Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The Future of God of War (w/Director Cory Barlog) - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 164

Episode Date: April 2, 2018

Greg Miller interviews Cory Barlog about the future of God of War, and Nick and Jared talk about Far Cry 5. (Released first to http://www.Patreon.com/KindaFunnyGames Supporters on 03.30.18) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

to the first ever kind of funny games cast episode 164. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the dokey dokey man himself, Jared Petty. It's sure so dumb and I love it. Everything we do is so dumb and we love it. Over there, the producer slash newser, Nick Scarpino. Give up on being serious and you will be liberated, my friend. Just don't try to do anything.

You remember when that happened for you with this job, right? There was like, let it in. Just let it go. I think it was like episode two of when you guys were like, Nick, you can start doing the morning show by yourself. And I was like, that was a long time. I have all the power now.

It's but a slow progression. Yeah, from there. Yeah. Now, is that progression or regression? Like, is that progression. Okay. I actually try hard to let go of whatever preconceived notion I have of myself of being a professional because that's not fun.

It's long gone. What's fun is just being off the wall and getting your brain in that state where anything can happen because that's what I think we should be doing. That's where I want to be doing. I think so. Yeah. I enjoy it. I've gotten great feedback from people.

Uh, the people that look for the morning show for real news facts. So long gone. Oh yeah. There we're super gone. If anybody wanted that, I know that. If you didn't know this is the Kind of Funny Games cast, each and every week, we get together to talk about the games we love

and everything we love in video games. If you like that, head over to patreon.com slash kind of funny games where a buck will get you the ability to watch it live alongside the pre-hand post shows. Five by dollars will get you the MP3 earlier on Friday. And I'm making this up. Is that Flint for money?

I'm making up. It's hard. Everyone always compliments me on my intro atro skills. But it's just because I've done them so many times when it's brand new. $10. You can get the pre-impost show video on demand that Friday. And if you have no money to toss her away, the following Monday, it goes up as one big

MP3 and video. Remember, the prices I just listed there aren't just for the show. They get your early access to party mode, the PlayStation VR show. All sorts of cool stuff up on that Patreon page and it lets us bring in people like Jared. Keep Nick employed. Happy to be here. We love you and we couldn't do without you. Are there's American Bedoulez or Canadian Badalla? Badala.

Yeah. You're a one Badaal. Tim Getty's very much alive, everybody. We're doing a special thing today. We have the one and only Corey Barlogue coming in. JK, he already came in during JC with you. But we did a great God of War interview. So the idea was me and Tim were talking.

We could just put that up on its own. We don't want to put up a games cast that's like three hours long because next week is off to Pax East. So we're running a short week anyway. We're doing a bunch of speaking of, by the way. Housekeeping. Thursday of Pax East. Come to the panel.

730 Dragonfly Theater. Kind of Funney's first annual chicken wing wing day. B-Y-O-W The W stands for Wings Bring your own wings Bring your own wings Yeah Because we'll be eating wings

And doing a panel for you It'll be me Andrea, Jeff Ramsey and Joester Joey Noah Rad So we're figuring So we want to do today

We're like All right We'll do a kicker Into the God of War interview But then I was like But Tim Tim Tim I'm doing like The Tien

E thing with my arm Right I want to talk about Far Cry Yeah And I'm gonna want to talk about Far Cry I bet for a while

However I don't want my Impressions to be Super Stale Because at this point I played three nights, two to three to four hours apiece. By the time we get back, I'm going to have liberated the whole map.

Everything's going on. And I don't want to sound like an idiot when this goes live. Far Cry is the moment now. So what we're going to do is do a Far Cry roundtable discussion here. Maybe led by Mr. Jared Petty. Led. He says he has a bunch of questions. I do have questions.

I really do. Me and the producer slash seducer, aka the beloved, have been playing this game extensively, doing a whole bunch of different stuff with it. So I think that's, we want to get your far cry impressions in here. Then, of course, tell you the episode's brought to you by Blue Apron and Hems, but I'll give you the full ad to read later.

And I'd let you talk to Corey, because I have some good questions, some good insight on what the game is, where it's going, that got a war, and what the future holds for it. So for now, let's talk about Far Cry 5. Jared Petty, the ship is yours. All right, let's start right here. I'm very interested in Far Cry 5's theme of theocratic nationalism. Sure. The idea behind church and state blending in a perverse way to form a cultic religious organization that appears to rule over a section. of rural Montana and that you're kind of thrust into the middle of that.

Now, Far Cry games have never especially grabbed me story-wise. I think they're very interesting. I think they're very neat games. Can I say, and I'm not trying to suck up to our new host here. Yeah. I agree with you. Okay. I'm the same way of like, don't be wrong.

I love... So that weird villain in Far Cry 4, you weren't just... Oh, I love Pagan Men. Peggymin's great, but that's the thing is Far Cry is really good I feel at giving us memorable villains, but then not so much, what are they up to? You know what I mean? like our pagan men. Oh, it's Troy Baker.

And it's a great performance. And he's crazy. And I was like, he was trying to take, just be a warlord. And then Vaz, right, in Far Cry 3. Yeah. Cool. Wasn't, I was, like, part of a ritual, they killed all my friends. And then I had sex with a girl where we're trying to make a, all encompassing baby.

I don't remember that part. I remember Vaz being a cool villain. Sure. Right. That was kind of the, that mirrors my experience as well. That's kind of where I thought. You felt the same way, Nick? I didn't.

I play the prior. Far Cry games, obviously, I've seen people play primal things like that. I know great played through it and loved it. My real entry into the series right now, unfortunately, is Far Cry 5, but I could not. I think that it speaks directly opposite of what you guys are talking about. I think this story here, you actually end up really caring about right from the beginning because of that amazing intro scene. That's my question.

Yeah, that's right. We'll get to the intro to a second. That is my question. How much does it embrace that? Is this all previous Far Cry games, as I see them, where you've kind of got this neat backdrop, an interesting villain hook, and then pretty much it's a sandbox that quickly forgets about all of it,

or is it actually an integral part of the game? And I think both of those things, by the way, are okay. Oh, yeah, totally, totally. I'm just curious which way they ultimately ended up going. I think it's an integral part of the game, and I think it does. It's something that keeps you, you're constantly aware of these cultists

that are out in the world, largely because the game does a very good job, I think, of reminding you, even when you start to get to a point, you're like, I'm just going to take a break real quick. Someone comes by and they're like, there he is. And they come to fuck with you. You're getting constant messaging that's really creepy on TVs, various radio sources of like,

we know where, wherever you are, we're going to get you. Like, you can't stop this thing that's happening. Like, so you do get an impending sense of doom that I think the game is really good at setting up. Having said that, my only main critique of the game is also that in that as an American, living in America, it is a little hard for me to believe. believe that you would be that cut off in this day and age. Although, what time period is it supposed to be happening? It's modern, right?

So it's a little weird that you're that cut off in this day and age that you'd have to start a rebellion against a Colt in Montana as opposed to just driving a couple miles the other way, picking up the phone and calling in the National Guard. Okay. That is the only thing that you have to sort of suspend. As you, what's up? I think, and I hear you, of course. I think there has to be a suspension to disbelief anywhere.

I feel in the intro, and this isn't real spoilers, but I know people always get when I say that. But like, it's a great moment. A lot of, a lot of the key players in the thing, in the world are like, hydrations,

like sleeper agents. And so I think that's what they're trying to establish in the fact, and like when, you know, uh, Joseph grabs you and is like, no one's coming for you.

Yeah. You know, you're on your own. It's, I think the point of, and I'm sure in some of the letters or in some of the conversations, I probably missed and just don't remember

because I'm just playing it through and going. There must have been a thing of like some insinuation that the guy, eye you contact at the National Guard is one of his followers. Like they're, I think they just want, the disbelief you have to get is just like, don't trust. You cut off at your knees, everybody's pretty much in on the sky side. So it's kind of an invasion of the body snatchers type thing.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So is that the, is that the crux of the intro? Because I've heard a lot of murmuring about the intro from people. The intro is like fucking on another planet good. Yeah. Okay. And I think for a far cry, definitely the best cinematic intro. I mean, cinema.

I would just say cinematic I've ever seen. In far cry. Really? In a far cry. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Of like, again, I remember when that girl, I woke up and that girl was having sex with me and chanting stuff or whatever in Far Cry 3. Yeah. But again, and I remember when Pagan Min told me to stand there for a while and I stood there for a while and he came back and he's like, oh, you stayed and the music kicks in.

I was like, that's fucking rad. I'm going to remember this forever of like, yeah, of this like you're in no spoilers for like how it all ends up even like you can imagine. Yeah. I guess it's not hard to figure out where it's going on this one. But you know, you're going in there. You're a U.S. Marshall. There's another U.S.

Marshall. You're in a helicopter. You're going in there with the sheriff. who's like I don't know and the sheriff keeps trying to talk you guys out of it of like yeah you guys don't know what you're getting into don't fucking do this don't do this and no no we keep pushing keep pushing we push we're you as marshals we're america we got yeah and you get out of the helicopter and you're like in this like creepy town and like you know he's giving a crazy the josephs giving a crazy sermon up there in the church and like it's super

creepy and you serve the warrant and you get them and then all you know all hell breaks loose right and it totally establishes i think quickly in the suspension disbelief way of like you're on your own you're stuck everything's fucked everybody's crazy like you know what I mean You can't fight this through a traditional route. Okay. Yeah. For me, it didn't quite, like, yes, the first two hours. Then, as I got in my first helicopter, I was like, I'm pretty sure I could just fly out of

the top right now. And this is back to your thing. I'm sure I can land at a U.S. Marshall Station somewhere. This is back to your point, is that when they showed Far Cry 5 and announced everything, and it's super serious and it's this and it's in America and you're like, holy shit, fuck, we're really going for it this time. I remember having the conversation probably on Gamescast of just like, yeah, but is it just going to be the backdrop and it's just going to be what I'm doing and running around or is it

going to be lenient and it's a different kind of far cry. It's somewhere in the middle, but more leaning towards it being a backdrop. Okay. Now, to Nick's point in terms of being invested, every time there's a main cutscene and I meet one of his, uh, like the sub bosses, right? Like brothers and sisters. Yeah, the brother. Yeah, I haven't gotten to it. Some of their relationships are weird. Doesn't matter. Yeah. They're all you meet them and you get their cut scene and you're getting they're baptizing people and using drugs and shit. It's, It's like controller in my hand, but like I'm fucking focused. Like this is awesome.

