“It’s a nasty world out there, and it’s catching up with us” – How Red Dead Online Helped me Talk to my Brother About Mental Health

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It’s 2001 and a much cuter and happier me is wandering wide-eyed through a tire-trodden rugby pitch at a local car boot sale. Car boot sales are something of a dying British pastime and a veritable treasure trove of useless tat; a pop-up wooden table selling stolen cable and dusty crates full of decorative plates gives you an idea of the sort of fare on offer – and I’m sure I’m not the only person with good memories of trundling along as a kid, a 50p coin burning a hole in your pocket.

The weather is always crap and it shows on everyone’s faces – but for me and my brother this cold and grey morning was the beginning of a great weekend. Times were often tough for my family – they raised us well and they gave me more than any toy or game ever would – but things didn’t come easy. It was rare that we would get a new game on release – from my memory the only times this would happen would be for Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid, so car boot sales presented the perfect opportunity for my parents to grab something cheap for us to play. Among the cars, there would be a few people selling demo discs (the ones that came packaged with the Playstation magazine) for 10 or 20 pence each, and with only a £1 coin in hand we would return home with 5 or 6 of these for the coming weekend. This was by no means an enjoyable way to play videogames and it makes me laugh to think about how we would have to reset the console every time we wanted to replay the first 10 minutes of Silent Hill 2. My patience for games has certainly dwindled since, but as a child you find entertainment in the strangest of things so we would always have a blast. The hours spent playing the first level of Time Crisis 2 on repeat or messing around for 30 minutes in Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters are some of the fondest I have with my brother, and playing coop games has been an integral part of our relationship since.

Fast-forward 20 years, the two of us have some war wounds – deep bouts of wavering depression and anxiety had affected me during my time at university, and my brother had some issues with schizophrenia that meant a brief stint in the hospital. During this time he had to take leave from his degree and move back home. It was a difficult time for all of us and as my family moved to a remote group of islands some time ago it has always been a challenge organising a trip home whilst also studying and working. Aside from a handful of visits to the hospital that I was able to travel for, I was feeling rather helpless – my other commitments meant I couldn’t stay home for an extended period of time to help ease the load and I so desperately wanted to do all I could to help my brother get better.

It was around this time that A Way Out had released – me and my brother had followed this game intensely since the original announcement revealed it was a split-screen only game and we made a determined effort to play it together despite the circumstances. Working through that story reminded us how much we loved playing games together, and even though we were hundreds of miles away from each other, it almost felt like he was sitting there beside me as we shimmied carefully up the prison air ducts. Playing A Way Out was just so much fun that we would forget about all our anxieties and woes at a time when my brother found it difficult to trust people. There was something cathartic about going back to that space where we could have fun like we did as kids, and the design of A Way Out felt purpose-built for capturing that nostalgia. After this, I think we subconsciously made an effort to try and play games together more often – we had enjoyed it so much and it helped us reconnect and feel closer.

As time passed, my brothers health had improved – there was still a long road ahead of us but the future looked bright when at times it had been tough to stay positive. Although it ultimately brought our family closer together I think a lot of things pertaining to our mental health had been put on hold when my brother took ill and this was something that we haven’t worked out as a family how to talk about. For me and my brother, the last two years began to repair what had at times been a tested relationship, and although we had yet to openly discuss our health we felt comfortable talking and the darker times that had prefaced this felt increasingly abstract as days went by. Gaming was still a huge part of our lives and as large swathes of the community were also doing at the time, we were tempering our unrequited excitement for Red Dead Redemption 2. The Red Dead series had made a big impression on us way back when Revolver came out and the childhood fantasy of gun-slinging in the Wild West with your buddies is one that I imagine most adults still spend inordinate periods of time daydreaming about. Red Dead Redemption had given us a taste of what this online world of outlaws could be like and 2 was another step closer to the Westworld we secretly hoped existed.

As fans of cooperative narrative experiences we jumped straight into the online campaign – although short-lived and relatively lacklustre, we both reveled in the opportunity to pull up our boots, polish our stirrups and get back in the saddle again as guns-for-hire for Jessica LeClerk. After a few hours of stranger missions, delivery tasks and general trouble-making we found that the expansive world that Rockstar had pulled from the single player story was severely lacking in content once you complete the initial short story missions. Recurrent player challenges that offered little in the way of creativity, empty towns and saloons, abusive players and a general lack of interactivity hampered what should have been an engaging, multi-faceted and breathing open-world. The small details are what make Rockstar’s worlds so believable and immersive, and in the case of Red Dead, these were the innocuous and amusing activities made available to the player. When me and my brother had our fill of riding around shooting and lassoing one another we would often spend our time moseying through the world hunting, riding, playing poker, but most importantly – fishing.

