Interview with God of War 3 Art Director, Ken Feldman

April: Apart from the obvious influences that Greek mythology has on the game, what are some of the other inspirations that you have drawn on for the creatures and other things found in the game?

Ken: I think with the creature design it goes back to a lot of- you know there are a lot of sculptors that are doing a lot of beautiful stuff these days, there’s obviously in movies some of the creature that we see – Stig had mentioned Cloverfield with that large monster and the Titans and stuff like that, I believe there’s some inspiration there. We also look at things like zombie movies, anime films. Ghost in the Shell was a big influence of ours, especially for some of the kind of gore that you see in the game level. When you rip off Helios’ head, we found a piece where she’s like laying back in a car where she ripped her own arms off. That’s like a big influence. We draw a lot of inspiration from a lot of media that’s out there, could be comic books to movies and you know, when it’s all said and done, I think what we’ve always tried to do is keep it, you know since the first game we want to give it a modern twist, we want to give it an evil twist but we want it to – we want to make sure it still remains high adventure and I think, from the first game, one of our biggest influences has been Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders of the Lost Ark managed to really creep a player out – or really creep the viewer out – scare the viewer, but it was really a movie for everyone, it was kind of a mass market. Now maybe God of War isn’t for everybody, especially with the rating that we get and the level of gore that we get but the fantasy of how you play through it very much feels like that type of a movie and that’s a conscious effort even as we made 2 and now we’re making 3, is that we still want this to feel like an adventure and we don’t want it to feel like a horror movie. We want it to still creep the player out, we still want to scare the player but we don’t want it to feel like a horror movie.

Redmond: Taking a lot of the external influences of Greek mythology and turning them inward, but every time I see Kratos, I remember I kept thinking of him when I was watching the movie 300.

Ken: But when you were watching 300 you were thinking of Kratos.

Redmond: Oh yah, I’m like that’s Kratos’ dad…Leonidas is his dad.

Ken: Exactly.

Redmond: So with that kind of influence and that kind of stuff out there, something like 300 might have helped that along and in context, what are some of the different things artistically that you wanted to accomplish with Kratos and what you wanted to bring out in that character that we maybe hadn’t seen before?

Ken: Yah…well…with Kratos he defines our game, he defines the personality of our game and everything that we do is driven by how we want him to be shown to our audience and the level of emotion that he puts into the adventure that he is taking. There was a concept painting that was done on God of War 2 that had Kratos ripping a dead soldier in half and when he was ripping him in half, Kratos looked just so violent, this beast that was encaptivated by the situation and he was just ripped in half and well that’s what I want Kratos to look like in God of War 3 and that’s the way I want the public to feel who this character is. But it’s like we can’t model all this into this character, I mean we can because we have the technology to do it but he would ridiculous if he was always walking around with his jaws always clenched, veins popping out.

Redmond: He would look like a feral beast and not the tormented guy.

Ken: Right, that’s not the way that people look when they walk around. Like that’s the way he looks when he’s in battle and that’s how he looks when he’s trying to be violent. That’s the level of what we wanted Kratos to be and that’s the way that we sculpted our technology and thats how we – you know all these next-gen games have normal maps but we have dynamic normal maps. We’re able to blend between these things and make him feel like he’s actually in a battle. It wasn’t about – hey we just want to see Kratos’ muscles bulge – no, it was we really wanted the player to feel like they were in battle and visuals is a huge part of making that feeling happen.

Redmond: In the earlier games there was always an establishing shot to show you how small you actually were, you know running on those chains toward those horse, toward those steeds for the Sisters of Fate or when you are about to enter some temple…

Ken: Nothing compared to what we’re trying to do in God of War 3. Nothing.

Redmond: Like how small are you going to be?

Ken: That’s the challenge, it’s like when Stig, the director, came to us and said this is your challenge for God of War 3. It’s that we are going to be on Titans that are gonna be bigger than you know, I think he described as the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower, but in reality you are going to be this little speck and I’m going to get the camera right on top of Kratos and then we are going to immediately zap and just pull back as fast as we can and show this massive Titan. And I don’t want to go through trees to hide the camera cuts, I want it all to happen in real time, I want all that stuff to stream and I want the micro detail of when you are in Kratos’s face to look as real as it did in any cinematic from God of War 1 and God of War 2 to when you pull all the way out, then that vision and that fantasy absolutely pulls through and looks realistic and captivating to the audience. And as an Art Director and for our team of artists, that was our challenge and that’s what we have to meet and that’s what we are trying to come up with.

Redmond: Some of the things that happen with action games, when you have a franchise character, you center so much on the main character then one of the bosses are kinda coolish but I’ve notice in the God of War series that if you’re fighting another person, that guy is either really good at what he does or he’s really powerful like Zeus or something like that. What are some of the things that you had to keep in mind, in terms of Greek Mythology, when you were putting various characters or obstacles in front of Kratos and putting your spin on those characters as much as you’re putting on Kratos. How hard was it to maintain that balance?

Ken: Yah, I think when you play the first game you’re learning a move set and you’re learning a character and you’re kind of being introduced to him whereas on God of War 3, you already know that stuff and we’ve already introduced you to a number of characters that have existed in the world whether it be Cyclops or Medusas and then that’s our challenge in this game is like, you know, the audience isn’t going to be captivated by fighting grunts all the way through. They want bigger, badder, more meaner, fiercer creatures and new gameplay with that kind of stuff.

Redmond: I saw that with the Chimera…

Ken: …in three different stages on the Chimera and now we’ve reintroduced the Cyclops as almost a moveable, ballista weapon, tank kind of a thing that you can drive around and destroy…new ways of battling grunts on the battlefield. Reinventing the things that we’ve done before but then introducing a much larger scale enemy that you have to fight.

April: What was your biggest challenge as Art Director?

Ken: Well, I described kind of the micro and the macro to you and the vision that Stig has for this game and how big he wants this thing to be and I think how big our fans want this to be…it’s like to make that happen, the reality of making that happen, is not hallways to rooms and back to hallways. I mean this stuff is unique, nobody’s ever tried to do that and so everyday we go into the office and it’s like OK, here’s is our next obstacle and before you’re even done thinking about that obstacle the producer is gonna come to you and say OK now we have another meeting about this other obstacle that’s going to be just as difficult. So everyday is going in and it’s like we have our toolbox, we have to problem solve within that toolbox and bring it into reality for the player. We’re going to do it and I think it’s going to be a fantastic game. And I think we know that what we’ve shown today is just a hint of where we are going with this, I think it’s going to be a lot better as we start to unveil more stuff to you guys. This is just a hint.