Okay. But then for me, and I was talking to injury about this on Games Daily, right, like, when I'm running into a random person and I'm meeting the over-the-top cook or the crazy-ass preacher and it's just like, cool. But I find myself actually for the first time I can remember. And it gave skipping. I'm just skipping. There's a lot of them. I'm like, I want to get to take down the cult outposts.

I want to continue on filling in my resistance meter. I don't, you're just telling me, all right, this is why we got to do this. It's like, all right. You want to get out there and stuff. systematically dismantle some evil and have some crazy things. And that's the thing for me too is like, sorry to interrupt you. But like to the point of like I, once you go, okay, look, A, it's a game. B, I'm investing in the story.

You do, there was a moment in me where I'm like, no, fuck this. I do want to take this colt down myself. I think the game does a great job of incentivizing you'd want to do that. As a player, it strikes a really good balance of going like, I'm scared, but I also want to upgrade this gun so I can fuck up all these cold people. Let's talk about that incentivizing for a second there. because this is something I wonder about a lot. I've given a lot of thought to how, over the years,

how video games engage religion or often how they don't. Religion, faith, theological themes. That's my background. It's something I care a lot about. Yeah, it's what I went to college for and what I did for a long time. And it's a very important part of life. You know, violence, sex, politics, and religion are kind of cornerstones of literature and existence.

Those are what make a lot of our great stories. You're a movie guy. It's what makes a lot of our great movies. Pretty much everything, yeah. Mostly violence here in this day. Yeah, video games tend to shy away from overt theological themes and even from many spiritual themes. So what I wanted to ask here is this cult. Yeah.

Does it feel like something people would actually believe in? Does it feel like something that these people could get on board with to this point? Do their actions make sense to you? Are you frightened of them because they're video game AI? Or are you frightened of them because they're scary? Good question. I'm I frightened because they're scary because I love like love is a strong word I find it very very fascinating that they have well they do a lot of things that that is scary namely that you don't like Greg and Brad up but you have the sleeper cells you have the people who are devout followers of this that are smarter than you so you get right off the bat you're set at a disadvantage which I think is really really cool it's not believable in a sense that you don't really get exposed to the men's of the cults. You don't know what their core beliefs are right at the bat. That's kind of being

given to you as you're going through the story. And so far I feel it's very run in the mill. Yeah. Right. He's here to cleanse everything, cleanse everyone. And, you know, it's a, my, my blood and sweat and the way he treats me is me atoning for my sins and stuff. It's just the extreme, not generalized view of a cult. And maybe as we get deeper and deeper into it, things are going to change. I mean, there's still, there's a drug infusion somewhere in there. Like it definitely has a a psychedelic aspect to it. But what I also found was fascinating is one of the characters that you meet early on

is a Catholic priest. And he's one of the resistance members. And so for me, that hit on a note where just jokingly, I actually said to myself, I was like, I guess I'm fighting for this guy's cult now instead of the other cult, right?

Just jokingly talking about like, there's a part where you have to go liberate him from a church. You have to liberate a small town and he's in there. And I'm like, it does. I don't know if that was a subtle nod

from, the game developer of saying like, hey, we're definitely going to put, I mean, it's obviously a choice that they made to put a Catholic priest as one of the leaders of the resistance. But I thought it was interesting to have a priest with the flackjackjacket and a machine gun running around trying to save people. But that's as far as it's gone so far. There's not been any exploration of what, what, say, might define a cult from his religious organization or any existential questions about the differences in belief there.

No, there's nothing. I mean, they're not tackling that head on. It's very much like he, they're, you know, and it's, is it believable, right? that was a question in there. And I remember when they announced this and seeing Dan Z3 presentation behind closed doors and talking to him about it,

it was like, all right, cool. I don't think this could happen in America and yada, yada, yada. And then like the week before we got review codes, I started watching Wild Wild Country on Netflix, which is an amazing documentary series.

I think it's seven parts, hour long each, about this cult that popped up in Oregon and started taking over a town and did take over town and almost took over the county. And it's like, holy fuck.

Like that totally got me in a different mindset that when I jumped into this game, I didn't need as much of the connecting tissue because when you hear about a cult or when you hear about Waco or any of these different things, it is like, that's when you get into the realness of like, how did this start and where did it go and where did their distrust and anger and all this comes from? To jump into this and be very much in the role of I'm boots on the ground, I don't need it yet in terms of what's going on. And I do think for me personally, the far-cryingness of it might be getting in the way of that. There might be those answers because there are you run in. and there's notes you pick up and it says, you know, you read these dialogues

of people being chased off and you can play answering machines when you get to houses and bases and like, oh, but again, I'm finding them not to be very interesting. So it used to be that, oh, cool. And now it's just like, maybe there's a trophy attached to getting all this. I'm going to do it and then run away

and they do the same fucking thing. I can't stand in any video game. Oh, cool, I'm going to start the message. Now I'm going to look at my, oh, no, when I open my screen, it stops the, it doesn't keep playing the goddamn recording. Why? Why?

I don't know, man. I will say this, though. I think it's interesting because my exposure, obviously, to like things like Waco is you usually get brought in as a general public at the end when you're about to siege the compound. So I find it very fascinating to be almost the starting point of like when this Colts getting that much power to the point where they feel they're ballsy enough to take down two U.S. Marshals. And so that's why I think it's a pretty intense, like, that's what I like about the game. It builds that intensity. Again, though, here's the other thing I want to say is I think if I hadn't played as much as I played last night, I wouldn't have this perspective. yet, but I'm happy I did.

You know, I've been, there's three different areas of the map, right? And then the Joseph's compound in the middle. And you have to take down those three bosses, you know, take over their areas, take down the bosses, then move into his area. I've been working in the, basically, I guess it's the starter area. It's the one they suggest. Did they suggest it? I started there.

Because you're the first message you get is from. John Seed, right? Yeah, it's from someone else that's that, that's, that you have to save. So you're like, okay, I guess that makes a start. I've been working in there for hours and hours and hours now. And I was, I still, it's a weird game because I feel like I'm not, making progress in it. Like I see the reputation meter building in, but I still feel like I'm not making the big moves. And so it was starting to feel samey of like, I'm starting to understand and

know the map I'm in, but also it's far cry. So I know every house kind of looks the same and certain and blah, blah, blah, but I jumped into Andy's game for co-op last night. And I was playing in his game, which I have a whole bunch of different problems with. We'll get to you a second. But we started off on this other mission. We were just driving around, fucking around. And we saw the giant statue, right, of Joseph. And it's, you know, it's supposed to look like. The homage to the Brazil statue. Exactly. Exactly. And so Andy and I ran up to it and we started fucking with it. And then it's like, all right, whatever. And then I went back to my game. And I got dropped off close again. And it queued up a mission now for me over there.

Because like, it's, Q's missions differently. And I was like, oh, no, I ran into the flight mission that I flew over by the, in that queueed admission for her. And then I start playing in that and started blowing this stuff up. And that's a new area, the next area run by the woman. I forget her name. Faith. Thank you. And have you been there yet? Not yet, no. I don't want to spoil it for anybody listening. Okay. But landing there, doing a little bit, doing the mission, it was like, and fucking on with

Andy even too, and especially playing co-op where Andy was like, whoa, what the fuck? And I'm like, what are you talking about? It was like, oh, okay, the areas are super different. And if I'm feeling samey in a spot, maybe I should start branching out and fucking around in other places. I assume that would be the case because they've set that up as these people are three very distinctly different types of personality. I imagine hers is going to be a little more trippy.

Yeah, the guy up north is a story. super militant dude, so I don't know what that's going to be like, right? Yeah, more fortified. But that actually changes the mechanics in the field. Well, it made it not feel samey anymore. And it did all of a sudden put a new dynamic lens, whatever you want to call it on it where I was like, oh, now I'm very interested to explore her area. But to get back and knock out my area and do so on and so forth.

Let me ask you this important question. How many times have you accidentally got attacked by a fucking bear? Because that keeps happening to me for some reason. Yeah, I'm used to that. The worst was a turkey. A turkey. I shot the turkey. I got, I got stampeded by a group of wild boars.

Yeah. I was like, oh, I'm gonna fuck, and that was dead. One of, I was talking to Andrew about this. And it's not, I don't wanna, I don't think it's bad, but it is very much that the roaming band of cultists all over the place. Yeah. Seems a bit much. And I don't know if it was like, decreased reputation if it's gonna, you know, less and less.

But it was like, I did a mission. Great. Open my mat. I'm like, walked out, chill, talk, my phone, talk to Jen. And then they're like, oh, there is. Oh, fuck these guys. Start shooting these motherfuckers in the road. Then, eh, oh, they got a four by four.

I'm like, fuck. Fuck. I killed all of them, but I'm like hanging out. I'm like, well, thank God. And I turn around it's a turkey. I'm like, God, damn. And like, running back. And like, at this point, I'm down to just bow and arrows.

