If Santa Monica Studios is looking to recreate the success of 2018’s God of War with the next entry in the series, the developer may want to look out to another series for inspiration. Specifically, looking at Dark Souls’ legendary difficulty and punishing features, there are some notes that any game looking to push the challenge to the front may want to take.
More than anything, what God of War is missing is a punishment for death to enhance the difficulty, especially in challenging modes like Give Me God of War. This could elevate the challenge of the next title in the series and would be best delivered with a God of War on PS5.
Punishment for Death
The biggest thing that Dark Souls brings to the difficulty curve is the punishment that players face for death, with the souls resource that works as both a stand in for currency and experience dropping on death. This also leads into players certainly feeling the weight of each death and feeds into every other feature in Dark Souls that controls the challenge. At the same time, this mechanic is balanced by allowing players to return to their place of death and earn back their lost souls.
Unfortunately, God of War doesn’t have any kind of mechanic like this that gives an added sense of urgency to either stay alive or be able to return to a previous death without dying. Considering that the combat in the latest entry in the series has taken a much more grounded approach with the closer camera and more brutal difficulty, adding punishment to death wouldn’t be unheard of. At the moment, while certain fights like God of War’s Valkyries can be difficult, the only punishment for dying is a loading screen that returns the player to one of many frequent checkpoints.
Atreus Saves Kratos
In addition to the punishment for death being fairly lax, players also have the option of giving Atreus revival stones to bring Kratos back to life if he dies. This could feed into a possible solution for giving God of War 5 a more punishing death by having players transition from controlling the powerful Kratos to switching over to his son. A similar tactic appears in the upcoming Souls-like Mortal Shell, where players are thrown out of their shells on death and forced to play as a weakened version of themselves in order to return to their bodies.
By having players have to take control of Atreus who wouldn’t have the same strength or ability to rip through enemies as Kratos, this feature can add urgency to earning the revival. It may not be quite as punishing as loosing materials or currency like in a standard Souls-like, but it would still offer a similar reward for players who can make it back to Kratos as Atreus. Of course, the point isn’t to simply transform God of War into a Souls-like clone, but instead to infuse some of the punishing difficulty of Dark Souls into the series.
Make God of War 5 Even Harder
One thing that 2018’s God of War does excellently is managing difficulty, both with the different difficulty modes, as well as the evolving challenge of enemies, bosses, and the Valkyries. However, even with the game striking such a fine balance between offering convenient checkpoints and requiring precise reactions to survive, it can feel too easy at times. This is where leaning into the punishment and reward system revolving around death that Dark Souls offers can really improve the God of War 5.
If the game intends for players to have to trial and error their way through certain fights and encounters, as opposed to sit back and enjoy the spectacle, then that would change the entire design of the world. Now entire sections where Atreus could take stealthy or agile advantages over the enemies could be introduced in order to make his trip back to the dying Kratos more unique and add considerably to God of War’s game world. With death as an inevitability for players to overcome, even the design of the more open world design that the last instalment strove for can be better implemented.
God of War’s More Open World
One of the biggest draws to 2018’s God of War was that it promised to be a more open-world title than previous installments in the series. While this was true, with the open sections of Midgard having explorable portions, the player can choose to interact with or ignore at their own leisure. However, while the concept of open-world is a spectrum, one of the most successful examples of an interconnected world comes from Dark Souls and the way it feeds into the death mechanic.
By having the locations in Dark Souls constantly loop back on each other, the world has this open feel to it, while still being a fairly linear experience, with a few choices mixed in. The same can be said for God of War, which has a level of openness, but still has a set path that it wants to take players on. By twisting some of those levels around onto each other, leading the player to unlock shortcuts as they progress, this could allow the next God of War to expand on the open-world features that it has already begun implementing.
God of War on PS5
One problem that stands out when it comes to adding these kinds of steaks, where players have to return to their previous death, or the punishment cutting off huge amounts of progress, is load screens. Every time the player dies in any of these games, the entire room has to be reloaded in order to get them started back on the adventure and even give them a chance to get back to where they started. So, with God of War committing to one-shot cinematography, players are already implying that PS5 would be the perfect console to cut down on those load times.
Well, on top of convenience, this faster load time would also mean that God of War could afford to send players further back, without having to worry about a load screen. Having Kratos’ death send the camera flying back to the entrance of the level, for example, could easily be hidden by a quick animation that ends with players suddenly controlling Atreus. Altogether, God of War on PS5 could be the best installment in the series, and the new system could allow Santa Monica Studios to open up to impressive new features and mechanics.
God of War is available now for PS4.
