Directors differed on God of War III ending

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 April, 2010

Asmussen discusses alternatives.

God of War III game director Stig Asmussen has revealed that former directors David Jaffe and Cory Barlog had different ideas about how to end the series.

"What David Jaffe talked about doing was - and I'm not sure how it would happen - basically, you destroy Greek mythology and then Norse mythology is right around the corner," Asmussen told GamePro.

"That's the next thing that Kratos would go after. It becomes clear at the end that he's going to become this harbinger of death across different mythologies in the world and maybe carry the series on from there."

Apparently Barlog's idea was "about Kratos becoming Death".

David Jaffe subsequently popped up on Twitter to clarify, as spotted by Kotaku. "I assure you my story was not as simple as Kratos going after the Norse gods. There is an element of truth but it goes far beyond," he tweeted.

He also said: "I love Cory, he rocks. But that was my idea. Blades of Chaos becomes the Scythe of the Reaper. BUT still, lots more. Up2Sony2reveal."

Asmussen was fond of both alternatives. "They're both incredibly good ideas, but you need a director to be passionate about the story and understand it intimately. If I had used Dave or Cory's idea, I wouldn't have been as passionate about it."

He also talked a little about working under a game director, having worked as lead environment artist and art director under Jaffe and Barlog respectively for the first two God of War games.

"Jaffe was a 'big idea' kind of guy who thought outside of the box," Asmussen explained. "He worked more along the lines of commanding his ideas, while Cory was a little more political and savvy when working with people and pitching his ideas. They're two very different people, but they're both incredibly talented."

God of War III came out in late March and won our hearts to the tune of 9 marks out of 10. For more on how it was put together, check out Digital Foundry's extensive Making of God of War III feature.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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