I'm like, oh, fuck. And I'm like running, trying to get this goddamn turkey. I love the turkey's beating the crap. Yeah, oh, and they almost killed me. The bearer came at me and it was just down because I have a fucking awesome machine. It brings back a lot of red dead memories. Just totally, totally, totally like, totally. It actually feels like a GTA game when you hit like that star level where all shit breaks

and you're like, I'm dead. I'm just going to, I'm just going to keep shooting until they reset this. And it's done an interesting thing for me of, you know, when I first started playing, Jen was like, I want to watch. I'm like, okay, cool. And she eventually stopped. She's like, I'm going to go do something else. This game is going to be fun to play in co-op.

It's not fun to watch you play because what was happening is like, oh, the story mission's over there. I'm going to go. And I'd be driving. And then it would just be me getting swarmed by bad guys, which eventually led to me getting out of the car. And it's like, you know, I'm still super early in the game. This time, it's still early now.

Getting out of the car and then just running through the woods, right? And so now I'm like, I'm getting these random encounters. I'm meeting random people and it was like it was an interesting way of forcing me off the main roads in a way other Far Crys haven't even Far Cry 4 it was like you drive and you see the bad guys but you could just pull away from them and they'd eventually Now you're getting off the path

Yeah yeah yeah they're forcing me off in a good way I got one more question before we get to co-op Sure and that's a quick one so we mentioned GTA a second ago That's something I've really wondered about this game So GTA manages to bring you into a video game By being parody You're in Los Santos and Los Santos is a parodic version of L.A Everything's being made fun of yeah

And that's what I love about it. It works so well. They're mocking so many things. It's familiar, but it's also cartoonish, very video gaming. They do a great job with that in terms of feel. So that's one kind of take on the world. Then you go to a place like rapture, which can't exist. But when you're there, they do a really good job of making you feel like it can.

It's a fantasy world. They're like, nobody could ever build this. But boy, I wish they could. Sure. Now, Far Crimes, Montana, where does it fall in terms of believability? Is it America? Is it a video game arena? Does this feel like America?

Does it feel like parody or satire? What does it feel like? It's leaning more to, I think, Nicky, I want your opinion. I think it's, it's, it looks like America. It at times feels like America, but I feel like we're definitely off to the parody satire side of it.

And I think that's done on purpose. 100%. I think there is a level of fun that they tried to infuse with a lot of these characters by hyper-realizing them that I think is 100% necessary. I think it would be,

if everything was, holy shit, the sky's fallen. and we're already an impoverished group of people living in the woods. And like, our life is not that great to begin with. And now we've got to deal with this cult. Like you come across characters that do deal with themes like that. Like if you like, we're leaving and then they have to come to the Jesus,

the terms of like, wait, this is our land. This is our home. And so you want to help them liberate their homes. But there's also like American flags everywhere. Band-Dead as we're fucking, you know, you've got a mountain guns on the back, mounted guns on the back of trucks. You've got to go get dad's big rig, right? He's thinking you go get it and it's decked out in American shit

and it has machine guns on it. So it's kind of GTA 5ish in that regard. Yeah, I don't think it doesn't lean that hard. You know what I mean? But it does, the character models and stereotypes they're playing with and the things they're doing. But it does, like I say, go back and forth, right? Where there is the Stephen Seagall chef who wants you to go out

and he's like, I'm just a cook. He wants you to go out on, you know, the testicle. What'll be great is we bring back the testicle festival, which is a real thing that happens in, you know, small towns all over the place. But like, it is, like, the whole. mission's goofy and you got to make a bull fuck and like it's like you know what I mean like there's that goofy shit to it but then there is like all right cool you've come upon the

hog farm and they have three hostages lined up there the different parts of the thing you've got to get in take down all the bad guys but if they notice you're there they're going to start executing hostages and you get in there and that's when you do play the message and it's the guy calling in to check on his wife is she there there's a letter like if you've read if you're reading this we're already gone like they balance it in a very, very interesting way. I think they do a great job of balancing. I do a great job of, hey, it's fun time or doing stupid shit.

I'm flying a plane through like, you know, an obstacle course, and then I'm lighting people up, and this is super fun. And then you do have those heartfelt moments. And that's Nick, right? Yes. Nick especially, yeah, his mission very much is like, you get to him, oh man, thanks. They stole my plane, go get my plane.

You get the plane, yeah, you're right back. And my granddad's been running this crop duster forever, but I've made modifications. It's got guns and a bomber and all this shit. And Nick's very outspoken and crazy. You get there, and he's all excited to shoot and bomb shit. And then it's like, oh, they're attacking the house. Go help my wife's there. She's pregnant and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you kill everybody. And then you get the scene of him and his wife interacting and she is pregnant. And she's a very not sad character. She's a down-to-earth character. She's somebody from our world almost. Who's in there like thanking you for the help. But this shit is really bad even though Nick's wearing sunglasses being goofy. And they manage the disconnect.

Like it feels. I mean, I remember those characters. Small touches, right? One of the things I liked about her character was she had the side of her head shaved. Yeah. Which brought her to me into now. That's a modern haircut that she would have right now in America if she were like kind of hipster living in Oregon, right? And I thought, I was like, oh, that's cool.

These are people who are socially aware. These are people who are making choices for themselves and for their families that are tough choices. And I like that. And then, of course, you know, you get him as a – well, that's one of the other systems that I think is pretty cool in the game is that you get the side character that you can call him whenever you want. And I haven't called in him yet to do like a bombing for me. But that's coming. Yeah. That's coming.

Call on an air strike. Yeah. You can call on an air strike with him and stuff like that too. How is the co-op? Co-op's fun. I think I would have built it differently. Okay. What would you change?

Joining Andy's game, right? And they had said this before, but I didn't, they were like, all right, you can join some of these games. If you earn perk points in it by completing challenges or whatever, you keep them, you take them back to your game, you can customize your character that way. You can earn money, you can earn all that stuff. But story mission doesn't, if you do a story mission that doesn't count for you. And it's like, okay, that's fair.

But it also went as far, I didn't think about it in terms of how the game really works. Because it's, you know, how do you think about leveling up in Far Cry or changing in Far Cry, right? Like, I didn't have, I don't know. It's different this time around in terms of like, how's to change? I'm building towards fighting the boss of the area, right? So doing missions in there of any kind, fill in the reputation meter until I eventually get high enough that this guy's like, you got to fucking come fight me. Let's go fight.

I don't consider that story because I didn't know about it really when they said it. And so that counts a story. So me and Andy, even though I'm running around, helping him, doing all sorts of stuff. if I do the right, like, it doesn't count towards my progression of that part. Okay. And so coming back, it was like, oh, that kind of sucks. Sure, I kept my money. Sure, I kept my perk points.

But even perk points exist in a different way where you go into your map or your journal. And it's like, you know, you'll get a point for killing five deer or whatever, skinning them and do, do, do, all this different stuff. And I was playing the game and having fun, but I wasn't playing the perk system smart. So you wanted it to open gates toward new encounters? I would have, I thought when you hear a story doesn't count, but your progression does. I'm like, oh, there's going to be an XP bar filling in that'll unlock the next whatever thing for me to do in a far cry.

And for me to jump in there, it was. All right, cool, I'm going towards more kills or whatever, and I'm getting points for playing in multiplayer. But I should have been going in and using different weapons and doing that. I should have, all right, cool, I'm here. Whatever Andy's doing is fine. I'm going to help him, but I need to be smart about this. It's just, it's totally something I just didn't know about it. So I played an hour or two of it.

And so now I'm like, oh, fuck, I should have played that. a different one. So a public service announcement for people. Yeah, going there with mission goals. And that's been my thing with it of, I feel like I'm not making progress, right? And that's not why we talked about this recently on the Gamescast, or Games Daily with you, right? Of like, how have us playing games changed since we were kids? And one of it is I like to make, I like to feel like I'm making progress and everything. So to spin my tires, have a great time. You know, I enjoy the time I spent with Andy, but not progress really. I was like, hmm. So now I need to be smart about going in and doing that. It's unfortunate, though,

because you think they could just scale it back to like if you've done a story mission he hasn't then you go and it counts toward him right you'd like to think so it's weird that they chose not to do that because it really that kind of really does de-incentivize me to want to call you up like yo let's take down this yeah this like compound together or let's take down you know john seeds place together or whatever especially when it's like i feel because that'd be really fun it's awesome to have you on my story mission for me personally right and this is just based on previous experience like when i think of far cry i think of it as it's a single player experience I want to play through the zone because it is like, you know,

we rolled up on, it's, Andy's game, but we roll up on a compound and we're going to take it down. I'm like, all right, cool, Andy. Oh, you're just shooting everybody. It's like, yeah, and I'm like, I go in, I try to be dead quiet. I don't want any, I love when I finish it. It's like, liberated.

No alarms. Like, fuck, you get no alarms. You also get a perk for not being seen, which is cool. Yeah. Which I got, I got once. Yeah. I was like happy with.

Because it was the best time ever he's done it. Fucking Rambo in there. I was like, what do you think then, Nick, about the way you're unlocking and upgrading weapons, right? Because it's different this time around as I talked about it before. Hey,

Far Cry 3, right, Jared? I'm gonna I want a bigger bag for whatever, a bigger quiver, whatever. I'm gonna go kill X number of sharks, I'm not gonna shark skin quiver. You're gonna build me a shark bag. Exactly. It doesn't work that way this time, right? How's it work now? Where you're going out, you're killing animals, you're skinning them, but then those skins

rather than be applied to a craft thing, you're coming back and selling them at the shop to get money to then buy new things from the shop. So you're effectively just farming gold. Yeah. Okay. And there are, you still craft a bit. It's kind of confusing, but it's way scaled back. So now it's like, you're crafting Molotov cocktails or this, you know, like grenades or maybe not grenades, but something to that effect where it's not, I'm not crafting arrows. I'm crafting like throwables, consumables by picking up fasteners and all these different tool parts.

Now that's very appealing for me, actually. I tend to prefer gold farming crafting to waiting for item drops. Yeah. So actually this is, this is maybe good news for me. And I liked it a lot too because night one was, oh, okay, I wrap my head around how this works. And every, you know, main place has a shop. And you go to the shop. You can go in there. You can go down, buy the gun you have to have it. And once you buy it, it's unlocked.

