God of War Director Explains Lower Count of Boss Fights

Not many people are complaining about the newest entry in the God of War franchise, which is easily the biggest and best in the series when it comes to action. That said, those that are complaining are wondering why the game doesn't have plentiful boss fights like the ones featured in previous games.

Sure, there are epic encounters including a doozy of a brawl that takes place close to the beginning. But they aren't as grandeur as, say, the ones inGod of War III.

Speaking with GamingBolt, director Cory Barlog decided to speak out on the matter when it came to the lower boss fight count. He explained that the reason came down to constraints with development time. "You know, there are several bosses that I had to cut throughout the game simply because we got about 15 to 20 people on each boss, and those bosses go anywhere from a year to two each. Which I think is something a lot of people underestimate, 'there's not enough bosses in this game!' You're kind of being greedy, because while I'd love like ten more bosses in there, this game would have taken like 20 years to make," Cory explained.

"So, I was definitely, there are even theories out there where people are looking at characters and going, 'who is this character? Why do they have a giant bird statue in Helheim?' And wondering why we spent time and effort on that thing, and maybe that's because it was a giant boss at one point."

He felt smoothing over the experience as a whole for God of War was more important than piling on the boss battles. It turns out he was right. "And that's the nature of development, as you start to look at its nuances, you realize that there's a place where ambition overshadows resources and time, and you want to do so much, but you just have to end up choosing the things that will make the greatest impact. It is hard to know what to let go of, but you need to get to a point where you say, "you know what? This thing is not as important as the other thing, I will fight for this other thing, and let this thing go". That is the years of experience that will let you know what's important to you and what you're trying to make."

He also said the game wasn't built to be compared to previous God of War entries. "All the stuff I was approaching, the way I was telling it, the way I explained it to people in the beginning was, "look, this is how we'll do it. Simple story, complex characters. And we'll figure everything out from there. Focus on this father and son journey, a coming of age for both of these characters, while they're on the road. That's it. Everything else, we'll come up with as we go," Barlog said.

"We didn't start by plotting 'this is so-and-so, he wants to kill so-and-so, and he wants this'. Those characters came from the interactions in the story, and what they would offer, and the concept of limiting the number—something that I think we were criticized a little bit about, too. There's not a lot of characters. There's not a lot of bosses. And that's intentional, 100%. You look at the first God of War game, not a lot of bosses. Not a lot of characters. And I think that's good. I thought of God of War 3, I love it, but it's like a swan song for Greek mythology, so there's a lot of characters, which we spent two games building up relationships for. Now, we're introducing Kratos to a new world, and like a fish going into a tank, he needs to adjust. We need to leave the bag in the water for a little while before we release him in so he can go free."

God of War is available now for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. You shouldn't miss it.

(Hat tip to GamingBolt for the scoop!)