in the trailer, that’s actually on the back of her. She is moving and she is a living, breathing character. So in that sense there’s a dynamic that we haven’t seen before. I don’t want to give away all the mysteries of where we’re going to take Kratos in this game, but I think there are going to be places that are familiar that are done much better than we’ve ever done before. And I think there’s gonna be an epic sense of “That’s really bad ass. Holy ####. Wow. What the ####. I’ve never seen this.” Even if it’s something really familiar, it’s still going to be done in a way that is going to border on the line of ridiculous, but ridiculously cool.

UGO: Awesome, thanks a lot.

Jaxley wrote:I hope this gets ported to an Xbox console at some point.

$ilva $hadow wrote:I know an absolute SHITLOAD of people who loved God of War 1 and 2 who haven't moved on to next gen consoles yet. This game is going to shift consoles.

Fargo wrote:Looking good, whens it out ?

From a first look at playable code in high definition, the signs are positive. The work this team has put into the game is immediately evident from the bulging biceps of the Son of Zeus to the intricate, gory details as he eviscerates enemies, leaving entrails in his wake (always the best way to go). Factor in the additional development time that's still allocated and, simply put, this isn't your PS2 God of War.

"The challenges we continue to face are all the new tech that we're putting into the game, all that stuff with the Titans, and all the additional levels of detail and brutality that's in the game," explains Puhl. "At the same time, we're extending the gameplay system without extending the complexity of it. The game needs to stay accessible. It needs to stay where everybody can jump in and feel what it's like to play as Kratos."

For all the change though, the new PS3 Kratos was actually inspired by a concept painting done for God of War II. It was a painting of Kratos ripping a dead vulture in half, and when he was ripping it in half, he looked so violent it was almost bestial, according to the recollections of art director Ken Feldman.

"I saw that and I said, 'That's how I want Kratos to look in God of War III, that's the way I want the public to feel about who this character is,'" Feldman says. "That drove the way we wanted Kratos to be and that drove the way we sculpted our technology. We have dynamic maps and that's where we're able to blend between these things and really make him feel like he's actually in a battle. We didn't just want Kratos' muscle to bulge. We wanted the player to feel like they're in a battle."

Kratos now has multiple options when it comes to eviscerating the rank-and-file. He can grab a grunt and run him against a wall, crush his skull to pieces, or use him like a bowling ball and throw him into a crowd of enemies. The developer has also updated the contact-sensitive moves. New weapons open up additional attacks. Kratos now has a Fire Bow to set enemies and surroundings ablaze, and he also has the Cestus, a set of chained gauntlets similar to the Gauntlet of Zeus from God of War: Chains of Olympus.

The team is also crafting a living, moving world for Kratos to rip apart. The gameplay sequence I'm shown features Kratos standing on the towering Gaia's shoulder as she walks up the side of Mt. Olympus. To offer some Titan perspective, Medusa's Temple from God of War could fit in Gaia's palm on the PS3. But that's just the scale; there's also more depth.

During the demonstration, Kratos uses his chain-swords to control a Cyclops like a remote-controlled tank and take to the skies hanging on a flying Harpy to cross a large pit. Gamers will be happy to know that God of War III actually puts more control into their hands. This Kratos is capable of feats never before imagined, and players will be able to pull off fatalities that make the Saw movies look like Disney films.

In other words, even at this early stage, God of War III doesn't disappoint your bloodthirsty American correspondent. It's setting Sony up for the kind of killer application that it's after. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the launch date.

Sounds like this will be strawberry floating epic

SCE Santa Monica developers Jim Tilander and Vassily Fillipov presented a speech on God of War III's technology at GDC today, and as a reward for sitting quietly through the class, the two gave the crowd a peek at some gameplay footage of the anticipated title.

The video showed Kratos approaching a small, rocky area. The camera zoomed in to show a wounded soldier, then smoothly zoomed back to the over-the-shoulder view as a dozen or so spear-wielding enemies leapt down from above.

At one point a giant cyclops lept down to face Kratos, leading the player to jump on top of the beast in a series of timed button presses. What followed was a predictable scene of mayhem, as Kratos rode the cyclops in circles, a kill counter keeping track of his destruction.

Tilander and Fillipov explained that the game will not be locked at 60 frames per second, and will likely drop below that during intense scenes. However, it will never fall below 30 frames per second.

Responding to a question about cloth physics, Tilander also revealed that God of War 3 doesn't actually do any physics processing.

"I guess you might be surprised to hear this, but God of War 3 doesn't have physics," said Tilander. "So does that answer your question?"

suzzopher wrote:No Physics

1cmanny1 wrote:ive never played this before, do you reckon i should bother getting the other games before this one? (or whenever this will be out)

Sarge wrote:GDC Cam Footage