Yeah. So that if I throw it down into the mission and pick up just the ore, whatever, when I come back, I can just click on it and not pay for it. Right. But also what I'm doing is I'm buying that gun. And then I can go in and buy the extended mag and buy the holoscope and buy, you know, all these different things to make the gun feel like my own paint jobs. Yeah.

And so I can come back and get that again and go with that. It's just mine. I go there, I pick it up, it's always waiting. And I dig that, you know what I mean? And that's, I really do like that thing. And I do like the idea of now it's, I don't know, it's one of those. It's so weird because I haven't played Far Cry, really since four. I got a touch primal, but didn't stick around that long.

I feel like it's more like, okay, cool, what mission am I about to do? Okay, I'm going to take down this cult thing. So I'm going to go to the store and build the load out wheel the way I want it to and have that gun and then go do it. Yeah, so you and I are polar opposites on this. I, by the way, I agree that the system's way easier to navigate than the things that you were talking about before. I don't like overly complex crafting systems. Yeah.

And I don't like feeling like I have to be on a collect-a-thon to find that fucking branch that's going to get me that thing. Sure. I haven't literally, and this is going to make me sound completely stupid, maybe seen that second wheel with all the stuff that you can craft, like all the potions, not potions, but like the bliss things. Dynamite and stuff, yeah, yeah, no, no, not the dynamite. There's another wheel where, like, you can combine all of the homeio, whatever.

Holistic things together there. I've been to that wheel twice. I have never used it. There's a work of medicine wheel? There is another, yeah, there is a trophy for using it 20 times. And I'm like, I guess I'll explain what that means later. Yeah, so apparently you can do like bliss. You can do all sorts of like, not I want to say potions, but like mixture of plants and different things that you find.

There's where the craft are a remedy. I've been to do something else. I've been to that once and I was like, nope, not going to do this. And granted, the game's good about not, you don't have to do that stuff, right? You don't have to do the thing where you're going to run around and it's going to make you beef you up and shield. I hate that stuff because it doesn't play into the strategy of how I play the game. Thing number one for me is I was like I gotta find the perk that gets me one more gun Yep me too that is first and foremost it was I think it was four perks that you needed for it and it got me that ever

Maybe it was six and it got me that extra per points rather it got me that extra slot in my inventory That's where the sniper rifle goes the sniper rifle gets a scope the sniper rifle gets The sniper rifle gets the silencer and hope to God You know and God thank you guys for doing this it doesn't take any of your accuracy or damage down It actually increases it boom we're good to go I get the machine gun that you started the game off with Yeah deck that thing out Silencer, pistol, silencer, I'm done. I don't need guns for the rest of the game.

Money just goes in the bank. It sits there for a nice investment fund later in life. The only thing different we do is I don't do the sniper, I do the bone arrow. Because the bone arrow is silent and I can pick the arrows back up sometimes. It's actually, and believe it not, it's crazy because I think your silencer's not 100% silent. I think if someone's near the other person, they're like, what was that? Well, even if they see it, arrow go through the guy's head and fall. They're like, which one would do.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I look, that's how I play the game is I try. Those first few pert points, it's like decision paralysis. I'm like, I got to be smart about this. Because I know how I want to play this game. I don't want to play this game as like a hunter-gatherer.

I want to play this game as a like ex-Navy SEAL speckoff sniper that's going to systematically pick these people apart. So there's a role-playing element to it for you? Not that much, though. I mean, because like really the only other weapon that I could have is the bow and arrow that I've come across. And I just, I don't like that. I'm not that good with it. I like to spray and pray. Sure.

I love talking about games in early stages like this. I'm actually really excited. that you guys haven't gone farther than you have. And I'm actually honestly very grateful right now that I haven't played it yet. This is one, it's a must play for me. I actually wrote you last night. It's like, hey, you got codes.

But didn't get to, because I didn't, I'd forgotten that I was going to be here this afternoon until right around then. And so. Thank you for remember. Yeah, I should have probably jumped in and played that. But it is exciting to hear in these early stages. And I'm going to be interested to see what your impressions are.

Me too, because it's the same thing of, I'm playing it. And I'm like, kind of feeling same to me, whatever, blah, blah. But then it's also like, I can't wait to get home and play more. You know what I mean? Like, I know, you know what you're getting. And I can't wait to just go back and get more of that. But then it is the last night when I finally got done with Nick's story missions,

and just had his plane. I was like, cool. Now I'm just going to spend, you know, 15, 20 minutes just going around the map trying to find all the red fertilizer things to shoot. Just jacking up. Yeah. Just blow them all up and get done with this. See, yeah, my prediction for myself is that I will beat this game,

but I will quickly approach a point where I'm like screw side missions I'm not doing any of these anymore. I always, I'm very aware of games like this where I hit that tipping point where I'm like, I'm powerful enough, it's time to go.

Yeah, yeah. Because I just, there's so much to do in this that I know that if I keep not thinking about what I'm doing next, I will burn out on it and I will not want to come back to it. And nothing wrong with that.

I mean, I like to paraphrase Chris Kohler who said once, something of the effect of, I love this. He said that inside every good 20-hour video game, there's a great 10-hour video game. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. So when you pare down your own experience, when a game allows you to do that and just get to the stuff you want to?

I'm very appreciative of that. Well, thank you for leading this discussion. Thank you for doing all the work. You recommend people play Far Cry 5? I do indeed. I do too. I'm interested to hear your opinions and I can't wait to get to that third area and see what it's all about. But yeah, I also hear to the Grapevine, pretty attainable platinum trophy.

Not too much work for you on that one. So get on that one for you. Maybe it'll be my first. Not a chance. Before we get to Corey's interview about God. of war and all sorts of stuff. And if there's a future in it, let me tell you about our two sponsors. I'm going to start with Blue Apron. I don't even really need the paper for this. I use Blue Apron all the time, each and every week. Three meals get delivered to my house with

pre-portioned ingredients, step-by-step instructions. Jen and I cook them. We have a good time and make delicious food. Nick? Yes. I sent you one of my free meals for Blue Apron. You did indeed. And it arrived two days ago. Did you enjoy it? I did. It was very, it was nice. What I like about Blue Apron, as I've said before, is I like it as somebody who likes to cook. And there's, Jerry, you know, on a Sunday I'll wake up and I crack open a whole bunch of cookbooks and try to get crazy. I like being able to come home and not have to think that hard when I'm exhausted. You come home, the things there, it's 30 minutes, 45 minutes of step by step by step, do this, assemble that, blah, and I make something great. And I learn how to make something new and do all this different stuff.

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What's not to love? Nick. Yes. Next sponsor? Hymns. I'm glad I'm on the show. I mean, too. Yeah. We've talked about Hymns before. I've done about it. I always talk about you using it or, you know, setting up the process. I don't think you've gotten your yet, right? Not just yet, no, but the process is very simple. I mean, obviously, they're selling... Wait, what is Hymns? For Hymns is a website where you can go to and get products for hair loss, skin care, and sexual wellness. Which I'm happy to report, I don't need yet, but if I did, I know where to go for that.

Sure. Yeah. It's very easy process. You go, they have individual products that you can buy, or you can buy them all in one set, which includes a shampoo, monoxicillin, I believe, is and then some vitamins and also a prescription for finestriide and I know what you're thinking to yourself, hey, don't you need a doctor for prescriptions? Well, they got that covered too. You can go. You fill out a medical form. You take pictures of your hair and it goes to a doctor who will evaluate that for you and give you a prescription for that. Whenever I talk about you with it, I like the idea of them taking photos. I like the idea of them having someone who's consulting

with you personally. And they're not screwing around either because I took a photo and they got back to me and said, we need another one. Really? Yeah. They want a photo of the back of my head, the front of my head and it was like they want better lighting on it so they can actually see, which I was like, I respect that because I don't, you know, these are things that you, you, you want to make sure is on the up and up. You want to make sure you're being healthy about and you want to make sure that this is, you know, you're something you're ingesting. So you want to make sure there's a professional out there who can guide you through that process

and they do a good job of that, I think. Okay. Order now, my listeners, get a free trial. Nope, that's right. A trial month for him for just $5 today. Right now while supplies last. See the website for full details. That would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or pharmacy.

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Nailed it. Crushed. Ladies and gentlemen, let's talk about God of War with Corey Barlog. As I live and breathe. Corey Barlock. Hello, sir. Hello, how are you? Very good.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming by. Oh. We're recording this at the end of GDC week. Yes. Yes. I'm sure exhausted. You just put up a tweet of you holding the gold disc.

Yes. Yeah. And so your baby's done. Yes. So exciting. Very, very exciting. Here's where I want to start. Okay.

Congratulations. Thank you, sir. You've made me give a shit about Cratos. Ah. Thank you, Kevin. Yeah. For everyone out there. That's where, you know what?

funny. I was telling you around the way over here. Big Aram over there. Come on, come on over here. Aram, walk on through the back. Come on. He's not going. He's coming. Come on and say hi. Aram, ladies and gentlemen. Aram, of course, fantastic friend of kind of funny. Greg Miller.

You might have seen him a long time ago and going up at noon, talking about Atlas. And then he immediately was like, peace Atlas, went to PlayStation. Now he walks through every so often. And now he walks through and does a walk on. It's fantastic. So I was telling him on the way over. Yeah. In 2016, We did the gameplay reveal.

And I was doing some behind closed doors talks. And they told me before the talk that you and I think Colin were coming in to do the behind closed doors. And I was like, oh, I knew actually you guys were not the greatest. We were never got a war. Yeah. Sure, sure, sure. It's totally good. Key play was always tight.

Gameplay was always tight. Nobody ever argued that. But I was like, oh, this is good. because I wanted to see if I could convert, right? And I didn't know if I was going to be able to convert you in that room. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Your first at bat, that's going to be tough.

