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[kyliethicc]

Interview with Cory Barlog, Eric Williams, and others about God of War and SMS.

Sony's Santa Monica Studio continues to lead with 'God of War Ragnarök'

Santa Monica Studio was once a champion for weird and odd games that would come to the PlayStation platform. Today, it's all 'God of War.'

www.latimes.com

Cory Barlog confirms they have multiple games in development.

Barlog says Santa Monica Studio is currently “spread out on a lot of different things,” although he declined to offer specifics.

Eric Williams says he's fine with "just" making more God of War games.

But Williams is quick to add that if the company dedicates itself full-time to the “God of War” franchise, there’s no shame in that.

“I remember talking to someone from another game company, where they were trying to get me to leave. They said, ‘Do you just want to be known as the “God of War” guy for the rest of your life?’ That was your big pitch to dissuade me? Because yes, I kind of do.”

Williams on his approach to directing Ragnarök

First-time game director Williams says he wanted “Ragnarök” to pick up where “God of War” left off. His goal wasn’t to reinvent the franchise but to have it feel as if it were a new chapter in a continuing saga.

“The best compliment I can possibly get, in my opinion, would be that I feel invisible as a director and [that] it feels like a true continuation,” says Williams. “To me, they’re siblings, and they need to co-exist. I don’t want it to be [Barlog’s] game and my game. To me, that would be sad. I want you to jump in and say, ‘This feels like we just dropped off.’ There are differences, but I don’t think they’re so drastic that it would feel strange or awkward now.”

Barlog on how The Last of Us changed the game industry

“We’ve grown slowly, over a decade or two, to that point,” Barlog says, citing Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” (2013) as proof that big budget video games can equally balance violence and emotion. “But I think 2018 was possible to me because of so many other games.

“‘The Last of Us’ is defining. You can challenge people on more than killing things, and they’ll want it. It proved to the executives that this is viable. Prior, it was maybe too niche. For the longest time, it was always about the back of the box. You had to have a gimmicky thing to sell it, as opposed to saying that doing something good and engaging people on all emotional levels — not just anger, frustration and fear — is viable.”

On the original God of War's hugging mechanic

Williams was adamant, for instance, that a hugging mechanic be placed amid a climactic battle of the 2005 title, where Kratos would have to lend his wife and child health to keep them protected during the fight. It was meant to play out as a manifestation of Kratos’ dreams and nightmares, as players already knew the ultimate tragic fate of his family.

It also planted a seed that Kratos could eventually evolve, though that would be more than a decade in the making.

“It was so metaphorical,” Williams said recently in the offices of Santa Monica Studio. “He was fighting the demons within himself, but he was giving his life to his family. That always stuck with me. That could be a thesis for a change in the character, which we took and ran with.”

...

“God of War” (2018) and, even more so, “Ragnarök” are examples of games that challenge the player to never set down the controller. Even plot expository moments that explain, for example, Kratos’ fraught relationship with the goddess Freya are delivered with forward momentum.

Barlog says that was the argument he used to persuade David Jaffe, director of the first “God of War,” not to cut the midbattle hugs.

“We were really excited about what we could do in the game,” Barlog says. “We make games. And it’s really neat and fun to do cinematic things, but how can you actually feel like the player has agency?”

 

[Represent.]

So a new IP followed up by another God of War is my guess

Good to see them giving TLOU its props. You can tell Ragnarok took some inspiration from TLOU 2 as well

 

[kyliethicc]

So a new IP followed up by another God of War is my guess

Safe bet yeah

 

[Elios83]

Cory Barlog has been working on a new IP for a good while the Eric Williams has handled the work on Ragnarok.
Next year they should be ready to unveil it (among many other PS Studios projects).

 

[Gaiff]

I can blatantly see the impact TLOU has had on GOW/R and am no fan of it at all. 2018 did it fine by finding a right balance between storytelling and gameplay/combat. Ragnarok is too mushy with too much whining, crying, and hugs, and shit that don't belong in a GOW game. I hope this Williams dude doesn't direct the next one. Barlog did a much better job with 2018.

