GOD OF WAR Game Director Cory Barlog Talks About The Possibility Of A New Game Plus

God of War did intend to feature a New Game Plus at one point but was moved down the list of things the studio wanted to focus on before the game launched. A New Game Plus usually allows players to start a new game keeping all of their weapons, skills, experience points, and armour, but facing even stronger enemies from the start.

Thanks to Gaming Bolt, we got some new information about this New Game Plus mode via an interview with Cory Barlog, Game Director for God of War. Barlog mentions that this mode was considered during development but was later moved down the list and they also needed to meet a deadline so they ended up cutting it from the game.

As per the interview, Barlog said that "New Game Plus is something I wanted so badly, right? And it is this Sophie’s choice you have to consciously make as you enter the last eight months of working on a game. You have a huge list of features, and so many of these things kind of get pushed down the list. And, the impact, the involvement of New Game Plus, kept pushing it further down the list, because keeping it would cause a lot of other stuff, and a lot of other stuff meant stability, and polish, would be delayed." Which is a perfectly reasonable way of looking at these kinds of things, especially if it meant polishing details instead of rushing them to add as much content as possible.

Barlog also mentions that they kept running out of time, regardless of the five years they had to make the game, and even goes to say that they were still refining, polishing, and tuning the game to make it as perfect as possible.

"Which is why Photo Mode didn’t even get started until after we went Gold. It was on the list, we had it in the previous game, but the engine was changed up, so we had to rewrite it. And that relied on the enthusiasm of the programmers to sort of get behind it after we just ran a five year marathon, to jump right in and start on that one… "

It does seem like the developers went through a lot to get that Photo Mode ready and it paid off since it is incredibly fun. It gives players yet another reason to revisit the game and pause to appreciate the gorgeous environments and notice how good the battles look.

"New Game Plus is definitely the same in that we all love that kind of concept, it’s just, we haven’t had the time to get started on any of that stuff. So it is definitely something that I am still trying to convince people of, but we’ll have to see where it shakes out."

Hopefully Mr. Barlog manages to convince the developers to add that New Game Plus to God of War but even if they don't, or if they take their time to get it out, players can still enjoy all the content the game already offers.

His vengeance against the Gods of Olympus years behind him, Kratos now lives as a man in the realm of Norse Gods and monsters. It is in this harsh, unforgiving world that he must fight to survive…And teach his son to do the same. This startling reimagining of God of War deconstructs the core elements that defined the series—satisfying combat; breathtaking scale; and a powerful narrative—and fuses them anew.