Yeah, that was ambitious, but I still, I'm shooting for the moon, man. Yeah, of course. And I remember watching your guys' coverage afterwards where you guys said, it was weird. It felt like he was talking directly to us. Yeah. And that's because I was. I was literally playing to both of you. I think you were on opposite sides of the room.

Sure, we like to divide and conquer. You did not want to sit close to each other. And I was literally going bouncing back and forth to eat. each one of you guys and just really given that impassioned like please care and I think you know what maybe that eye contact I think it worked yeah also you kiss me on a live stream once yeah you know and you know what I go say you never called after that well I mean people were intimidated right right you have a family right I'm getting choked up oh that's right this is an emotional podcast for an emotional game I sneeze weird sorry about that you do that was your normal sneeze no that was me dialing it back

as much as possible oh really yeah I sneeze if I'm gonna sneeze it's a very European I like it. How so? I don't know. Okay. Well, they must dial it back. They're trying to be polite. I'm going to put a kink in my neck doing that because I'm holding them in because usually it's loud. Kevin, do I sneeze loud? Thanks, Kev. You shouldn't hold it back. I think that I get injured you. We're just looking up here. But I don't want to ruin the interview for you. You know what I mean? That does not ruin the interview. That just shows me that you're a human being.

Oh, thank you so much. And I appreciate that. Well, I'm glad you did that. I'm glad you did that, I'm glad, you know, you follow the product enough to know how Colin and I feel about everything. But I'm glad that after playing this preview event that I left and I was talking to people and like, I keep bringing up the fact of, you know, that first real fight, best superhero fight that's ever been in a video game. Well, thank you. Thank you. And but more than that, and it gets hard because I don't want to spoil things for people. Yeah. Yeah. More than that is that you left these breadcrumbs in that first two and a half hours to where I'm still sitting there going like, why? Why? Yeah, why? Why? Like, I'm, I want to know more about the stranger. I want to

know more about these trees. I want to know more about what the plan was, what the plot is, where we're going. And that's like unheard of for God of war for me. For me. Oh, that's, that's awesome. I mean, that was honestly the goal. I had some incredible writers to work with on this. And it was years and years of constantly revising. When did you start in this project? I came back in July of 2000. 13. So I started thinking about it probably in April of 2013 and started processing what I was going to do. But when I came back, it was me and a small group of people for about a year, so about 12 of us for a year. And we were expecting another year to kind of get ready for pre-production and were told like two weeks beforehand that everybody on the team was going to be

joining us and that we had to get it together in two weeks. So that was... Giant sweat drop. Yeah, that was honestly the worst. for me. It was great to be able to start on something, but truly that like arriving at school to do a speech naked. Going up on stage and you don't know even what play you're doing. Why the fast track? It was when we had the cancellation of the project. So we kind of needed to sort of restructure and redirect. So no big deal. It's all the studio's hopes were pinned to you. Yeah. Yeah. No pressure whatsoever. Man, I like pressure. I eat for breakfast. It's all good. Right? But no, I lost some sleep, man. Sure. For years, really. Yeah.

Are you catching up on it yet? No. No, no, no. I slept five hours last night because I'm an idiot. Okay. And I went out and I kept saying, you know what? We should keep going out, right? Well, you know it is.

You're at GDC. Right. I haven't seen these people in forever. We're all in one place. When am I going to get to go to dinner with X, Y, and Z? And then it just becomes, yeah, it's fine. I literally don't ever to get out of the cave, right? That I'm literally locked in the room.

So when I get out here, I'm like, oh, I can somewhat be social. I don't usually like to be social anyway. But for some reason, San Francisco and GDC brings it out. Well, it's because everybody's as, we're all the same awkward nerd. Right. And now we all get to hang out and go to do things. And go be awkward. Yeah, exactly.

Together. Right. That's that's what all of us awkward nerds. Together. Yeah, exactly. Now, you bring up an interesting point here. We're talking about being awkward. What I want to call out is, of course, the fact that you, you go to your cave, you

work in this game, you do all stuff. You look better than you've ever looked in your career. Oh. And I say that as somebody who's followed your career, interviewed you a lot, I've been around you a lot. You're a sweet man. Like, when you pop. back on the scene. I was like, who is this guy? Too stylish. These glasses, the hair, the beer,

this, you're wearing a Henley? Like, I don't know you anymore, man. I don't know you. Aram, remember what he didn't look good? He looks way too good now, Rahm. Well, this is, that's wonderful because I felt like I still don't look good. You look great. Unrested, uh, perpetually. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's, uh, ages working for me finally. Because I just was, I had that horrible awkward period from about four years old to about 40. Yeah. And I think I'm sort of pulling out of that. Sure. Sure.

Yeah. Pulling out of the nose dive a little bit. Yeah. So it's nice. Thank you for that. You're welcome. I want you to know that. What's it been like seeing all these previews about God of War?

Because everybody's in. I haven't seen anybody saying they're not into it. But it's, I feel like I'm in the upside down, you know? Like, it's awesome. And I don't say that like as a disrespect thing, but more like we had a lot of hopes, right?

We worked really hard and we want people to like what we do. But there's always that voice in the back of your head that says, you know, be real. Sure. Right? Like, don't get your hopes up. Don't get your hopes up.

Yeah. Right. Right. And it is, yeah, it's almost like so positive you're, you're wondering what's going to, I'm about to get punched in the face. Yeah, exactly. Like there's, there is the impending face punch. But that's my pessimistic side, I think, just speeding up. I think the testament to the team and how much they put into this game, like, I feel like they deserve so much of it.

How big is the team on it? I did its peak was like 300. Okay. So, yeah, it was. And we worked with two other developers outside as well. So we were kind of expanding out. This is literally the biggest thing we have ever done by a Swedish mile. Like it's just ridiculous.

Right. You guys keep talking about it, right? Or I keep seeing it kicked around. What is it? 30, 35 hours is what like we're kicking around for how long that's going to take. One of the systems designers just did his full play through to get 100%. Right. So that's literally doing every single thing in the entire game.

And he played 43 hours, 43 hours and he knows what to do. He knows exactly where you go and what to get. And he did a lot of the sort of exploration content and the sort of engagement outside of the core story. So he had not seen a lot of the core story stuff. That part was new to him. So that took a little bit. But everything else, like that's still pretty impressive

considering he knew what to do. Exactly. It's definitely larger than I intimated in the beginning of the game. I was like, oh, it's not that big, don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah. You spend that entire time in the beginning. Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. I pitched one of the environment artists,

or I would do these pitches, right? These like two and a half hour speeches where I would verbally walk people through the entire story of the game. And I did that for like a year to different groups, right? Yeah. And at different stages. And one of the environment artists had missed one of it. So I was like, oh, you and a couple people can come in.

I'll just do it special for you guys. And we broke halfway between because it's that freaking long that somebody had to take a bathroom break. Yeah, yeah. And he did. He was sitting in there and he goes, this is cool. How many other teams are we going to get to do this? Because this is ridiculously large.

I'm like, really? You're the first person to say that? And I think I just deflected for several years and just pretended. It's not nearly as bad as you think it's going to be. Right. And then I would deflect it in the way of saying like, I'm so worried. I don't think the game's going to be that long. And then we did our first sort of full game play test.

Yeah. It took five days. And we were like, oh, man. All right. What have we done? So was it a decision? decision internally, was a decision from PR hacks like a ROM? Did it come from somewhere else?

Aram is lovely. I love Aram. It's a joke where he keeps in his name because we love him so much. Is it a, you guys haven't shown much of this game. Like, it feels like we've been talking about God of War for a long time that we saw the debut trailer. He doesn't touch his back. You're a jerk Kratos.

But playing through it even like the way. Literally that's the way I would describe it to people as well initially. Like he doesn't touch his back. He's a jerk Kratos. And they're like, oh, I get it. Of course. Oh, but, yeah. He's showing, you get me.

Even just bringing the hand up. He's showing more dimension than he did last four games. Did you, and I know there's more than four games. I got to get there before the YouTube comments get there. Right. They're going to get there. You're forgetting betrayal. I always remind people of betrayal.

Yeah. That was the phone game. That was the flip phone game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the old.

Yeah. My question is, was that a decision internally that you think the brand is strong enough that you can show the one major. major section because even playing it, it started in a way where I was like, oh, there is an answer to a question. I wasn't sure how we were going to get to. And then I played through what was the, you know, first footage and all that stuff. But even that then escalated into brand new sections, which then moves me to a different section, which then shows me different. And it's, there's so much in this game that even in two and a half hours, I know I didn't scratch the

surface of it for how long the game is. But also, I'm just like, I don't know where this story's going to go. And I love that. I'd like to say that it was super calculating on every aspect. but we made all the aspects of the game from the start. So we didn't start with an engine and then design and then build mechanics and then build levels based on those mechanics. We did everything at the same time. So we were constructing the engine while designing the mechanics while building the mechanics while building the ability for the characters to move

and reimagining the combat system. I highly recommend never, ever doing it that way. It was literally 150 people screaming at each other. they're waiting for like, I can't do what I can, uh, I need to do until he finishes his work. Like 15 bottlenecks. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was hardcore, right? We wanted to make it as hard as we could on ourselves. Uh, and part of, you know, not showing a lot was that we just, we literally didn't have a lot to show. Like, nothing was in the state to show that E3, 2016 thing. That was deliberate, right? That was the more like, I felt if we were going to reveal this,

it couldn't be like a title, right? Like, hey, the, the traditional sort of format is like, you reveal the title screen and then you reveal a teaser and then you reveal gameplay, right? And it's like spread out over like a year, year and a half. And I was having a meeting with the PR groups who handle E3. And we were talking about like, hey, we should do a live gameplay demo. And they're like, oh, yeah, that sounds great. And I'm like, oh, all right, yeah, I think we can do that. I didn't think they were going to agree.