A quick trip to Valentine to sell five or six sock-eye salmon would often turn into a three-hour stint as we tried to force a crashed station wagon with one horse up a steep mountain as fish are flung mercilessly out of the back – think more Blazing Saddles than The Hateful Eight.

This laid-back way of playing with no pressure to complete missions or time-sensitive challenges meant that we could play at our own pace, and as we often used games as an opportunity to catch-up this presented the perfect opportunity to take things slow and simply enjoy one another’s company. A lack of player interaction or storytelling gave us ample time to talk, to laugh and to enjoy ourselves at a difficult time and I think the virtual environment certainly tempered our anxieties. It felt easier to talk round a fire as we cooked our latest catch than to speak through the phone or message.

Neither of us are particularly interested in role-playing in online games, but something about the world around us – the natural landscapes, the whistling of the wind, complete isolation from the civilised world – had us both completely immersed. Hours would pass as the two of us would ferry our catch from town to town, a time-consuming effort broken only by conversation. The slow pacing and nuanced style of Red Dead 2’s game design meant that long journeys were common, and in the days of the Old West they had nothing but each others company to pass the time. I would tell him about my day and the issues I was having, and in turn felt more comfortable asking him about his problems. When before it had been difficult to speak to my brother about his health, here we could discuss it more openly. Even though we were escaping from the real world – the lack of anxieties and pressure afforded by the virtual world meant we had breathing space to talk more freely about real-life problems. A Way Out had given us a driven experience and thrill-ride that helped us bond in the same way the two titular characters did. Red Dead Online handed us a freely open world, a horse, a gun and a fishing rod, and the blank canvas we needed to build our own story – two brothers rebuilding their friendship (and who also fish from time to time).

A thick fog rolls over the lake where me and my brother stand rod in hand, two happy lures bobbing satisfyingly on the surface of the water. The stretching shadows of nearby mountaintops mark the passage of time, the occasional sniffle of one our horses or the echo-carried roar of a distant brown bear are the only sounds that break the serene quietude of our chosen fishing location. As I look out into the water I see my brother standing there, ripples protruding from where his knees touch the lake’s surface. I think back to our childhood and how much simpler things used to be. Games were a fun way for us to do something together as children, and as years have passed the way we interact with those games has changed. We may not be able to sit next to each other, twisted controller cables strewn across the living room – but we can play the same game, hundreds of miles away in an immersive world set years in the past. When times of adversity hit us hard, it was that same childhood love for games that helped us rebuild a tested relationship, learn to trust one another again, and talk openly about our troubles.

In a modern world wherein technology can play a damning role in our health and wellbeing – it is easy to forget that it has innumerable applications for making positive change in people’s lives. Greater inter-connectivity presents countless opportunities for allowing us to communicate with, care for, and have fun with the people we love. Games can be a wonderful form of escapism in times of hardship, but they can also be a bridge for connecting people – a place where we can meditate on, express ourselves, and then begin to make sense of difficult situations in our lives. My patience for games may have diminished since the days of car boot sales, but my patience for listening to others has grown – and I have my brother, and our love of videogames to thank for that.

MicroSony or Sonysoft? How the Recent Console Collab. Could Help With Crunch and the Threat of Google Stadia

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The recent announcement of a collaboration between Microsoft and Sony on a new project exploring AI, game streaming and the Azure Cloud Computing technology has a lot of people confused. Despite the recent dedication to delivering cross-platform titles over the last year there has been little in the way of sharing between the two console gaming giants. So understandably this announcement to many seems odd, especially on the eve of major new console announcements undoubtedly heading our way at E3.

However, this recent endeavor says a lot more about the present climate in the videogames industry than you would initially expect, and speaks to a growing number of issues and changes in gaming over recent years. The announcement of Google’s potentially revolutionary streaming and cloud-based platform Stadia has made major waves in the industry and developers are starting to take seriously the potential benefits that Google’s competing new technology could bring. As well as this, an industry-wide debate on crunch has major studios looking very closely at how they operate, with a focus on making increasingly time-consuming and costly AAA titles within an unsustainable framework. This has not only tarnished the reputations of major studios and publishers, but in some cases has negatively affected the reception and sales of major releases – even to the point of collapse.

I hope to shine a light on some of these issues and examine how the surprising announcement of a team-up between two warring factions in the most important stage of major hardware announcements paints an interesting picture on console gaming and the industry as a whole going forward.

