We've known for a while that God of War will have difficulty levels that cater to both casual players and more hardcore warriors, but now developer Sony Santa Monica Studio has taken the time to explain what these difficulty levels actually are.
Here are the details straight from the team's latest blog post:
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Give Me A Story: lets you experience the story without too much of a difficult gameplay challenge. You won’t be taking a gondola to the top of the highest peaks in all the Norse Realms, but you will have a far greater margin for error in enemy encounters.
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Give Me A Balanced Experience: is the mode we’d recommend most players start with. The name says it all. We’ve tuned it to deliver a balanced, challenging playthrough.
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Give Me A Challenge: is harder and less forgiving. It is recommended for players who find action games extremely intuitive, and for confident long-time God of War series veterans who’ve beat past games on harder difficulties.
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Give Me God of War: is the sort of thing reserved for people who wrestle polar bears in their undies. Maybe not quite that, but it’s the most difficult mode in the game. We haven’t just made you weaker or enemies stronger; we’ve looked at enemy behaviors and placements in encounters as well, tweaking everything to make it as threatening as possible. Best of all, you cannot change difficulties once you start a game on this mode, so if you suddenly realize you’re in way over your head, you’ll have to start a new game. Don’t be sorry, be better?
Looks good to us. Hopefully these options are enough to satisfy everyone who decides to give the game a shot.
Moving on, the developer has also highlighted what it's calling 'Immersion Mode'. This essentially allows you to turn off most of the HUD, allowing for a more cinematic experience. You'll even be able to tweak the HUD elements that you want to see, so if you find things a bit too cluttered, you can cut it down however you like. Lovely stuff.
At the time of writing we're just ten days away from God of War's launch, but are you feeling the hype? Prepare that red body paint in the comments section below.
[source godofwar.playstation.com]
Comments 35
The detail on Krato's character model is insane...
Sounds good. Always nicer to have more HUD options for those that want them
Quite a bit of polish and detail has gone into this, it seems. I’m amazed that a God of War game has a “Give Me a Story” setting though. The previous installments weren’t particularly known for their stories really. I mean no disrespect, but the allure was always the crazy combat and over the top enemies.
@Th3solution This is a different kind of God of War...
Give Me God of War.
@get2sammyb Better? Still epic?
Since I want to play this game at least two times in the first week I'll start in the normal setting!
Then maybe Hard with HUD off!
@AFCC We'll talk later this week.
I want "Don't be sorry, be better!" to be a meme. I'm totally using it for fighting games now.
@get2sammyb You mean Thursday?
@get2sammyb I don't know what's harder! Waiting for the game a week and a half longer or waiting for your opinion lol
Seems like there's a bit of room between "Give Me A Story" and "Give Me A Balanced Experience", or at least that's the way I read it when the latter ended with "challenging playthrough".
Of course it's great that they are offering so many options, and I know most GoW fans would rather have the difficulty ramped up than just playing through a story, but it seems to me like they left out the obvious "easy mode" between "Story" and "Normal". Though I may just be reading to much into it as that's how H:ZD works, story, easy, normal, hard, ultra hard.
I'm playing H:ZD on easy now and it's perfect. Game started off slow while I was still behind the wall but once I got out into the real world I was very happy for easy mode. And Frozen Wilds is still kicking my butt at level 43, can't imagine getting very far in there on normal.
Though I do regret playing Bayonetta 2 on "easy", fights were over before the dialogue was done. I still need to go back and play that on normal.
Guess I'll have to see what the reviews say before I jump in, maybe they'll add in an "Easy" mode or tweak it a bit like H:ZD did before I get around to playing it.
@rjejr Hopefully I'm allowed to say that apart from the ultra-hard difficulty, you can switch between the others as you play to find which one suits you.
Man i'd rather play a more balanced experience knowing that i'll be back to crush my enemies
I think they should have named the different game settings these:
1. Telltale game setting
2. Open world RPG setting
3. Break your controller in rage setting
And ...
4. Dark Souls setting
@Retro88 Yeah, God of Constantly Getting His Ass Kicked doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
@Th3solution 5. Demon souls setting
@get2sammyb Well you should be allowed to say that, it's implied in the article by saying you can't switch when playing on ultra hard.
As I said, normal mode - balanced experience - sounded good until it ended w/ "challenging". I've played all of the other GoW games on normal and they were good, but if they mean the new "Dark Souls" normal I'm out. Difficulty has been annoying me the past few years, ever since Uncharted 1 was too difficult even on easy w/ all those bullet sponges but U2 was almost too easy even on normal. U3 was good on normal though, as was U4. I think I played LL on easy, though maybe it was normal. I still haven't tried a Souls game yet, not even the PS+ one. Just not in the mood for a challenge anymore, I just want to have fun. Killing things is fun, being killed is not. But the remote possibility of death still needs to be there, just remote. Always gotta die in boss battles or what's the point of it being a boss battle?
@rjejr I think you're going to be just fine on normal.
@get2sammyb Thanks for the vote of confidence, appreciate it.
Best not say more, can't go getting you in trouble now.
Looking forward to it. Just need to finish God of War 2 and 3 first!
@get2sammyb is there Day one patch ?
@porhawj2016 Not sure if I can say. Most modern games have a patch at launch, though, so...
The field God of War game I've ever been excited for!
@LaNooch1978 not sure, hopefully not same like Crushing Mode from Uncharted 4 and Lost legacy but i got both platinum trophy on both games
W.o.r.d. u.p. s.o.n.
@LaNooch1978 Not allowed to talk about Trophies I'm afraid
awesome, LOVE the hud options. will probably play first one Challenge and 2nd play through later on God
Sorry if this sounds silly,but does this game save the cinematic scenes for viewing, as you progress in the game?
Thanks for sharing all of the different difficulty modes !
@get2sammyb Should we keep an eye out for the review to drop tonight? It looks like the embargo is lifting but I did not know if you had enough time to play it yet.
@Bluetrain7 Yep, it's coming!
@get2sammyb Thank you! So excited to read the PushSquare review. I’m encouraged by the embargo lifting so early. I think the Sony execs must be confident in what has been put together.
@Rudy_Manchego I’m halfway through 2 and stuck on Euryale. Either I’m not used to the PS3 controller anymore or my button mashing skills have slowed with age. I can’t seem to mash circle fast enough.
@Bluetrain7 I just got passed it and yep, it was a complete pain. I am doing it on Vita and think I have worn down the buttons!
I've gone from not caring about this game to being hyped as hell. Jeff Cannata's recent Twitter posts are 90% of the reason, the critical acclaim the other 10%.
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