Yeah. I kind of was sort of like, oh, I'll suggest it. So it makes me look like I want to give a lot. But they agreed. and then as a joke I had said we should play it to live music right we should have bear do the score

of that thing and they're like oh that's crazy and one of the other person setting it up was actually intrigued by that and they came back after that and said no we really want to do this now and I'm like what have I got myself into it right but that showing was meant to be like look we need to make the biggest splash we need to just go out there and just show everything we possibly can

instead of intimidating oh create does change and let everybody speculate on it It's just like, here it is, every single thing. Right. So that was a big deal. And then as it went further on, it was mostly just, we needed time. So we couldn't do anything. We couldn't show anything.

Sure. We didn't want to talk about anything because we just were heads down for years trying to get this thing done. Reaction from all the people who played, like I said, it's been super, super positive. I have seen people popping up in our comments or on my Twitter, right? Yeah, yeah. Not being mean, but like, flabbergasted that there's no jump button. And that the camera's anchored in a way that it just seems stiff and rigid and all stuff. And I've done my best to talk to them and stuff.

But were you expecting that? Did you think that people would be so tied to what God of Wars been in the past that they would look at this and be like, wait, even at a glance, I'm confused. The jump button, yeah. Because honestly, that one gave me a lot of pause in the beginning when we did our, you know, breakdown. And we just literally wrote up on a board every aspect of the game. So like in the first few months, everything like the jump button, the double jump, the magic. specials, you know, every aspect we could think of listing it out, and then we kind of go one by one and ask it to be defended, right? Is this God of War? Is this a load-bearing wall for this franchise? Why? And is there any way we can expand upon it? And the camera was such an important thing for me to say, as a player, I want control, right? Funnily, as a director, I totally want control as well, which is why I like the fixed cameras, because I want to control where you look. But as a player, I want to control where I look. So I sort of, well, I I beat myself and the player myself beat the director myself and we were able to get the movable

camera. That started like a lot of decisions after that. So the jump was basically a, well, we have a huge challenge to get a camera like that to work with a jump, to work with the comment system that we're talking about. And it can be done. Absolutely. Many other games have done it, but we're talking about building everything from scratch. So it's like, all right, well, maybe we don't take that problem on because we can probably do something that feels a little bit more grounded. We started talking about, well, Crities is older. We do want to make a more deliberate combat. And we started realizing, okay, this actually is a cool thing.

Like, it's actually an interesting choice as opposed to a limitation. So I think, you know, it's the same thing when people say, oh, I can't, we're squir-score-score-trying, and why can I have the face buttons? I don't want that. Can I remap it? And it's like, yeah, I mean, we offer it. There's an ability in the game to remount to face controls. But I, we have noticed in the playtest when people do it,

after about 20 minutes, they realize this doesn't work, right? because your hand is hovering over the analog stick. It is all about looking around everywhere. And if you're going like this, every time to do the combat, it just doesn't feel very good. But we wanted that option, right? If people want to play that way, that's awesome.

I agree with you. And I only went in there to change, I was trying to remember, I went in there looking to change my controls after we had been playing for a while. And it wasn't because of the attacks. It was, I want to say, because of throwing the axe. Is it?

I think I was going, I was going L2, thinking you would aim or something and it was actually L1. L1's Blanc. So we kept that one as sort of the anchor point from the previous games. But yeah, yeah, yeah. It was kind of that classic sort of shooter vibe. Yeah.

So you have that sense where your hands are sort of hovering over L2. That is your sort of reticle eye sights mode. And then you have access to your heavy and light. And then you have heavy light out of aim, heavy and light in aim and it gives you kind of that faster feel. Yeah. Well, to what you're saying, though, is exactly what I found where I try to switch it to get block, I guess, down to the shoulder button.

I wanted it for some reason. I forget what. Because you're crazy. I'm crazy. And when I went back and did it, I was like, no, this doesn't work. I'll get used to it. I just need to learn to play God of war with this thing.

But it wasn't the attacks. I thought the attacks made sense there. People wanted to switch the circle and X buttons as well. Oh, really? So you'd be mantling and hopping over things. You do it now with circle. They want it with X. So we offered both of those options as well,

just because it was fairly equally divided. Initially, we kind of made a choice. And then as we started playtesting with a bunch of people, we realized, oh, wow. Actually, a lot of people want this. Horizon actually had, the evade on the circle. So they were saying, no, you like evade on circle. Yeah. We were having, I think, the jump on X in the previous God of War games, so we sort of use that as our evade base.

But I like the idea that we can actually go in there and let people kind of configure the way they want. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It definitely has, makes sense what you want. And what I liked about it, when I've been trying to explain to people, right, when I talk, when they bring up that, oh, well, it feels richer, it doesn't do this. Or that they don't like, they don't like the kid. I'm like, you don't even know the kid yet. Right. Okay, whatever. What I like about it is with the camera tight the way it is and the way combat is meaningful. Not slow because that's not what I mean, but you know what I mean?

Impactful and I'm moving. I found it so helpful when Kratos's son is screaming out. Behind you left and it was like, oh right, the way the camera's anchored on me, it was actually reminded me a lot of Hellblade. Where in Hellblade you have to constantly be looking behind you because they want you on your toes that way. But this one was the exact same thing of, yeah, you need to be aware of your surroundings, but we know we're making it

not the way you'd normally do it in a god of war game. Yeah, part of the game was putting the onus on the player for sort of battlefield awareness. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. To say, uh, the common designers and I kind of went back and forth a lot on the camera distance because initially they wanted kind of the, uh, the AC Batman farther away, right?

Sure. See everything. Uh, and I was like, you know what? I think we can do something interesting if we push it in. And so it was this constant sort of, we wanted to push it in. I don't know, push it in. And finally, the, the lead combat, designer Jason McDonald's just got so frustrated with me.

He just said, look, you need to go away for two days, right? I'm going to play around with this stuff. I'm going to analyze each aspect of it, and then I'm going to come back with what I think is the recommendation. Then we could have an informed discussion about this because you're annoying the hell out of me. Yeah. So then I proceeded. You annoyed people?

I know, right? No way. But I proceeded to annoy him for two more days. I did not leave him alone. Good job. Yeah. Way to listen to your team. Yeah, I'm really good at that, right?

They would totally agree with that. Or else. Yeah. So, yeah, I came back out of the two days. and he kind of didn't say anything initially. We're standing at the desk. He's like, all right, so you're all going to laugh because I found out that closer than any of us wanted

is actually cooler. And I was like, oh my God, I think I love you. And he's like, let me explain. He's like, nobody's really doing it at this distance, right? And it's kind of forcing this interesting sort of cerebral tick that makes you kind of go like, I got to pay attention to all the enemies around me. So if they start moving over to the left, I need to make myself more mobile.

I need to be moving and then I can rely on Atreus who actually will give you indications, right? And then after that we added the little sort of off-screen indicator. Yeah, right? Because we had projectile characters so it has different colors for that.

Some people have commented on that as well. Can I turn it off? Yeah, totally. We have a bunch of stuff that you can actually control in the UI. Yeah. Right? People see the footage and go like,

oh, those health bars for the enemies, right? I was one of the first people to kind of say, like, I don't want health bars for enemies. But as is the best part about working with the team, you know, the comment guys had some really cool ideas. And they put together a pitch, brought me in a room and expected me to tip over the table and throw some chairs and get super angry about this. And I played it for like 25 minutes. And I was like, this is, this adds this level of strategy that we've always been lacking, right? Like, we're incorporating the strategy for the battlefield awareness. but the knowledge of that enemy has 50% health.

This enemy is a level four, but he's got 100% health. I need to focus on him, right? I need to prioritize. And it became a lot more engaging for players because of that. So you can turn those things off. But I think when people play, they'll realize that it makes it much harder.

Well, it was, yeah, it's good information. What I liked about it was showing me how close they were to being stunned. Right. So if I wanted to go over there and tear them in half or whatever, use that ability. I was like, oh, well, I knew. need to know that. You're a big fan of the stunt.

Big fan of the stunt. Yeah, and I wouldn't have expected that because, like, that was the thing even with the game of the way, I mean, I've said it in previous before, so I, sorry to bore everybody, but just to let you know how good you're doing. The first time when you throw the axe and it's like, oh, no, now hold a triangle to bring it back. And it comes back and it does, and I was like, oh, my God. How satisfying is that, right?

And I was like, yes, give me 35 hours of this. Yes. But then it does become, okay, cool. I'm going through, I'm attacking, I'm throwing. I love it when I'd throw it and then forget about it and then I'll get it. I gotta get it back to go do something else. But I'm fighting and I'm doing this different things and then adding in the thing, okay, okay, now you've

gotten your feet wet with that. Let us explain stun now, right? Because it gets introduced a ways in of you playing through the first hour or two hours. It gets to get it shown up there and then see that, okay, now this is how you're going to use it to tear people apart or do this different thing. It gets smart and rage going again.

It's like, oh, like, that's awesome. And again, to think about how far that's going to go. and the fact that in that two and a half hours I didn't get another weapon, right? I was just the ice, my ice axe and my shield. But then, you know, you're running into the Blacksmith, who's an amazing character. And I can't wait to hang out there a lot more

because his dialogue was hilarious. He's wonderful. Yeah, but I see what else he's going to be able to whip up and what other weapons you're going to get and how that's going to play out. Yeah, I mean, there was a big discussion Vince Napoli and George Mall were the first two to kind of prototype the axe, right?

