God of War Ragnarök to Conclude the Norse Saga, Santa Monica Didn’t Want to Spend 15 Years on a Trilogy

[Tsing]

Image: Santa Monica Studio



The original God of War was a massive success that spawned numerous sequels and spin-offs, but God of War (2018) and its upcoming sequel, God of War Ragnarök, will not be receiving the same treatment.



God of War (2018) director Cory Barlog explained the reason for this in a new interview with YouTuber Kaptain Kuba alongside Santa Monica Studio colleague Eric Williams, who’s in charge of the new sequel that’s in development for both PS4 and PS5 consoles.



According to Barlog, God of War Ragnarök will wrap up the Norse story because Santa Monica didn’t want fans to have to wait years to see what fate had in store for Kratos and his son, Atreus. A God of War game takes at least five years to develop, so stretching the story out into a trilogy would have resulted in a saga that took a decade and a half to...

Continue reading...

 

[GunShot]

So, in other words, you're not talented enough to give your game the next-gen features that most of today's future games are dev with and no 35hrs+ story-driven completion like AC: Vahalla, RDR2, etc. because instead, you'll narrate down to just ~14hrs are so to keep milking the fans into the next GoW that you'll just use many assets from Ragnarok, huh?!

Gotcha!

 

[Dan_D]

Sounds like the most recent installments weren't successful enough to warrant follow ups. That's what I'm getting from that.

 

[GunShot]

Yeah, you have a solid point there, Dan, but GoW (2018, weird this site won't allow you to post links but I get it) sold over 20M units and, IMO, I just think Corey just needs to replace, entirely, from the GoW franchise moving forward.

It is super clear that Barlog is no longer the visionary for the franchise and he is burnt out of the GoW entirely (I mean, since 2005) which contributes to disasters and Sony just needs to remove him.

That is why gamers do not need to get attached/fans to studio heads, etc. because our focus should be on the game solid dev/support/gameplay/etc. not the name behind the scenes because everyone is expendable/replaceable.

 

[SeymourGore]

I dunno, afaik, the God of War series have never been 30+ hour long story epics, but shorter action game affairs. I thought the story in PS4 GoW was excellent - even if it wasn't terribly long or complex.

With that said, I can't see Sony just letting up on a cash cow like God of War. I wouldn't be surprised that this is indeed the 'conclusion' of their Norse story involved Kratos, but they'll keep it going with Atreus starring in spinoffs/side projects.

 

[GunShot]

My thing is, Barlog appears to be exhausted working on GoW (remember, early entries for the Assassin Creed series campaign length were only 14-16hrs too but now, way over 35hrs+), a game's narrative story that is already written out for him to just, literally, copy-n-paste from established mythology novels, archives, or heck, just watching TV Shows or MCUs Thor movies and get some ideas and just add his final spin to Go compared to just nothing and need to create everything from scratch like RDR2, etc.

Barlog just needs to fully pass along the torch for GoW and Sony needs to replace him ASAP.