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For Cory Barlog, making God of War meant asking a team to trust a vision before the finished game existed—and defending choices that could have changed or ended up cut. In a 2019 conversation with moderator Stuart Whyte, as reported by Dean Takahashi for GamesBeat, Barlog described a project that grew beyond its expected scope, a father-and-son story that faced resistance, and the difficulty of deciding which playtest feedback to act on.
Why making the game meant living with uncertainty
Barlog described direction as a tension: a director must have a strong sense of what the game should become while not yet knowing how its individual systems will work. As he put it, “It’s about not knowing at all what you want to do, but also knowing exactly what you want.” The vision had to be persuasive before there was enough completed work to prove it.
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That uncertainty grew as production continued. Barlog said the game’s scope expanded well beyond early expectations, and the full experience only came together in the final six to eight months. GamesBeat reported that development at Sony Santa Monica lasted five years and involved a team of 300; those are figures from the outlet’s 2019 account, not independently verified staffing totals.
Why Kratos stayed, and why Atreus nearly did not
Two major decisions were contested inside the team: continuing Kratos’s story and making it a father-and-son adventure. Some colleagues questioned whether Kratos remained compelling and worried that a child companion would feel like a frustrating escort mission. Barlog wanted to explore fatherhood through Kratos, and pressed for the relationship with Atreus to be central.
#1 Best Overall
- Physical combat over the shoulder free camera brings the action closer than ever combat in God of war is up close frenetic and unflinching. Kratos' Axes powerful, magic and multi faceted is a brutal weapon as well as a versatile tool for exploration
- Midgard and beyond: Set within the untamed forests, mountains, and realms of Norse lore, God of war features a distinctly new setting with its own pantheon of creatures, monsters, and gods
- Vicious, physical combat with an over the shoulder free camera that brings the player closer to the action than ever before
Atreus’s inclusion was not an easy win. Barlog recalled, “That was not a popular decision in the beginning.” The character created budget and engineering challenges, and the team considered cutting him. Barlog even prepared a backup pitch for a version of the game without Atreus.
Making the companion work
Atreus’s behavior was still unsettled late in production. The team simplified the design around contextual camera intent and a dedicated action button, rather than leaving his role dependent on a more complicated set of controls. The account underscores how a story premise also demanded a workable moment-to-moment system: the relationship could not carry the game if accompanying Atreus made play feel cumbersome.
Rank #2
- Launch Edition includes in-game downloadable content Kratos Risen Snow Armor & Atreus Risen Snow Tunic (Cosmetic)
- Feel your journey through the Norse realms, made possible by immersive haptic feedback and adaptive trigger functionality.
- Take advantage of multidirectional 3D Audio; hear enemies approaching from any direction. (3D audio with stereo headphones (analog or USB)
- Bask in the beautiful worlds you travel through, brought to life by precise art direction and arresting attention to detail.
- Switch between full 4K resolution at a targeted 30 frames per second, or dynamic resolution upscaled to 4K at a targeted 60fps. (4K resolution requires a compatible 4K TV or display)
Which franchise conventions to keep
The team also questioned which inherited elements defined God of War and which could be discarded. Barlog described listing franchise concepts and asking whether removing each would make the game stop feeling like God of War. The discussion included Greek mythology, the Blades of Chaos, jumping, and platforming.
The report says the team removed the jump while prioritizing a new camera approach. That was part of a broader effort to reshape how players experienced the action, rather than preserve every familiar convention simply because earlier games had used it.
Rank #3
- LATAM games have Spanish/English/French and sometimes Portugese available
- Kratos Starts Over- Living as a man, separated from the shadow of the gods, he seeks solitude in the unknown lands of Norse mythology. With a new purpose and accompanied by his son Atreus, Kratos must fight to survive among powerful forces that threaten the destruction of the new life he has created...
- A Whole New Beginning- His revenge against the Olympian gods is behind him and Kratos now lives as a man in the lands of the Norse gods and monsters. It will be in this raw and merciless world where he must fight to survive ... and where he must teach his son to do the same. This amazing re-enactment of God of War deconstructs the core elements that defined the series - satisfying combat, impressive scale, and compelling story - and combines them in a whole new way
- A Darker And More Elemental World- From marble art and the ornate columns of Olympus to the wild forests, mountains and caverns typical of pre-Iking Norse relief, the game presents a new and unique environment, with its own pantheon of creatures, monsters and gods . By placing more emphasis on exploring and discovering, the world will encourage players to delve into every corner of God of War's incredible but dangerous landscapes, which are undoubtedly the largest in the entire franchise
- Merciless Physical Combat- With a shoulder-height camera that brings the action closer to the player than ever before, the fights in God of War are very similar to the pantheon of Norse creatures that Kratos will have to face, as they are just as magnificent. , cruel and exhausting. A new primary weapon and unreleased skill set honor the typical God of War spirit
How Barlog’s personal life informed the story
Barlog connected the father-son premise to becoming a father himself. He also drew on conversations and experiences involving colleagues, their children, parents, and partners. His view was that a creative work needs a personal connection if it is to reach people emotionally; the story’s intimacy grew from experiences shared across the team, not only from one person’s perspective.
What playtesting could—and could not—tell the team
Testing helped expose assumptions the developers had made about what players would understand. In one example, some younger testers did not understand why a mother would be willing to sacrifice herself for her child. The game had not made her motivation clear enough, so the team clarified it in dialogue.
Rank #4
- Great for reducing stress
- Made from high quality material
- Classic game for lots of fun
- Help support a child’s development, building skills
The harder task, Barlog said, was distinguishing a genuine communication or experience problem from a subjective request to make the game into something else. “The hardest thing to do in making video games is to know what to listen to and what not to listen to when you’re playtesting.” A confusing story beat could point to missing information; a preference for a different kind of game was not necessarily a reason to change the design.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsWhy the documentary showed the stressful parts
Barlog wanted to capture the beginning of development because he valued behind-the-scenes accounts of creative work. With Sony’s Brendan Aiken, he pursued a feature-length documentary rather than a run of short promotional pieces. The goal was to show the uncertainty and strain behind a finished game, not to make production look effortless. “It’s exhausting. It’s stressful. There’s a lot of doubt and a lot of worry,” he said.
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That access was not comfortable for everyone. Some team members resisted having cameras around them; Barlog said it took years for some to become comfortable. The documentary’s view of development therefore included not just design debates and deadlines, but the personal pressure of making work in public while it was still unfinished.
What the struggle reveals about the finished game
Barlog’s account presents the 2018 God of War as the result of successive acts of judgment: defend a father-and-son story before it is proven, revise the companion system until it works, question familiar mechanics, and use player confusion without surrendering the project’s identity. Its development was not a smooth execution of a settled plan; the shape of the game emerged through debate, iteration, and the persistence to keep an uncertain vision intact.
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