14 DAY TRIAL // David Jaffe, the creator of core concepts of the God of War franchise, says that the actual gameplay in the action game was shallow but the overall spectacle of the series created an immersive experience for the player.
He tells Edge that, “To me, the combat, the spatial challenges, the exploration: they were all pieces of the adventure, and all of these came together to push the player along. The actual game loop in GOW is very simple.”
Creating a deeper combat system would have resulted in a more hardcore audience for the series and might have limited its overall sales.
Jaffe adds, “If this had been the kind of game that didn’t have much money, it would have been an absolute failure, because if it wasn’t for new things to do around every corner, you might feel the core mechanics are actually quite shallow. They’re intentionally shallow, because we didn’t want them to overpower the experience.”
The developer says that he likes how the God of War titles he created hold up but he would aim for more immersion if he were to remake them today.
Jaffe believes that gamers would appreciate an experience that uses Zelda as an inspiration, with the player being the hero rather than simply watching him go through an adventure.
God of War is at the moment one of the most important franchises for Sony and Kratos helped sell a lot of PlayStation 3 gaming consoles.
The most recent installment in the series, Ascension, was launched earlier in 2013 and introduced multiplayer for the first time while also offering a prequel story.
Fans of the series are speculating that a new game featuring Kratos is already in development at Sony Santa Monica and will be revealed soon as coming to the new PlayStation 4 home console from Sony.