No Redeeming Value - Why the God of War Sequels Failed at Storytelling - Extra Credits

If you haven't picked up on it already, we're big fans of storytelling in video games here. It's intriguing. It's unlike storytelling in any other medium, and we're only just beginning to understand how to use it effectively. Today, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to look very closely at the storytelling in a particular series of games, the God of War trilogy. This is going to be spoiler-tastic, so if you haven't played the third game and you don't want to know how it ends, get out while you still can. Let's start by looking at what God of War does right, characterization. God of War is a monument to characterization through gameplay. Kratos is instantly recognizable because he's one of the most fully realized characters in gaming today. Everything about him just screams of violence bordering on madness. His design, his combat, his finishers, weapons, even the way that he deals with encountering gods and monsters just demonstrates his reckless disregard for living.

Look at the way Kratos moves and behaves in game. Without any backstory, cutscenes, or even a single word of dialogue, you can easily see that Kratos is a creature of instability and aggression and ultra-violence. The characterization of Kratos through gameplay is one of the greatest successes of the God of War franchise. But now that we've looked at the biggest success in God of War storytelling, let's look at where it fell short. They succeeded in turning Kratos into a ball of hate and rage, but they failed to make that fact meaningful in any way. God of War is clearly intended to be a Greek tragedy. The first game to be exactly that, and it succeeded to a fair degree. But by the third game in the series, Kratos, for all of his characterization, is reduced to a caricature, and the plot discards any semblance of Greek tragedy and wanders off into the mediocrity of paplum video game storyline. Just to make sure we're on the same page, let's talk Greek tragedy 101 for a sec. When you boil it all down, Greek tragedy has three principal elements. Element number one, it usually involves someone of high status brought low by their actions. Element number two.

The actions that ruin the main character don't have to be bad or evil. In fact, they don't even have to be the main character's fault. In Greek tragedy, characters are judged for their actions, not their intentions. Element number three. The main character of a Greek tragedy, upon becoming aware of his crimes, is filled with violent, if impotent, remorse. You with me so far? All right, let's look at God of War 1 with that in mind. Kratos is a rising captain in the Spartan army. Element number one, check. He is tricked into killing his family and then tricked into slaying a god. Element number two, check. Upon realizing the monstrous and irreversible nature of his crimes, Kratos throws himself into the Aegean Sea. Bingo, hat trick, trophy unlocked. Seriously, the first God of War was carefully constructed. Kratos himself draws a great deal from Ajax, a warrior of immense physical strength and great rage, who was also tricked by the gods. To add to the Ajax archetype, developers layered on that which Aristotle calls the most tragic of all actions, the unwitting murder of a family member. But these things are just the setup, the prologue that allows Greek tragedy to be

effective. What's truly at the heart of Greek tragedy, and what makes God of War 1 so great, is element number three. The character's realization of their own misdeeds. In this regard, God of War 1 shines. All throughout the game, Kratos is living in denial, sheltered by his rage and his hope that redemption can be found at the end of his ridiculous quest to kill a god. His realization in the end that he's become more than just a killer, that he has slaughtered his own family and committed deicide, that he has left a trail of innocent dead in his wake. This realization that he's been possessed by madness and done terrible, irreversible things leaves him pathetic, pitiable. What gods and demons and Hades itself could not do, his own guilt does. Guilt reduces the great warrior to a beaten and broken man, impotent and pathetic. This is the great lesson of God of War 1. It is this last revelatory moment that teaches us something about ourselves and lets us feel pathos for the brutal killer. All of the action of the game has been a setup for that moment.

Now, let's fast forward to God of War II and III. When considering these two games, it's important to remember that neither of them was headed by the director of the first game, David Jaffe. And the difference in vision shows through. God of War II begins with Kratos abusing his new power and repeatedly ignoring warnings from all sides that his behavior will get him punished. When he eventually is punished for his abuse, he acts like a petulant child and redirects his rage towards Zeus, completely negating his redemptive awakening at the end of the first game. By God of War III, the game is reduced to a spectacle of unmitigated thoughtless violence. The player kills all of the gods, excluding those who he has an arbitrary sex mini-game with, and in doing so, destroys the world. And sure, it was a great way to kick things up a notch in an already epic series, but as we already discussed, actions define a character. And Kratos ripping through the Greek pantheon as if it were a paper towel removes him from anything the player can relate to and drops him firmly in the realm of Schwarzenegger-style action heroes. But while this is a step backward for the series, perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to judge. I mean, even action

heroes can be meaningful sometimes, right? But when we see the capstone to the series, the final moment in the final installment in this grand trilogy, we can no longer have any doubt. Kratos is just an evil git with no redeeming qualities. There is nothing to learn here. God of War III dives into full parody mode with lines like "The power of forgiveness comes from within" and "Hope is what makes us strong. It's why we're here." These sort of lines belong in bad children's television, not mature-rated games, and definitely not in Greek tragedy. Worse still is what happens to the gameplay at this juncture. Rather than convey this final message in some interactive form, it's delivered by voice-overs while the player traverses an empty landscape. But perhaps the greatest tragedy of God of War III is in the very final moments. After all of the talk of hope and forgiveness, the player escapes Kratos's psyche and regains control over the character and immediately goes back to beating the out of another god with his bare hands. Nothing has been learned, nothing changes. The character still answers all of his problems with violence and shows no remorse

whatsoever. Worse yet, for the first and only time in all of the series, the player is brought into first-person perspective inside Kratos's head. Why? What is it meant to symbolize or imply? Does this perspective shift mean anything? I mean, are we asking too much of a video game here? No, we aren't. And we should never ask that question again. Imagine a novel in which the author switched from third to first person in the last 20 pages. Even if it was the worst hack novel in the world, would you not stop and ask why? Video games must be held to the same standard, especially those that we rank among the best we create. First-person perspective implies that I, the player, am now taking action, that I am the character. Here would be a great place to include a choice, to give the player freedom. But instead, it all ends with that most unpopular of devices, a quick-time event. There's a real lack of concern for storytelling here. The development team forced the player to be responsible for the character's actions in these last few minutes and then completely curtailed any freedom and gave the player what amounts to little more than a cutscene in which they blindly

obliterate a character's face with their bare fists. What's sad about this is that there's no excuse for it. The God of War trilogy could have told a timeless story, but a haphazard attitude towards storytelling denied them the opportunity to tell that story and denied players the opportunity to experience it. That is where God of War falls short. Though the series is a blast to play and is a fantastic example of characterization through action, by the end of the trilogy, we're left with a story of no redeeming value. I know it seems like I've been a bit harsh on this game, but I think that we have to be. If we are going to harp on and on about how games are a developing artistic medium and an exciting new venue for storytelling, we can't then just ignore the areas where games are lacking or praise competence as if it were brilliance. It's only by exploring the triumphs and shortcomings of this medium that will allow us to push games to their full potential. And that is what we are all about. So, see you guys next week.