If you’ve seen the latest videos of God of War you’re probably wondering where are the classic weapons of Kratos, the Blades of Athenea/Chaos. Fortunately, the director of the game, Cory Barlog, has explained the importance of separating the character from his emblematic tools of destruction.
“We were experimenting with lots of different weapons, lots of different things,” says Barlog. “I think we wanted to create an identity, because to me the blades represent a very dark time in [Kratos’] life. They are not just a weapon to him. They are his scarlet letter. They are the marking that somebody tricked him, that he made a bad deal, that he made a mistake. Powerful, but I think also powerfully charged in its emotion. So I think of part of him wanting to move forward is being able to [leave the blades behind].”
The emblematic weapons of Kratos were bestowed by the gods, who were despicable to the God of War, so swords represented years of deceit, bondage, and mass slaughter. However, leaving these elements is a clear way to refresh the gameplay.
“It gives us the freedom to experiment with what we really want to do. I think the magic moment with the axe, honestly, was when a programmer and a combat designer was like, ‘I have this cool idea,'” Barlog continued. “Right away the magic of throwing the axe, having it stick anywhere in the world, and then recalling it, and then kind of playing around with that, and realizing you can hit people with it, you can throw it behind them, move in front of them, recall it and hit him in the back.”
Barlog went on to say that they realized that the new weapon of Kratos was phenomenal, so they decided to focus their efforts on the axe, leaving behind the swords.
During the Sony conference at E3 2017, we learned that God of War will debut in early 2018, unfortunately there is no release date set at the moment.
