God of War: Doing Something New
When I first decided that I was going to focus on completing games from my library this year, and write about them as I went through them, I figured I’d be writing about games as I completed them. Given the pace that I’ve been going through games though, that would likely mean going radio silent for a few weeks at a time, and I think that being more consistent in posting is going to be more beneficial here. So from this point on, I’m going to be posting as I’m going through a game. This is going to mean some thoughts on a game without the entire context of what’s coming, and quite possibly some incomplete thoughts to go along with that, as I try to withhold final judgement on something until I’ve finished it.
That said, let’s talk about God of War.
God of War, the soft reboot of the franchise released on PlayStation 4 in 2018, is a bit of an outlier for me. Normally I like to play through all of the preceding games in a series – at least once – before playing a game. I like having the context of all of the stories that have been told before, of the way that previous games played, of what I thought of the various characters. I haven’t done that with this one for a couple of reasons. First, I never owned a PS2 where the franchise first launched, and second, while working at GameStop I saw enough of the first two games to be pretty positive I never wanted to play them. Obviously I never had the entire context of what I was seeing in demos and videos, but what I did see suggested that the games were simply hyper-violent and gratuitous for the sake of being hyper-violent and gratuitous. To sort of play devil’s advocate for a moment, that was kind of a trend in games for a few years there, and it ended up corrupting otherwise wonderful games. (I’m looking at you, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Directly at you.) So it’s not entirely Sony Santa Monica’s fault that I got the impression I did. They were leaning into the trend – even feeding it – but it was a larger trend that just sort of happened, and because games are a business as much as art, trends get followed.
I’m not wild about following trends just because, though. And I’m less wild about gratuitous…anything, really. And everything I could see of the games told me they embraced being gratuitous as if it were a virtue, doing what they could to maintain the “shock value” just to stay lodged in people’s brains and the media’s headlines, not because there was any actual value to it, or validating context within the game. All of that I gleaned just from the bits I saw of the first game, and the second doubled down on things enough that I felt validated in my judgement and pretty much ignored the series from that point on, rolling my eyes as they continued to churn out more games with the same formula.
I was kind of disappointed, if I’m honest. I didn’t have a PlayStation at the time, and didn’t anticipate getting one, but I’d always enjoyed mythology, and thought a game about the Greek pantheon could have been pretty cool. The initial idea of fighting those gods caused my imagination to swirl, envisioning some kind of strategy being required to counter the unique abilities or theme of each god or goddess. A fight against Zeus would be all about dodging lightning bolts, a fight against Hades might involve wading through an army of the dead, while a battle against Poseidon would have to involve swimming, right? (Water levels being as bad as they always are, I struggled to see how that one would be fun….) There was a ton of possibility in my mind, but the game seemed to squander that in favor of simply plunging blades via quick time event into whatever god was next in line. Again, disappointing.
The fourth game in the mainline series was announced for PS4, and I didn’t pay it much attention. I found it interesting that they were switching to Norse mythology, that it was a sort of reboot of the franchise, but I’d learned to pretty much ignore it by that point. And, once again, I didn’t own the system it was on, so it didn’t really matter.
Spider-Man releasing on the system finally convinced me to buy one in 2019, and by that time there were a few games I wanted to play on it. The reviews for God of War 2018 were glowing, and after a little bit of research – and a pretty good price on sale – I added the game to my growing PS4 library.
Eventually, after playing through some other games first, I started up God of War. From the opening sequence, I could tell that this game was doing something new. And hearing Chris Judge – one of the absolute best parts of the Stargate franchise – give voice to Kratos convinced me that this was going to be something special. I devoured the first several hours of the game, marveling at how good it looked and how deep the storytelling was. I felt sorrow as I watched Kratos mourn his wife and struggle to relate to his son Atreus. I felt sympathy as Atreus struggled to win his father’s approval, recognizing bits of the same motivation in my own life as he regularly checked in with his father to see if he was measuring up. I felt anxiety as Kratos took an ill Atreus in his arms, hurrying to seek assistance from Freya, and a sense of wrath against any that might get in the way as he then took up the old Blades of Chaos to seek out the necessary components for the boy’s cure.
And then, having successfully retrieved the heart of a troll from Helheim and restoring Atreus’s health, I stopped playing the game.
Not intentionally, really. I got sidetracked with other things, always meaning to get back to it but never making the time for it. I sold the PS4 before I finished the game, losing my save file in the process. I knew when I got the PS5 I wanted to play the game again, but knowing I’d need to go through all that once more was a bit daunting. It’s kind of an emotional rollercoaster, after all, but knowing the twists and turns coming up does make it a little easier. I still felt a bit of a gut punch when the boy fell though, even knowing that I’d be getting him well again in short order.
I’m at the point now where I’m about to dive into content that I haven’t played before. I know it’s old news to many, but I also know the recent release of the PC version is making it all new for others. So far, I’m glad Sony Santa Monica started over with God of War. I know this game is a departure from the ones that came before, and I know they took a risk by doing something new with the franchise, but I think it’s paid off. So has doing something new myself in trying a series I’d written off. Now I’m just hoping the new stuff coming up lives up to the standard set by the rest.