god of war

God of War 3 [PS3 – Beta]

God of War 3 is an action adventure developed by Sony Santa Monica and released in March 2010 for the Playstation 3. As we can read on wikipedia, God of War III was first discussed by Cory Barlog at a God of War II launch event: Barlog expressed an interest in adding a cooperative mode, but sadly this was not implemented in the final game. An ending was also removed, as we can read on Kotaku:

Senior Producer Steve Caterson says in response to questions of whether any content from the game had been cut, “Probably the hardest cut was we had a whole kind of epilogue at the end planned that we just never got…just didn’t get…maybe later!”

And the original trilogy’s story was meant to be a little different:

“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.”

Nutty. For what it’s worth, God of War II’s Cory Barlog has something else in mind entirely. “Cory Barlog talked about Kratos becoming Death”, says Asmussen. “He pretty much becomes the Grim Reaper at the end of the game and his blades become sickles. 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.”

1UP shared a video in which Sony Santa Monica’s Stig Asmussen and Steve Caterson talk about features cut from the final version of God of War 3, with the first footage of the three-way Kratos / Zeus / Gaia battle originally planned for the game’s ending. Also, an old article on CGSociety website revealed that the developers though about making God of War 3 a first person shooter.

If you can notice some beta-differences in the early GoW3 screenshots, please let us know!

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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God of War 2 [PS2 – Beta]

God of War 2 is an action adventure developed by SCE Studios Santa Monica and published in 2007 by Sony for the PlayStation 2. In the final game it’s possible to unlock a bonus video in which to take a look at some removed levels, as the Colosseum, an Aquaduct, the Rhode’s Marketplace, Atlantis and The Tomb, plus some test / debug levels as the one in the river. An unused move was also found in the game’s code.

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God of War: Chains of Olympus [PSP – Beta]

God of War: Chains of Olympus is an action adventure developed by Ready at Dawn and released in march 2008 for the PSP. As we can read on Wikipedia, the game had already been in the development stages just before the completion of Daxter, when Ready At Dawn pitched the idea of a God of War game for the PSP to SCEA’s Santa Monica Studios.

In an interview after the game was completed, director Ru Weerasuriya stated that several things had to be cut from the game given time constraints. These included multiplayer and co-op aspects as well as other puzzles, characters and dialogue

Also, from an article at Industry Gamers, we found out that the game could have been a side scroller action game:

Dana Jan, lead level designer on the game, revealed that Ready at Dawn briefly thought about making the game 2-D. “There were early discussions of making Chains of Olympus a side-scroller rather than 3D in case the experience couldn’t be fully realized on a handheld,” he said. “This really fueled us to prove that it could be done.”

In the gallery below you can see some footage (thanks to L1qu1dSnak3‘s YT channel1) from the early development of the game: the “Making of Attica” (prototype of the first level) and “The Lost Levels” (removed areas and scenes) videos can be unlocked in the final game (Beat the game in God mode and finish the Challenge of Hades).

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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RS Links: God of War 3 was meant to be a FPS

gow3fps

God of War 3 is currently in development for the PlayStation 3 and it should be published sometime in 2010. At the CGSociety website there’s an interesting article about the game, in which SCEA Art Director Ken Feldman revealed that they though about making GoW3 a first person shooter:

“I tried unsuccessfully to convince Stig to make ‘God of War III’ a first-person shooter. Kratos could have some truly badass huge weapons that rip gods to shreds. Unfortunately he didn’t see the genius in the idea.”

Really? It sounds like a joke, but who knows? We had 3 Metroid games in first person view after all..

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the link! 

God Of War [PS2 – Beta]

God of War is an action adventure based on Greek mythology, released for the PlayStation 2 in 2005. The game was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment’s Santa Monica division. In the final game is possible to unlock a bonus room (the Character Graveyard), in which the developers have collected various beta enemies that were rejected and even early designs of some used ones. Thanks to GodOfWarProduction’s Youtube Channel we can have a look at all those unused enemies!

Also, in the very first GOW footage ever shown in 2004, we can notice a Beta HUD, slightly different Kratos, Beta Blades of chaos and Beta enemies. Also, another bonus video that can be unlocked in the final game, shows various removed levels and early prototypes!

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