I barely recognized Kratos even from his 2018 self at times.

 

[Cyber_hunter026]

"Barlog says Santa Monica Studio is currently spread out on a lot of different things, although he declined to offer specifics"

 

[sankt-Antonio]

IMO after playing some hours of Ragnarok I thought to myself that SSM must have multiple games in dev since no way does the polish and content of Ragnarok require five years of development when 70% of everything was already done prior.
Hope their next game is released next year.

 

[SlimySnake]

The fact that their most prolific director hasnt made a game in 4.5 years is insane. They need to become more productive and best way to do that is by hiring close to a 1000 people and making each team at least a 500 person team.

You just wasted 5 years of his life because you took his team away to make a sequel. Insane studio management by sony.

 

[EDMIX]

Because of how many other teams they support, I'm not really shocked they'd be spread out and a new IP would make sense along side a God Of War follow up.

I'm also not shocked at The Last Of Us series having such an impact on the industry. The industry is so behind on this concept its not even funny, The Last Of Us show will do well for HBO, but it will not define television and it won't be this industry shifting idea.

That level of drama is normal in that industry...it is relatively new to gaming as an industry. I've felt this for eons, even after beating The Last Of Us 2 in front of my sister, (she also loves the first game and beat it many times), she wanted me to play another game like that as it was a wild 3 days of emotional, roller coaster drama, it was at that moment that I had to break it to her that the industry is relevantly new to this concept.

There is not too many games I could even play that would match that level of drama. One day it will be a established thing as its own genre and more common place as gamers get older and the demographic proves they wish to play such titles. So i get why it might be hard to prove to executives that people exist that would play such things and maybe it took a series breaking all sorts of records to show a lot of gamers would support such a thing.

So maybe I'll run God Of War 2018 and Ragnarok in front of my sister on new game plus, on easy so she can see the story.

 

[Markio128]

Any new IP from SSM is something to be excited for. The amount of new IPs (SSM? ND? Bluepoint?) that could be revealed next year is really massaging my anticipation gland.

 

[DeepEnigma]

IMO after playing some hours of Ragnarok I thought to myself that SSM must have multiple games in dev since no way does the polish and content of Ragnarok require five years of development when 70% of everything was already done prior.
Hope their next game is released next year.

Tell us you don't know how to make games without telling you don't know how to make games.

 

[TheGodfather07]

IMO after playing some hours of Ragnarok I thought to myself that SSM must have multiple games in dev since no way does the polish and content of Ragnarok require five years of development when 70% of everything was already done prior.
Hope their next game is released next year.

What do you know about game development to tell us that santa Monica took too long on ragnarok? You know fuck all.

 

[semiconscious]

“We’ve grown slowly, over a decade or two, to that point,” Barlog says, citing Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us” (2013) as proof that big budget video games can equally balance violence and emotion. “But I think 2018 was possible to me because of so many other games.

“‘The Last of Us’ is defining. You can challenge people on more than killing things, and they’ll want it. It proved to the executives that this is viable. Prior, it was maybe too niche. For the longest time, it was always about the back of the box. You had to have a gimmicky thing to sell it, as opposed to saying that doing something good and engaging people on all emotional levels — not just anger, frustration and fear — is viable.”

yep. & there it is: "adult content" = violence & emotions...

 

[DeepEnigma]

yep. & there it is: "adult content" = violence & emotions...

In a world where adults still rage and fight wars... sure.

Humans are naturally violent and emotional beings, it's how we manage them into adulthood making us who we are.

 

[semiconscious]

In a world where adults still rage and fight wars... sure.

Humans are naturally violent and emotional beings, it's how we manage them into adulthood making us who we are.

sorry, but i'm thinking there's more to mature story-telling than 'violence & emotions', which can basically simply function as lowest-common-denominator button-pushing/manipulation that simply looks & 'feels' mature...

