News
‘God of War’ Dev Says Game Was Almost Set in Egypt, Shows Concept Art
So to say that Sony’s God of War has been a success is an understatement. Selling five million copies with a month of its release is certainly nothing short of awesome. But how close were we to getting a very different-looking game? Pretty damn close.
Yesterday, God of War developer Cory Barlog was in Cologne at Devcom to talk about the making of the game, and dropped an interesting little info from development, along with some cool concept art. It seems that during the time of development for God of War: Ascension, the idea for the new game was being pitched.
Remember how Barlog said that the next GoW game would possibly end up exploring Egyptian and Mayan mythologies? That’s because originally, GoW 2018 was stuck between being either Norse or Egyptian-themed. Half of the team wanted to go with Norse route, while the other half wanted to tackle Egyptian route. Barlog ended up being the tiebreaker in the decision.
In fact, one of those Egyptian GoW concepts was shown off by Barlog, in addition to a Norse concept.
Barlog also talked about how the team faced an uphill battle with regards to the changes the team were making to Kratos, particularly the addition of Atreus. During a playtest session, the team received flack for having Kratos go on a fetch quest, with the reasoning that this wasn’t the Kratos fans remember.
Still, the team stuck to their guns, and five million copies later, they’ve proven critics wrong.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
You must be logged in to post a comment.