How Sony Almost Killed God Of War

At every turn, God of War appeared to barely run with a stable frame rate. The combat loop and core feel wasn't there, and faith in pulling off such an experimental endeavour was waning. The project had an air of "Trust us, we can do this... probably", as only after enough time had been invested, would the entire thing come together.

Obviously this didn't sit well with testing groups or studio heads, and Barlog had some seething feedback:

"What are you doing to Kratos? You're ruining Kratos. He's picking flowers! He's picking flowers?! This is ridiculous!" came one tester's thoughts, who apparently wanted to leave the play session because "he was so angry that Kratos was picking flowers."

Said Corey, "People were very protective of the franchise, and if they thought something was wrong they did not hesitate to tell me how much I suck."

Sadly, even Shuhei Yoshida couldn't hold in his disbelief at the state of the game only six months before launch, playing a build and leaving without saying a word. Barlog would later find out through a friend that Yoshida was "horrified" by what he saw, but this immensely counterproductive atmosphere actually spurred the team to get everything finished.

Pressure makes diamonds, after all.

"Everyone had to rally together; not just the combat team, but the engine team, the rendering team [...] The lesson I had to keep learning was to put the difficult thing in front of us, and not get comfortable. We need to force ourselves sometimes to be very uncomfortable."

It is precisely because of this series of events that Corey Barlog and his immensely talented team cemented themselves as some of the best creatives in the industry. It went right to the finish line, and Corey in particular had to shoulder an immense amount of pressure, channeling it into what we can now comfortably say was worth such a hectic development.

Props to the team. God of War is easily one of the best games of 2018, of the decade, and all time.