God of War Gets Two New Videos All About Kratos' Son and His Axe

God of War is poised to release in only a few weeks, but before it does, Sony Interactive [...]

God of War is poised to release in only a few weeks, but before it does, Sony Interactive Entertainment has more hype to build. It's latest tactic: two behind-the-scenes-type videos.

The new videos showcase Kratos' two biggest loves in his life: his son, Atreus, and his handy-dandy axe dubbed Leviathan.

The former video features the game's Engineering Lead, Jeet Shroff, and goes inside the journey to create one of God of War's most fundamental changes: Kratos' Son, Atreus. Further, it delves into just how the young boy is not only a capable warrior, but an emotional anchor for this new and older Kratos.

According to Shroff, Kratos has always been mostly a one-dimensional character, who is coming out of a dark time in his life. However, he's looking to change, and the motivation to do that revolves around raising his son.

The video further dives into the ups and downs of playtest feedback involving Atreus, his special abilities, how he integrates into combat, and also showcases the character in a ton of gameplay footage and concept art.

Meanwhile, the latter video serves as a showcase for Kratos' new weapon, the Leviathan, which has replaced his previous weapons-of-choice, his blades. According to the game's Creative Director Cory Barlog, the blades are obviously iconic, and in order to create something fresh, drastic changes would have had to been made to them. So, instead, the team opted to take the opportunity to introduce a new weapon entirely.

Interestingly, when a new God of War game featuring a new take on Kratos was first pitched by the aforementioned Barlog, it was never with the blades, but always with an axe.

The video further goes into how the game's axe throw/call back animation came to be, the weapon's customization and upgrade options, and of course a variety of finishing moves featuring Kratos savagely splitting his enemies into two.

God of War is poised to release on April 20th, exclusively for the PlayStation 4. It will cost $59.99 USD.

In case you missed, God of War recently two other new videos: a beautiful and epic CGI trailer and one about the the motion capture used to bring Kratos to life.

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