It’s not uncommon for video games to feel incomplete just a few months before their release. However, sometimes games are not ready at all. This was the case with God of War from 2018, as revealed by former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida.
He played the game six months before its planned release, and he found that it was in such a bad state that he was shocked. This led him to delay the game by another six months to give the team more time to refine it.
Problems in Sparta
“I was horrified,” Yoshida said in an interview with Game File (thanks Gamesradar). Kratos needed more time to get back to top shape. “I didn’t say the game was horrible,” Yoshida clarified.
“That was one of the biggest games in development,” he remembered. “The company had huge expectations and had presented it in an amazing way. But there were only about six months left until launch (it was planned for 2017). I visited the studio, and Cory Barlog gave a presentation and let me play. The game was maybe 80% complete. But I had really struggled to play that one level that Cory wanted me to play. The enemy was shooting at me from behind the camera. I felt really cheated. And there were some frame rate issues and multiple things were not working.”
Simply put, Sony couldn’t afford for God of War to fail. “Thinking about the time left for the team and the huge expectations from the company and maybe the players, I thought, ‘This is a problem,’” Yoshida said. “But, because Cory is such a creative guy and a very nice person and very passionate, I couldn’t tell him. Even though my facial expression was communicating something.”
The Decision to Delay the Game
“After the meeting, I went back to Shannon Studstill’s office (the game’s executive producer) and told her, ‘We have a problem,’” Yoshida explained. “And eventually we were able to push the game back. We moved it to April the next year. So, six months later. This decision really helped the team to refine it.”
The last game released by Santa Monica Studio was God of War Ragnarok. Currently, no new games have been announced from the studio.