And they had a nice, initially put it on a button, separate button to recall, and then I think they were like, oh, it's, it's fun to actually just have it to get recalled while you're pressing your attack buttons, right? And I found that as like, oh, it just, it felt like I was randomly calling it back. I didn't feel in control. I was like, really, there's intent when I used the triangle for. It was my control, right? I was like, I can choose to delay it however long I want. So I was like, man, I love this on a separate button. So we went back and forth for quite a while, trying to keep it on that one button. And eventually got to the point where everything started

to click and man I think I annoyed the hell out of the team because I would go through levels we do these big reviews with people in the the conference room and I'd just be sitting there throwing the axe at everything I'd just be throwing at a tree and no collision there right yeah yeah yeah yeah all the places that don't have collision which is just like Picard faceball for everybody but it's just it was the satisfying thing to me that is that tactile like immediacy that I got from doing the jump because I would be one of those annoying people. people who runs through Counterstrike jumping constantly, which is, I guess, everybody, because they all jumped there. Yeah. And it's the same thing in God of war. I'm jumping through all over the

place. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was those delightful moments of what you're talking about over like, yeah, it's the intent to it. And the first time I'd thrown it and then I'm brawling with some guys and some guys running at me and I called it back and it hit him from behind and then went into my hand. It's like, oh, that's awesome. You know what I mean? Of then throwing it, fighting this guy, getting it, hitting this guy. Like, and it was, you know, I think for us in particular, you know, we're doing this MCU show where we're going through all the marketing. Marvel movies, like having watched so many Thor movies now and seen him and so many things to have it be like, it's Milner, but it's got a blade on it.

Like, yes, this is way awesome. The ability to feel like your own sort of creativity is driving it is huge. Yeah, and we've never had that to go to work. And that's how it becomes agency and it becomes jazz to an extent, right? Of like, yeah, Kevin and I are going to play through this game that is not the dirty way of saying it, but is linear. And we're all on the same path and getting the same story. But the way I fight this guy, the way I take out this guy.

the way this battle plays out is going to be different for each one of us, especially... And when you get to the end, like, your load out for Cretus, your load out for a trade is going to look completely different from everybody else's. I mean, for me being such a cosmetic nerd, when it was, we got to the blacksmith whose name I already forgot again. Brock. When we got to him and he's giving on, but you got jump in there and you see the two outfits immediately available from my Cratos.

It was like, wow, yeah. Like, I'm like, that one looks cooler, but I want the damage for the, for this. You got a Sophie's choice going on there. I got like 40 minutes left of this demo. I want all the damage I can get out of it. and go on that way. Yeah, that was a big discussion. Back to the board thing of like, we had made a rule set early on that Cratos stayed looking exactly like Cratos. We never manipulate sort of the look unless we had established a very specific, like when he added the

golden fleece. Yeah. That was limited, but we wouldn't give the player the control over it. And I was like, we really need to loosen that. Like, I love being able to customize something. Yeah, 100%. You know, I love feeling like I have a little bit of reflection of me in the game. Yeah. And I feel like other people. It's that agency, right? want to own it and you want to have a part of that. That's the beautiful thing about games is that we're connected to it a lot more. It's not a passive thing. I'm not just watching it, right? I'm participating and I'm controlling it. So I should have as much control as possible. Uh, something, it didn't strike me when, I struck me when I was playing it that was something special, but I couldn't

put my finger on it for a while. There's a little bit of Super Mario Odyssey in this game to me. Oh. In the way that when we were talking about Odyssey last year, we would talk about the fact that if you were going and you looked left and you saw a platform or something there, it was there for a reason. It wasn't just put there. Like if you're coming up, there's the door and there's extra space over here. Why is there extra?

Okay, a coin pops or whatever. I had to stop while we were playing the game from drifting off the main course. Because it was that thing of like a trace like, all right, we're going this way, dad. Come on.

And then I would look around and be like, well, no, we're not. Like, I need to know what's down there by the water and up there. and then figuring out like how to, you know, like, I was getting to it before the game was even telling you, like, where to throw stuff and how to open doors and stuff. And so to go through there and find the new chess, to go through there and find the super special chest that have the symbols on them that I have to then find in the world the break. I was like, wow, like, that's awesome. Like, you know what I mean? In terms of the TLC, the vast scope of the game. And then back to the thing of, yeah, it's linear. You're going to go from this. We're going to get the same story beats. But is Kevin going to go off and investigate all that? And the grant that I'm going to do it for trophies. But is he going to go off? and do all this different stuff and try to find that and make my creatos more powerful and all, you know, the currency I was finding where I'm like, oh, I'm really going to, when I get here,

I'm smashing everything on screen, obviously, because I just want to make sure I can get there and get the best stuff possible. That's the sort of rewarding curiosity. Yeah. You know, this like aspect of gaming that lets you sort of embrace discovery and feel like you're the pioneer, right? You're the person going out and finding these things. And there's this, this like, endorphin rush of satisfaction of feeling like wow. I didn't waste my time, right? I didn't go down here and find a dead end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you're right. Like, everything in the world is there with the purpose. Every piece of writing on the walls is actually Old Norse. So we've written things out, translated it to Old Norse, and then translated the Old Norse to the Elder Futark Runes. Okay. So literally everything around the world, like, is telling a story, right? But also is there to entice you to go, maybe a few steps off the path.

going to find something fun. Maybe down a hallway you're going to find something fun. Maybe you're going to discover an entirely different level. Right? And it's like to me, that that's why I play games. I play games because I feel like I can get immersed in a world that has been crafted by people who really care, right, who want to make me lose sight of the real world for, you know, 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours. Something I've been saying now on Twitter since, you know, the preview went live on Games daily, but talking to fans about it, right? Is a compliment that I never would have thought

to say to you or would I have thought to say in the preview, right? But I think needs to be said now with hindsight and how people are acting. Playing this game, I never thought of the Last of Us. I think so many people, I remember it reveal. I'm just going, oh, well, it's Last of Us with Grados and this kid or whatever. And then when the preview

started posting, so many the reactions from people were like, I'm not interested. It just looks like Last of Us in. And I was like, oh, right. Like, no. playing this, I never thought about that. It wasn't the same experience at all. Like, were you expecting people from a reveal to now to be hung up on that in places? You know, initially, no.

I was a little surprised by that simply because it was not really in our headspace. And when people started saying like, last of us of war and stuff like that. You're just like, oh, okay, that's interesting. But, I mean, it really is that surface level of saying, like, because there is an older man and a child on a close-up camera, is last of us. I was like, okay. Like, to me, it's such a phenomenal game. Like, it's not ever bad. Your game? Oh, I know.

Uh-huh. Thank you. Very good. Not like that hack Neil Druckman's game. Right. Oh, Neil is a wonderful human being. I know, I like a malady likes us. You're always, yeah.

Anyway, he is, uh, or sorry, last of us is, uh, a good comparison in the sense that, hey, we're in the league with a very, very, very good game. Yeah. But it really is the speed of the two games sort of, every, I think every aspect aside from having a companion and a close-up camera. You know, the way we handle the story of fatherhood is very different. Yeah, to say the least. Yeah.

Very, very different. But, you know, it's an interesting thing because I had a journalist in Madrid actually say a similar thing that after they finished it, he said, I do think it's kind of unfair of us as journalists to use it as a comparison. We struggled because you didn't give us a lot to actually, you know, describe it accurately. but after playing it he's like yeah I kind of feel like I do it a disservice because then people assume going in oh I'm going to get last of us and it's a very different game right whether that's a positive or a negative to them I was like oh that's kind of cool

like no yeah and I was surprised when it popped up of people reading previews or watching the video and that's what they were thinking right playing it it feels so much like a matured god of war it doesn't I'm not playing this at all and feeling like oh right this is a relationship like I had with Ellie no I'm not a control C, control V. Yeah. Yeah, no point in time. Is that what I'm taking away from it?

I do like the reset era, a whole series of posts where everybody just started saying like literally every game under the sun. Oh, this is so like Tetris. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is completely the Sims. Does everybody not see this? It's totally the sims. I'm just like, all right, that's funny.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting for everybody to get there and play it. Because I think that's the big part of it. I mean, honestly, that's what I've sort of always thought through this is that, one, it's playing the whole thing. Like being able to play the entire game, I think that. truly is the experience people need to have. I struggle with the idea of ever showing anything of it because I hate spoilers.

I hate seeing a trailer and feeling like, I don't need to see the movie. You literally show me every good thing about the movie. But also, that first experience, right? That kind of, aha, you get in a really great television show, a really great game that kind of gives you the, oh my God, the eco reveal, the shadow reveal. I mean, even the last of us, the reveal that they had.

Amazing, right? God War I won, the reveal, right? I figured I can actually say what that one is. I'm not feeling everyone. Somebody probably hasn't played it, so cover your earmuffs. Earmuffs, everybody. The reveal of his wife and child's ashes, right? That's why he was just like, wow, you know?

And I can't imagine kind of knowing that in advance, right? Like going into it and feeling like, oh, it's spoiled. And so much of the game isn't just those kinds of reveals. Like, it's not about just a story reveal. there are moments in there that are not story related that it's like if you experience it the first time, it's awesome. Well, that's why I've danced around it the best I can, right? You know what I mean?

Because it was, you know, you guys asked obviously when we left, like, don't spoil the game. Don't give a blow by blow account. I'm like, of course, of course. Because you're notorious for that. People, I mean, I reenacted the last of us. They're like, wanted posters on the wall that's like, you know, Craig Miller, spoiler. Get them out of here. Yeah. But the thing, you know, when I was, I did the preview

on games daily, I mentioned a few things that I was like, this isn't a spoiler. And the amount of people were doing, like, oh, man, you said this person, that's probably going to be the boss and I was like, well, I kind of think we could have guessed that person was going to be involved. But okay, cool. But you need to understand that I've

saved moments for you there. You know what I mean? That superhero fight I keep talking about. You haven't spoiled anything, man. I think it was good. Thank you. That was very positive, and I think it was people are excited. If you said something shitty, I totally would have been like, you spoiled everything. You would have canceled this interview.

