Recently gamers have been talking about
nothing but God Of War; the recent release from Santa Monica studios. Creators
have gone over every single aspect of the game and I thought it would be
important to talk about why everyone is hailing the game as a masterpiece
(Disclaimer: I myself have played and enjoyed it a lot).
Why is the
game so important in today's environment? For one it's exactly the opposite of
what the industry is doing right now. Instead of a multiplayer game with
microtransactions and loot-boxes God Of War is a single player with none of the
above mentioned elements. Companies like EA have publicly stated that
single player games are a dying breed; in fact going as far as to close their
studio that was working on a single player Star Wars game (Which looked
insanely good. It was on my radar for games that I would probably get as soon
they released.) for that very reason. God of War and other recent single player
games have proved them wrong. Horizon Zero Dawn has over 7.6 million sales
worldwide, Uncharted 4 8.7 million, Breath of The Wild with 7.8 million, Mario Odyssey
with about 9.1 million, I could keep going on but I think my point is fairly
easy to notice. What I'm trying to say is that single player games are not
dying; in fact they are thriving, single player games aren't unprofitable; they
are quite the opposite. And God Of War is a perfect example to show how wrong
the game industry was about single player games.
The other
big thing for God Of War that everybody was talking about was what they did to
the series. In the previous games Kratos (the main character of God Of War) was
nothing but a personification of masculine pride, power, and anger. All he did
was destroy; his thirst was so strong he destroyed the entire Greek
pantheon.
The new game used his past to create an emotionally complex
character who was trying to change himself while trying to stop his son from
falling into the same holes he did. The camera changed as well from an aerial
view to over the shoulder as well as being one cut. That means that the entire
game other than deaths and the beginning of the game were all shot in one cut
(the camera never suddenly changed, its view was the same). This created an
insanely immersive experience as you had to sit with Kratos during the most
emotionally brutal moments since the camera never shifted away. Gameplay was
also changed and many ways but the important thing to take away here is what
Cory Barlog (the director) and Santa Monica has done. They took a basic
character and added depth and changed the entire game layout without alienating
the old fan base and paving space for newer fans. This something that is very
hard to do. In fact in the entire history of video games, this has happened
extremely rarely in a way that has worked but God Of War has pulled it off.
Overall my
point is that God Of War is an excellent game because of the risks that it
took. It did everything opposite to what the industry was calling the norm and
made it work. It is without doubt a game of the year contender (personally I
think that right now it is the best game out there in the market) and certainly
one the best games I have played. This is why the game is popular right now.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.
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