 

[DeepEnigma]

sorry, but i'm thinking there's more to mature story-telling than 'violence & emotions', which can basically simply function as lowest-common-denominator button-pushing/manipulation that simply looks & 'feels' mature...

Context and nuance. You are misinterpreting what was said. They are saying that they were able to reach a point where violence and emotion can be told in a more mature way within the medium.

 

[semiconscious]

Context and nuance. You are misinterpreting what was said. They are saying that they were able to reach a point where violence and emotion can be told in a more mature way within the medium.

& i'm saying that there's a thin line between 'can be told' & 'can appear to be told', with both containing the exact same ingredients...

 

[DeepEnigma]

& i'm saying that there's a thin line between 'can be told' & 'can appear to be told', with both contain the exact same ingredients...

That just comes down to personal opinion. To them, they reached it, and I would tend to agree with them. Especially compared to some games of generations before.

 

[semiconscious]

That just comes down to personal opinion. To them, they reached it, and I would tend to agree with them. Especially compared to some games of generations before.

while i love & admire the last of us, i'm just seeing nothing truly similar going on (other than the presence of violence & emotion) in either tlou2 or the new gows. you're correct in saying it's totally subjective, & i'm glad you're able to enjoy them. me, i'm just seeing little of real substance, & lots of overt button-pushing...

 

[Mibu no ookami]

So a new IP followed up by another God of War is my guess

Good to see them giving TLOU its props. You can tell Ragnarok took some inspiration from TLOU 2 as well

I'm guessing God of War 1-3 remakes.

 

[Gudji]

New IP please.

 

[StealthGoblin]

The fact that their most prolific director hasnt made a game in 4.5 years is insane. They need to become more productive and best way to do that is by hiring close to a 1000 people and making each team at least a 500 person team.

You just wasted 5 years of his life because you took his team away to make a sequel. Insane studio management by sony.

You do know that you can’t have a few hundred people just stop one game and move on to the next right? You need the ideas incubated, a vertical slice made, the bible made, the tech iterated on. You would have several hundred people sitting around doing nothing - that is why they had layoffs when Internal 7 was cancelled. They couldn’t justify having that many people doing nothing while Cory’s team got ready. As it is, he inherited a huge number of people for 2018 and it’s incredible (Yumi Yang must take a lot of credit for it) that they kept that size and put out the GOTY.

 

[CamHostage]

It'd be nice if they had multiple projects juggling. Certainly there's the second project that Barlog is supposedly masterminding, but it's unknown if that has been active alongside Ragnarok or just brewing on the backburner with a core team. Santa Monica makes great games, but weirdly the only game they made internally besides God of War was the PS2 racing game Kinetica. (They did also run an incubator program for a while, but those were all external studios under the SSM banner.) You think this studio has this rich history of deep franchises like Naughty Dog or Sucker Punch, but they're more like Polyphony Digital, where there's only one off-brand title in their decades of existence.

The fact that their most prolific director hasnt made a game in 4.5 years is insane. They need to become more productive and best way to do that is by hiring close to a 1000 people and making each team at least a 500 person team.

You just wasted 5 years of his life because you took his team away to make a sequel. Insane studio management by sony.

...Wait, who is their "most prolific director", Cory Barlog? Are you referring to him as that because he has directed 2 games in the two decades he's been at SIE Santa Monica, not just one?

Nobody is a prolific director at Santa Monica. They trade out directors for every project. Even after GoW 1 in 2005, Jaffe was still there but he had Barlog bumped up to directing the project rather than doing it again, and I believe that tradition has held true ever since except for Barlog doing GoW2 and then GoW 2018 reboot; also Stig was going to get a second game, but it fell through.

They just don't make that many games, unfortunately.

 

[Represent.]

Wait what, Santa Monica ONLY has 200 people? That is tiny for the size and quality of games they release. They need 500+. Jim Ryan, please hire me. If I ran this shit PS5 would sell 200 million units.

 

[DeepEnigma]

...Wait, who is their "most prolific director", Cory Barlog? Are you referring to him as that because he has directed 2 games in the two decades he's been at SIE Santa Monica, not just one?

