God of War Ragnarokhas already been crowned a critical success, but it would seem some of its developers over at Santa Monica Studio were not that confident about the game’s quality only three months ago, as director Eric Williams confirmed toGQ Magazine.
In this recent interview, Williams spoke on the journey of developing such a massively anticipated sequel as his directorial debut. He took a moment to praise everyone on the team, stating that “when you work with people that are the apex of what they do, you’re going to get magic.” He expressed that all he could do was thank them for their hard work once it was all over, though he admitted that some of them “were freaking out three months ago,” saying, “Holy crap, the game’s not good. “What are we going to do?”
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“I can’t even imagine how they feel today,” Williams continued. He revealed another interesting tidbit, which may have some relation to why the devs felt the way they did. Apparently, closed playtesting began as early as 2019, three years before the game’s release. “We want that raw, brutal feedback,” said Williams, touting how, with it, “there’s no arguing. It’s like, ‘Dude, players don’t like it.’ " He admitted that it does have its drawbacks, “because people’s feelings are involved.”
Williams explained how part of his growth as a director came from learning how to communicate with his team, due how to “brutally blunt” he is by nature. He made the example of the specific developer that handled God of War Ragnarok’s progression system, which he says is one of the most difficult things to balance in game development. This person wanted to nail it right away, with only about ten playtests in, but Williams did his best to ease the pressure, telling them, “The only version that counts is the one that we ship.”
Part of the development hardship came from having to switch to a work-from-home model midway through. Williams said it was difficult to replicate valuable interactions like sharing ideas at lunch or even just walking by someone’s desk and seeing something cool.
Perhaps certain developers had just set very high expectations for themselves, or perhaps the game really did come together in the final three months of development, but clearly, the general consensus, at least among critics, is that the team at Santa Monica Studio made something special with God of War Ragnarok.
