Japanese gaming giant Sony has recently announced that the forthcoming "God of War" arriving on PlayStation 4 will not have the "God of War 4" title.
Launched more than a decade ago, the third-person action-adventure franchise will soon have a new title added to its series soon although no specific release date for this year has been announced as stated in PlayStation's official blog post.
According to creative director Corey Barlog, the creators deliberately opted to remove the number "4" off the game title go suggest a new era of mythology-based storyline. While the upcoming installment would still have familiar traces of the game's storyline, the Barlog insists that it is not a "reboot."
"The decision not to put a four at the end was deliberate. The seven games we did in the Greek era - marking the eras of God of War and the mythologies we're exploring, Kratos moving to the Norse era is a kind of [a] B.C. to A.D. changeover. It almost resets the clock," said Barlog as quoted by Venture Beat.
As further explained in a report by Gear Nuke, the game features a totally different Kratos who tries his best to keep his notorious rage at bay as he ventures in a strange new land with his son. In the game's new setting, Kratos is being set in a new light despite his tumultuous past. In his recent interview, Kratos seems to have changed fundamentally who now considers godhood as a "disease." With his demigod status, Kratos was unfortunately inflicted with uncontrollable rage that comes with his enormous power.
Since parenting is central to the new gameplay experience, a button on the PlayStation 4 controller is specifically added to enable players to interact with Kratos' child.
"By tying the parenting theme into multiple aspects of the game...the new God of War might be able to do the near-impossible: make you care about Kratos...By making Kratos' son a pivotal part of the experience, Barlog is potentially setting up a future in which God of War's story can extend beyond its iconic lead, wrote Andrew Webster for The Verge.