He's using hyperbole to make the situation seem dire. Have you met Slimy? Can't knock his passion though.

 

[Thirty7ven]

The fact that their most prolific director hasnt made a game in 4.5 years is insane. They need to become more productive and best way to do that is by hiring close to a 1000 people and making each team at least a 500 person team.

You just wasted 5 years of his life because you took his team away to make a sequel. Insane studio management by sony.

He’s a creative director in Ragnarok and he’s also working on another project. This isn’t a donut factory.

 

[Synless]

I would have to argue that Uncharted was defining, not The last of Us. TLoU was just a refinement on the cinematic formula uncharted created… The love for TLoU like it pioneered that shit, even internally within the team is crazy to me.

 

[remember_spinal]

I would have to argue that Uncharted was defining, not The last of Us. TLoU was just a refinement on the cinematic formula uncharted created… The love for TLoU like it pioneered that shit, even internally within the team is crazy to me.

I think they both pioneered two different things. Uncharted brought the “cinematic 3rd person blockbuster” sony and The Last of Us ushered in the more mature “oscar bait” style story telling, that very few games still seem to get right.

For example, Plague Tale wouldnt exist without TLOU

 

[Synless]

I think they both pioneered two different things. Uncharted brought the “cinematic 3rd person blockbuster” sony and The Last of Us ushered in the more mature “oscar bait” style story telling, that very few games still seem to get right.

For example, Plague Tale wouldnt exist without TLOU

Would TLoU exist without Uncharted’s fantastic story telling though? I mean, it really led the way.

 

[Caio]

I would love a new IP.

 

[remember_spinal]

Would TLoU exist without Uncharted’s fantastic story telling though? I mean, it really led the way.

I don’t really think the story telling of uncharted is that great, its the characters and performances that make the game charming. They pretty much used that as a blueprint for something more structured and layered in TLOU. So yeah, obviously TLOU wouldn’t exist without uncharted but Uncharted wouldn’t exist without Jak and Daxter and crash, they’re all evolutions but the two latter franchises were watershed moments in gaming.

GoW 2018 wouldnt exist without TLOU either

 

[Yoboman]

IMO after playing some hours of Ragnarok I thought to myself that SSM must have multiple games in dev since no way does the polish and content of Ragnarok require five years of development when 70% of everything was already done prior.
Hope their next game is released next year.

You can tell who actually hasn't played the game sticking to this point

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

 

[Yoboman]

The fact that their most prolific director hasnt made a game in 4.5 years is insane. They need to become more productive and best way to do that is by hiring close to a 1000 people and making each team at least a 500 person team.

You just wasted 5 years of his life because you took his team away to make a sequel. Insane studio management by sony.

I think you underestimate how draining directing a game is, particularly a GOW game. There's a reason nobody has done it back to back.

Pre production also takes alot of time especially with a new IP

 

[alabtrosMyster]

I can blatantly see the impact TLOU has had on GOW/R and am no fan of it at all. 2018 did it fine by finding a right balance between storytelling and gameplay/combat. Ragnarok is too mushy with too much whining, crying, and hugs, and shit that don't belong in a GOW game. I hope this Williams dude doesn't direct the next one. Barlog did a much better job with 2018.

I barely recognized Kratos even from his 2018 self at times.

I think you landed it, I have not finished the game yet, but what they consider more\deeper emotions are overly done for the type of character the Kratos has always been (and the kind of quest he started with). It feels too much like they tried really hard to "change him" so far where I am in the game, in the last one he took care of his kid and dispensed wise advice along the way (however, it felt robotic at time, but I will put that on the writing).

There is part where there is a bunch of characters sitting at a table and they discuss the next step of the adventure, this does not work, then the kid says things like "we go around helping people now"... I was like WTF, I thought you were there to try and stop Ragnarok.

However, I love the gameplay, worlds, etc.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

You just wasted 5 years of his life because you took his team away to make a sequel. Insane studio management by sony.

