''If you pay attention to the piercings on our big dour friend, youll notice that hes got three gigantic piercings holding him in place. Two are impaling his arms. They separate his biceps from the humerus bone in what could possibly be considered the most intense body modification possible. The pain of constantly having your muscles tugged from the bone must be incredible. Yet he pulls against his bonds with all of his giants might to destroy the measly humans at his dinner table.''
He also talks about why the giant Polyphemus was chosen and the origins of the tusks the creature appears to have;
''When I was first approached with the design needs, we hadnt settled on any myth specific character, yet. The requirements were, we needed a gigantic Titan in the background of our desert multiplayer level. He needed to be ferocious, and a constant element of danger, and of course he would constitute our big gory finale for the level. After discussing it with our leader Todd Papy and Art Director Chris Sutton, I discovered they were pretty fond of an old high concept idea I had of this giant plump big daddy cyclops.'' ''The other thing I brought into his shape was the knowledge that the original Myths of the Cyclops are said to come from early Greeks encountering ancient Elephant skulls. It wasnt until way later in the days of Hannibal that elephants became known to the culture at large, so it was likely that they invented the Cyclops tale to account for these massive fossils. With that in mind I added some short tusks to the characters jaw line, and added just a bit of an elephant texture to his skin. There may be an underlying tone of Elephant throughout God of War: Ascension because of me, just sayin''
People who were lucky enough to have a go on the multiplayer demo at E3 this year gave it the thumbs up, and praised it for being epic and intense while retaining all the elements that make God Of War so much fun to play. You can read more of Izzy's role in developing Polyphemus as well as his take on the violent way Kratos would destroy the massive Titan at the God Of War blog. God Of War: Ascension comes to PS3 March 2013. You can see concept art as well as a video of some of the multiplayer gameplay from E3 below; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nGjw-VEdNt8