God of War (video Game) - Development

Development

God of War began production in 2002 and was unveiled two years later at SCEA Santa Monica Gamers' Day 2004. At E3 2004, the game's developer, Santa Monica, stated that there would be "somewhere between 15 and 25 different attack moves" with the blades—the player's main weapon—in the final game, and the combo system would be "so free-form that you'll be able to string these moves together in just about any order." They also mentioned that players would be able to "sunder enemies with a single move, such as by ripping them in half." The developers described the gameplay "as merging the action of Devil May Cry with the puzzle-solving of Ico".

Game Director David Jaffe confirmed that the game would be a cinematic presentation, and said, "we are doing extensive focus tests, and using data compiled from E3, to find and fix the problem areas" of the cameras. Because of that, Jaffe said that if players "hate cinematic camera systems, nothing we can do will help you like the God of War cameras." Although the game is based on Greek mythology, the development team gave themselves "lots of freedom" to modify the myths, and Jaffe said that they took the "coolest aspects of the subject" and wrote a story around those elements. In an interview with Eurogamer, Jaffe said that while the idea for God of War was his own, the concept owed a debt to Capcom because he had played Onimusha and said "let's do that with Greek Mythology." He was inspired in part to use Greek mythology by the 1981 feature film, Clash of the Titans. Jaffe said, "the real high concept for me was taking Clash of the Titans and merging it with Heavy Metal magazine." He said that he liked "the kids stuff ... with Greek Mythology", but also the idea of merging these elements with more adult themes such as sex and violence.

After E3 2004, David Jaffe told IGN that the creative team's goal was to "make the player feel brutal, letting their inner beast free and just going nuts." Jaffe also said that the game's combat system would have an unparalleled degree of freedom. The team designed two systems of combat: a macro system, which gave players the choice between normal combat, magical attacks, and/or using mini games to kill a foe; and a micro system, which Jaffe said was the "antithesis of dial in combos." Self-contained puzzles with one to three rooms, and global puzzles spread across four or five areas of the game were implemented. Jaffe said that the game would be unique because each puzzle is unique. Referencing the puzzles of Prince of Persia, he said that while each puzzle in that series was a slight variation of the last, "each puzzle in God of War is its own beast."

In a speech at the 2006 D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, Jaffe said that God of War "was a rare opportunity for a game designer" because Sony gave him nearly complete creative control to create a game of his own design, on his terms, and with a substantial budget. He stated that he wanted to make the game "out of passion, not fear, and that it would be a game that he himself, as a game player, would want to play." Jaffe said the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark also influenced the development of God of War: "I wanted to make a game that made players feel like I felt when I was 10, watching Raiders," but he did not want to put the player in the role of an adventurer, as did The Legend of Zelda. Jaffe also said that God of War was intentionally designed to be simplistic and forward-moving; and that the game "is not innovative or unique, and that's intentional. Our system was so shallow that it forced the team to constantly create new content to trapeze the player from one area of interest to the next ... I understand modular game design, and the value of that, but I was feeling that if we didn't step outside those boundaries, at least for me, I was going to get bored."