New God of War Unleashed

New God of War Unleashed

For the second year in a row, Sony started its press conference with a show stopper. Starting with a foreboding full symphonic performance of a track from the newest God of War title in development things kicked off. Demo starts with a cut-scene of a boy playing in the dirt and being beckoned indoors by his father. He comes into view and it is the one and only Kratos. Now rocking a badass beard, he takes his son on a hunt to test him. They come across a deer that flees, but soon after they get accosted by a monster that Kratos takes out with relative ease. The environment is a winter landcape and it looks fantastic. The gameplay still revolves around Kratos using melee attacks. No longer using his chained daggers, he now uses two-handed axe. They fight against another monster – a larged horned troll wielding a large blunt object. The game still features the same use of QTE gameplay, allowing Kratos things up in battle. Kratos tells his son to take the killing blow, but he shoots his father by mistake. Krato kill the troll himself, removes the arrow and casually tells him to resume his hunt. They find the deer and Kratos instructs his son as he takes his shot. The shot lands and Kratos tells the boy to finish slaughtering the deer to put it out of its misery. The boy cannot bring himself to do it, so Kratos helps in doing so. The demo ends with them looking out into the expanse as a dragon flies into view and into the screen.

There is so much character in the voicing and it feels believable. The winter surroundings look solid and the combat looks real and grizzly. It totally fits the nature of the God of War franchise to a T. It will be great to see more of this in the months to come, but what has been shown here at E3 was a real treat in and of itself. No concrete release has been given for God of War 4 at this time.