Cory Barlog, the director of God of War, said during Kinda Funny‘s podcast that he had far too ambitious plans to expand Kratos’ and Atreus’ story, from which he also confirmed that it was never meant to be an open-world adventure.
„I had a really fun idea for a DLC that I only regret because I would love to have done that, but it was too ambitious. It would [have] ended up being its own thing. Rightfully so, everybody said, ‘Dude, this is crazy, this isn’t DLC, this is a little too big,’” Barlog said, who planned it to be on the same level as The Last of Us: Left Behind, or Uncharted: Lost Legacy – a standalone title. The director also regrets that he wasn’t able to finish the photo mode and New Game+ by April when God of War launched.
He told VentureBeat that he was adamant about not making God of War an open-world game: „I was adamant that we couldn’t make [God of War] an open world game. The cost of entry and the expectation level is so high that we’d never compete. We just don’t have the infrastructure and the systems. I don’t want to do that. To do these things, to do the complexity [Ubisoft and Rockstar] have, you just need a lot of people. For us, not only do we not want to invest in that aspect of it, but to me, the world needed to feel large, and not empty, but with surprising moments of discovery. It could feel like there were areas where there’s not a lot going on, and then all of a sudden an entirely new level opens up that you weren’t directed to, that you just discovered.”
Barlog also explained the term „wide linear:” „Once we started saying wide linear — I didn’t have a term for it. One of the level designers actually started saying that. That was a good way to describe it because I kept saying, ‘not open world.’ That’s the worst way to describe something, to say what it’s not. It’s better to give a good picture.”
What could have God of War‘s scrapped DLC been? It’s likely we’ll get to play it, as it’s impossible that we won’t get a sequel…
Source: PushSquare, GameSpot
