At its pre-E3 press conference, SONY revealed that the first God of War game is in development for the PS 4. In this SONY Santa Monica’s next project, we get to see an aged Kratos fashioning a beard, alongside his son. Although it seems that SONY has revealed the game at its conference, titled God of War, so thereby ditching the name God of War 4.
On watching the gameplay trailer one can be misled into thinking that Kratos will be replaced as the God of War, however, that is not true, he still remains the God of War. The speculation was fuelled, when Kotaku had reported in April, the upcoming God of War game will feature Norse Mythology and that Kratos will most probably be succeeded by someone else, this time around.
The publication was of the opinion that stretching the character of Kratos till God of War 3, was leading to the game’s saturation. Therefore, killing off Kratos in this next game would provide gamers with much excitement and also boost the storyline. The theory didn’t seem that far-fetched especially when you consider how God of War 3 underperformed in terms of sales.
Nevertheless, in its latest report, it has been confirmed by Kotaku, that in God of War 4, The demigod protagonist, will in all likeliness not be replaced by his son. His son will simply be his companion throughout the entire game. The trailer of the game finds us with a long- bearded, somewhat aged Kratos with his son, Charlie.
They are seen hunting through a snow covered forest, where Kratos’s son is tracking a deer, with Kratos right behind him, then it switches to a sudden dramatic battle against a Titan. During the battle, Charlie misses his target by accident and ends up putting an arrow into Kratos‘s shoulder. Despite the injury Kratos is successful in killing off his enemy.
As the boy later apologises, Kratos casually urges him to get back on the hunt, for the deer, which they were initially tracking and the boy had missed hitting. Ultimately, the boy does find the deer and unleashes his bow, on Kratos’s cue, this time being successful.
After that, when Kratos tells his son to kill the deer, Charlie shows reluctance. His father helps his son drive a knife into the deer, which finally brings about its end. Then he tells his son that finally he is ready. On the son inquiring, what his father implied he was ready for, Kratos replies, that he deems Charlie fit for a new beginning.
In an interview with The Verge, Cory Barlog, the developer of this game, gave fans an insight into his mind as to how he stumbled upon this idea of taking Kratos, a strong muscular aggressive and rough demigod and then transforming his character into this father of a child, who is multi-layered. Who is capable of showing several emotions in his own restrained way; the nuances of which would have most definitely escaped on the Kratos that we saw on the God of War’s previous versions.
Cory was himself undergoing a personal transformation, at the time he was in talks with SONY about starting work on a new God of War game.
After leaving God of War III, he had moved on with other projects like a Mad Max game and Tomb Raiders. However, it was not until he had his son that he came upon this new idea, which he wanted to explore in the game God of War’s fourth version.
Barlog insists that this version of the game is not a reboot, all it simply does is, it builds off of the stories of the previous versions. It switches from Greek mythology to Norse mythology. Kratos the protagonist, has entered a new phase of his life and after having a son, much like Cory Barlog himself, shall be looking at the world through a different lens.