You're not coming here at all. Hashtag cancel my pre-order Greg. You'd get it going. You cancel this lovely PlayStation 4. Oh, this thing is beautiful. Talk to me about this, because this is something that comes up all the time on Games Daily. What is your involved? What is a studio's involvement in a PlayStation for Pro Special Edition?

Do they bounce anything off you, or is it literally... We're pretty actively involved in literally everything. We are obsessive, compulsive control freaks at Santa Monica. You know, I say we, but it's probably me. Yeah. You're just the only control freak. But I have some pretty intensely talented artists that have very strong opinion. and make everything look great, so I trust them implicitly.

And this thing, we started on it, like, well over a year ago. And we were in the middle of some of our hardest times to try to get things done. So we were pretty actively involved in it, but the hardware group that actually does this too is just incredibly talented. So, you know, it really was just everybody supporting each other to come up with something. That's awesome. Because we've always wanted to know because it seems like some of them look really good. somewhere like not so sure about it. It was like, where's the disconnect? And I think for years in particular, it's one of those, I know there, it was a mixed bag of reactions for it. But I think

seeing it up close, I like it more. And then it's also, I think when people play through the game and understand the symbols more and how they all work in the game and what that means, I think that'll mean more as well. It's also worth pointing out, the light of PlayStation's sacred symbols are mine that does not come with the special edition. Yeah, that's, that's, that's not with it. No, no. Special swag just for you. Thank you. There was going to be, uh, initially, We kind of went overboard. So there's all these options, and it's really just like hidden the candy store. We ticked all the boxes.

For the pro? Yeah, for this one. And it was like, it was never going to happen. It had like a crato space. It had like a cloning ruins on the front and stuff like that. And it was just like ridiculous because we were. It's a thousand dollars special edition. 47,000 dollars for this thing.

Right? You can buy a Tesla or the PS4 Pro. So where are you at right now close? We're a month away from release. Yes. Like what is that? due to you mentally? Like, why are you life getting back to normal?

Is it still crazy? The game is gold. I'm assuming people are still doing day one patch buggy things. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's official code word for what you guys do, day one patch buggy things. Patch buggy thingies.

Yeah, that's the tech terms. And yeah, we're still working on that stuff. I'm still kind of traveling around, talking to people, getting people excited about the game. Yeah. Things will slow down for me in May, probably. Beginning of May is when I'm going to fall off the edge of the earth, like Richard Simmons, you know, like disappear completely. Okay. Is Richard Simmons missing at the moment?

Yeah, did you not know that? No, I don't know. 2015, man. I just heard this podcast and it's amazing. He's been missing since 2012? Yeah, not like legitimately missing, but like he removed himself from the public eye. Huh. Okay. And I was just like, that's fascinating. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want to do that. I haven't heard about Richard Simmons in a while, yeah. Right? Well, check out this podcast. It's pretty interesting. It's finding Richard Simmons or something like there's a podcast. I thought you meant like there was an episode of like the Joe Rogan show about this year. There's like a full on series. about finding Richard Simmons.

Wow. And I was captivated with it. Is it as an end? Do they find them in the end? I feel like they... Well, they're only on like episode six. And I haven't even gotten there. But, you know, it's captivating.

Very good. Sure, sure, sure, sure. It's of the caliber of like S-Town. And that, what is that? C. Ancy Jr. one? No, no, no. Crime Town. Oh, okay.

Have you heard that one? No, no. About the mayor from Rhode Island. Oh, my God. That's so good. Okay. You have to listen. All right.

Crime town? Crime town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Kevin, make a note for me. Slack me the word crime town. He's like, no. Kevin,

Kevin, please. You get nothing. He's flicking me off, literally. Right. He's a crazy man. You want to know my biggest disappointment with God of War from the preview event?

Something else I haven't said. Yes. And I know you may answer for it because somebody asked you in an interview later on about it. Oh, fantastic. Photo mode. I was playing the game. I hit pause.

I went in there looking for photo mode because I got so hooked on it. I was hooked on it after in Horizon. Yeah. Like when Horizon dropped that, I've never given photo mode the time of day. Yeah. But like Horizon,

I was like, this is beautiful. And I did like a whole bunch of shots. I put them on Instagram. Like, yeah, content. I'm making content. And I was like, I'll do this for God of war because it's just as pretty. Yeah.

If not pretty, you're, I'll jump in there, nothing. Yeah. Why do you hate photo mode? I love photo mode. Yeah. We're, you know, we have every, like I said, we were doing everything at the exact same time. So there, there is definitely a desire for the photo mode.

We just got to make sure everything's dialed in. Okay. So we just didn't want you to play with it. Thank you. There was a little note. Jokes on you. I got a phone with a camera. So I can take the photos off the screen.

And then you post those on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's good. That's how I'll do it. Smart. Thank you. Thank you. Covert. Next time don't tell me, though, because then it's really covert.

How far photo mode? Come on. Day one patch. Is that what you're bugging right now? You bugging a photo? I don't know. I mean, I do know, but I need a firm answer from the programmer. So my goal, put it this way.

I can say this. I can say my goal is that people have it when they get the game. Okay. That's good. That's good. See? Day one, like they can get it. Like, it's super exciting.

You can start doing the medium molecule thing. When they're like, once PlayStation VR are going to work for a dream? Is they're like day one, two? Day one point five, day two. Like, not like, it's not happening right away, but almost right away. Like, we're working on it. But it's all, honestly, it's all dependent on making sure first and foremost, the stability of the game and the experience is awesome.

So that takes the priority. And I will always sort of push that over any other features. Question for you now. All right. Fire away. This is a weird time capsule question. All right. Today we did kind of funny games daily.

Jason Trier was on it. Yes. One of the stories was, of course, God of War has gone gold. To which Jason Schreier laughed and said, that doesn't mean anything anymore. Does going gold mean anything in 2018? It does. If you're somebody at home who doesn't follow the video game terminology or hasn't heard the term before, going gold is your master.

This is what we're sending to PlayStation, he'll then print it. Yeah. It goes to manufacturing. So that is the thing that makes the physical. disc. So it totally means something there. I think it means a lot more to us as developers, right? Because it is a psychological milestone that kind of just says like, okay, you know, done. And it used to mean you don't touch it anymore. Yeah, it's done done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pre-internet connected everything, it was like, that's it, like, out the door and you just have to

hope everything is great. And now we can actually continue to support it. And if anything slipped through the cracks, right, that says, oh, we didn't find this weird, obscure thing that happens when you do these 5,000 steps. Cool, we can fix that. Okay. Like, I think, I think it diminishes its meaning just a tiny bit, but I think in a positive way, right?

Because it continues to allow you to make the game better. My final question. Final question. Before I inevitably think of something else is your answer. Okay, good. You should. Yeah. When you're set off to make this game,

when you make this game, are you thinking in terms of, I'm making a trilogy, I'm telling this one story here? What is your vision for where God of War is now? because obviously there was a whole saga before, which came from the success of the first one.

What do you think of your God of war? It was interesting the first one. I think there was this belief of like, oh, they're going to let us make another one. Right? Like there was the desire to have this story continue to go. But I have thought about it a lot more than on the previous games.

Like on the second one, I kind of mapped out two and three at the same time, which is why it ended the way that it did. like I knew where I wanted to go with him. So I sort of already worked that way anyway. I can't limit myself to the one, I'm, I, uh, I have a problem. I should just be able to focus, but I can't. Right.

I wouldn't say that. I would say that. Building a universe over here. Focus issues. Corey extended universe. Right. Right. It's the, the C, C, you.

So I think, uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that there's a number on the, the number of games. I've written something that I think extends beyond. The way that this game ends definitely presents the extension beyond. Beyond. Look at that. And beyond. There you go.

Good. I want to talk to you about so many specifics from the story, but I don't want to spoil the game for people. I'll do one the mic's cut. All right. And then I'm looking at a ROM now. Looking him in the eye. Before he drops off the face of Earth, can he come back for a spoiler cast?

Can we have, because Tim wants to do one for where we all play. I would totally do that. Okay, cool. That would be one. That needs to be our exclusive, so no one else. All right. No, don't do that face. No.

Think of the other game spot. The number of spoiler cast that we've been requested on is pretty high. I'm the first one. No, no, no. I mean, there's so many. I've never even heard of a spoiler cast. I'll marathon through it real quick. The whole thing?

Yeah. Just give me to me now. I'll play it right now. Right. We'll bring it back next week. You know, you make a persuasive argument. Thank you. We're going to just give it to you now.

There we go. See you. And coincidentally, there is a disc inside of this place. Oh, this runs the goldman. Astrodisky. It has a 47 key combination, but you have to figure out. If you figure it out, you can play it. It's all yours. It's all in Norse symbols. It is in Norse symbols. Which there aren't even 47 Elder Futhark. So that doesn't make sense at all. It does not work for me. No. Okay. Corey, thank you for coming up.

Thank you for having me, sir. This is wonderful. Thank you for making this game. I'm looking forward to playing it. Oh, thank you. God of War. April 20, 420, bro. Then now, I guess we're going back to the games cast now to see what Jared's been playing or something? I don't know. Kevin, what are you eating a bagel? Pizza? Yeah. A pizza bagel? When pizza is not a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime. Anytime.

Yeah. Anytime. That is the slogan for bagel bites. Yeah. That's fantastic. That's what we do here. Bringing back a little of my childhood right there. All right.

Back to Jared. Thank you, Corey. I can't believe he confirmed. God of War in 18 part game. Great job. 18 part. Gordon Freeman confirmed. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being part of this crazy-ass episode of the Gamescast. I was very happy to be a part of this. It's always a pleasure. It's always a pleasure to be here. Again, rest in peace, Tim Gettys,

wherever your soul may rest now. He's in the barber. He's been there all week. He's sitting right there. Oh, right, and his hair is not cut. So that's going to be, you know. Ladies and gentlemen, remember, if you want to support the show,

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