Cory Barlog on the sadistic Give Me God of War difficulty (and tips to survive it)

Cory, I'm no stranger to the God of War franchise and I've finished every entry on the hardest difficulty available. That said, I had to do two things recently: pass a kidney stone and try to finish your latest on Give Me God of War difficulty – I think the latter experience was more painful...

Cory Barlog: [Laughs] Oh man, that is fantastic!

So I have to ask you, what compelled you to hit so hard this time around? Because this is such a step up from the last God of War you did [God of War II]. Do you just expect more from players nowadays?

CB: Look, I think players have raised the bar over time and certain games have increased the challenge so much. Jason McDonald is our lead combat designer and he came to me and did this sort of mad drawing of all the different ways he wanted to manipulate the system [for Give Me God of War difficulty]. He told me “I want to take this farther than we've ever gone before”. So we separated the difficulty out, made it so that it was a super commitment – you can only do this difficulty and you can't jump out once it's been selected. And then he started breaking it down with all of these charts of different things he wanted the enemies to do.

Our lead combat designer, came to me and did this sort of mad drawing of all the different ways he wanted to manipulate the system [for Give Me God of War difficulty]

He didn't want [the difficulty] available right away, he wanted it as an unlock at the end. But I said, I love all this and I want people to dive into it from the start. You know, that Mega Man feel where you start and it's like, look, if you're c-r-a-z-y enough go dive into the deep end, do it.

I've since seen a bunch of people try to start up on it, and when they hit that first fight they're just like...nope.

I did that, I'm embarrassed to say. Time constraints for getting the review done made me back off, though I've started again and I'm about ¼ through it now. I don't think I've yelled at my television this much in years.

CB: Well it's good that you're back again. That's what we wanted to do, increase the aspirational curve of things. And this mode isn't like previous games where we had an algorithm that would mess with just damage dealt and damage taken – which is how we deal with the other difficulties lower than this one. But yeah, Give Me God of War is separate. It's the brainchild of Jason McDonald. He's gonna love your kidney stone comparison.

Sadly, I don't think the word is out about how different this mode is. I've had friends who are critics wrongfully say “yeah, the enemies are just more spongey”. I've been advertising it to them, pushing them to go get their arses kicked and appreciate what's changed,

CB: Oh, it's so much more than that. You've got different enemies at different levels. You've got enemies with D-trees – or “decision trees”, how they choose to attack, etc – being totally different. Jason went so deep on this thing. And I mean his favorite game is Nioh, which he calls “the game of the century” or “the game of the “millennia”. So to him, he wants something really challenging, and he was the guy who would beat our earlier very hard modes. He has a trophy named after him called “The Speed of Jason McDonald” because he's the fastest at beating games and is such an incredibly skilled gamer. Most of our team are of the Bloodborne, Dark Souls level of masochism.

As for me, I'm not even through my playthrough of Give Me God of War. There's only so much pain I can take, and then I'll go back to a lower level. I mean, it is hard, hardcore.

Thanks for your time Cory, and also for giving me a name to my pain: Jason McDonald.