God of War Ragnarok producer Cory Barlog of Sony’s Santa Monica Studio has explained why Kratos’ adventure through Norse mythology is ending in this upcoming title. Barlog, who was previously the director of 2018’s God of War, discussed it in an interview with Kaptain Kuba on YouTube.
Fans got a longer look at the sequel during last week’s PlayStation Showcase, where Santa Monica Studio revealed that the game would provide a conclusion to its Norse saga. With many questioning why the team isn’t keeping the same settings for a potential trilogy, Barlog elaborated on how the decision came to be:
“I think one of the most important reasons is the first game took five years. The second game – I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’m just going to throw out that it’s going to take a close-to-similar time, right, to do this, and then if you think, wow, a third one in that same (amount of time) — we’re talking, like, a span of close to 15 years of a single story. And I feel like that’s just too stretched out.”
He continued, saying that he feels like taking that much time to complete that story is “asking too much” and would take too long. Barlog spoke with God of War Ragnarok director Eric Williams about it and expressed that he thought a satisfying ending and conclusion could be made to the Norse saga with the sequel.
Barlog elaborated on why: “Because most of what we were trying to do from the beginning was to tell something about Kratos and Atreus, that the core of this story’s engine is really the relationship between these two characters, and the complexity radiates out, like ripples in a pond. And we could make it an ocean and have those ripples just go for thousands of miles, but is that necessary, and is that beneficial? Or are we feeling like it’s just spreading it too far apart, the ripples get too far apart? And you sort of lose the plot a little bit.”
Barlog and Williams seem confident in the decision to finish the Norse saga with God of War Ragnarok, as Barlog added, “Also, as we started to talk about what the story could be, about where Eric really wanted to go, the things that were interesting and exciting for him, I was like, yeah, I really do think we can do this. Because it is centralizing itself always around these characters and then really giving everybody the time that they need.”
The dramatic ending of the Norse saga will arrive in God of War Ragnarok when it launches on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 sometime in 2022.