Yes, Sony of all people should be told how to run their studios! What a bunch of morons, like they ever shipped a good game.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I don’t know why they wouldn’t have a game in development.

 

[nial]

They're making Kinetica 2.

 

[CamHostage]

He's using hyperbole to make the situation seem dire. Have you met Slimy? Can't knock his passion though.

Ha, oh for sure; plenty of times, I've been on the "this glass is half-full of piss, not half-empty" side of these conversations.

I do get the frustration that Sony Santa Monica (and really every studio in the business these days, except for somehow Insomniac) has slowed down output in the past two gens. We used to get a trilogy every console from every major game studio (in the PS1 or PS2/PSP era, we also got spin-off games sometimes,) then last gen came around and we're still getting #2s of big games two years into the new-gen consoles and often as cross-gen projects. I get it, sort of, these projects are massive undertakings, but the big brands used to be on a cycle of Invention-Refinement-Refinement / Invention Again, and that was nice. Something's been lost when there's too much space in between them, and also it's more difficult putting your faith in a studio when they won't have something new for you until you're a half-century older.

They're making Kinetica 2.

DUDE! You can't do that to my heart...

(BTW, there's a kind of indie take on Kinetica called Lightfield which looks like it might be worth checking out)

 

[Umbasaborne]

I preferred the bombastic character action, gore, and boobs of the original god of war games. But i guess thats not as emotional.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Eric Williams says he's fine with "just" making more God of War games.

Great answer.

This series has everything. Epic boss battles. Epic set pieces. Fantastic art/lore. Savage combat. Puzzles galore.

There's so much potential wherever they go with this that is it any shame to say you only worked on God of War for your career? God of War is basically the height of AAA development. Why would you want to go work on something LESSER? SSM has outclassed everyone after Ragnarok as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Bonsaibäumchen]

As far as I remember Cory once stated he wanted to make a sci-fi game.
Its good to hear that sms is working on several projects now, hopefully they'll grow and be able to create more outstanding games and IPs.

 

[remember_spinal]

I could 100% subsist off playstation studio games alone if they were able to put out 2-3 more a year on average. I hope all the acquisitions and the expansion of all the studios are able to mitigate development times and release cycles.

I’m also kind of curious to see if Jade Raymonds studio will be able to nail the AI tools that allow quicker prototyping. That would be invaluable if they did

 

[mckmas8808]

I preferred the bombastic character action, gore, and boobs of the original god of war games. But i guess thats not as emotional.

It's not as good either. That's the main problem.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

I just hope there's no VR stuff in there.

 

[01011001]

It's not as good either. That's the main problem.

no it's not as good... it's way better

 

[StealthGoblin]

It’s obvious they are a multi-team studio now and they need to be really given just how fucking massive the actual building is they are in.

I’d honestly think they’d be used best if their teams were:

1. God of War Next
2. Cory’s new IP
3. GAAS team (with support from Valkyrie entertainment)
4. Indie support team.

 

[mckmas8808]

It’s obvious they are a multi-team studio now and they need to be really given just how fucking massive the actual building is they are in.

I’d honestly think they’d be used best if their teams were:

1. God of War Next
2. Cory’s new IP
3. GAAS team (with support from Valkyrie entertainment)
4. Indie support team.

This setup would be PERFECT!

 

[Raonak]

GOW:R was the perfect expansion and conclusion of GOW2018's world.

Really curious to see where it goes next, setting it in another mythology seems easy, but I don't know how you advance kratos' character more. Now that he's found peace.

I don't think you can make a GOW without kratos either, but you need to give him some sort of motivation to do what he does.

 

[DragoonWalker]

How many years has it been since Sony Santa Monica has made a new IP? Really hope it's a sci fi game. Naughty Dog rumored to be doing a sci fi game too. And Sony Bend (is the Men in Black rumor true?). Then Guerilla can make Horizon 3, also sci fi. Stellar Blade, that korean game Sony is publishing is sci fi. Can never have too much sci fi, love it.