In what seems like an explosion of bad press over the last year or so, major shake-ups in approaches to video game development have marred the reputations of major studios like Rockstar and CD Projekt Red, negatively affected sales of major releases like Anthem, and even brought studios to the brink of collapse following the shutdown of Telltale Studios and ongoing lawsuits against Riot Games for maltreatment of staff. Major exposés on Anthem and Red Dead Redemption’s troubled developments and reliance on overtime have made the word “crunch” the major buzzword of gaming at present and a main focal point of this years Game Developer’s Conference.

A recent release that although marred with problems over its lengthy time in development has managed to stay out of the searing light of videogame crunch debate. Crackdown 3 has seen one of the longest development cycles of any game of this generation – the game promised so much and has been the only release as of yet that has shown off the use of Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Computing technology – a major selling point of the Xbox One at the time of announcement. The game released to poor reviews, and the barebones, half-hearted and cut-to-shreds product that graced store shelves was a far-cry from the revolutionary destruction and nostalgia simulation the game touted itself as way back during its announcement. This seems odd considering the flagship title was once centre-stage in Microsoft’s Xbox One line-up for several years. A handful of developers have spoken up about development issues, suggesting that the cloud-based gaming technology was simply not up to scratch, and that the tools that the relatively minor studio had could not make sense of this new technology and how to implement it effectively.

5 years on and the first significant piece of information about Microsoft’s Azure technology seems more like a admittance of failure than it does an exciting new announcement. Now, in the wake of Google’s Stadia announcement and the potential threat of cloud-based gaming, (which now in hindsight makes projects like OnLive seem perhaps too ahead of the curve) it seems the time is nigh to start taking note of what could be the next-generation console killer.

In a recent interview, veteran developer Amy Hennig talked openly about the exciting changes to gaming happening right now, and expressed a genuine interest in exploring the benefits of Google’s cloud-based technology and the positive – albeit tempered – criticism of Netflix’s foray into interactivity with Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch. As a veteran to the industry and due to the collapse of the narrative-driven Star Wars project she headed, a free agent – it would be no surprise if both studios and platform holders are listening to what she has to say.

Netflix have since announced a surprise E3 panel and have teased a further exploration of gaming on the streaming platform, and Google Stadia moves ever closer to a release, with major developers already on board to create Stadia-exclusive titles. This begs the question – did Microsoft fumble their chances at being first off the mark to the next big thing in gaming? Microsoft explored early on the potential power of cloud-based computing with Crackdown 3, as well as a premium subscription based games service with Games with Gold – was this a misstep in judgement as to future trends in gaming hardware, or was their hardware infrastructure and developers on-hand simply not ready for this sort of tidal shift? In light of this, does their imminent partnership with Sony on the project, and the addition of machine learning and AI collaboration spell signs that both companies are now looking forward to cloud computing and its potentials for gaming beyond graphical horsepower and content delivery?

Considering the reverberations that issues of crunch have made – and continue to make – in the gaming industry, perhaps Microsoft and Sony understand that there are major framework issues in the development process of games. Continued stress and increased workloads are becoming major issues within studios, and the industry can do little in the way of stopping its exponential growth. Close to release, various QA testers, artists and programmers at Rockstar and CD Projekt Red have expressed working ludicrous work-weeks during the build-up to the final product.

The rise of premium consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X and rumors of a higher price point for next-generation hardware suggests an eventual ceiling to development that will begin to hit consumers as graphical and processing demands begin to eclipse affordability. The continued success of the Nintendo Switch and the oft-overlooked popularity of mobile gaming is sign of a desire for portability, something that neither Microsoft nor Sony have a great track record of competing in – at least in terms of long-standing support. A greater demand for digital sales and a move to persistent online services is beginning to highlight the potential redundancy of physical media, but with this must come a reduction in price – can Microsoft and Sony meet those expectations and still see significant returns from increasingly expensive hardware demands? There are significant pitfalls to console gaming as it stands and at the rate the industry is continuing to grow and fracture as demands change, it seems much more understandable that the two behemoths of console gaming see fit to work together on solutions rather than hinder one another’s efforts with further competition.

Google has already explored the potential for AI and machine learning in its ability to pick up patterns, learn rules and ultimately “play” video games to a high level. The DeepMind Project has been working closely with Blizzard, using StarCraft II as a playground for developing machine learning techniques in video games. There are huge potentials here not just for learning about how pre-existing games operate, but also in the development of games. An artificial intelligence that can replay scenarios, levels, decisions and even interactions would significantly unburden the workload of QA Testers close to release. In the same way tech companies will stress-test mobile phone hardware before release, a DeepMind controlled AI could completely revolutionise the way games are tested and significantly reduce unnecessary workloads. With news that Microsoft and Sony would be working closely on projects involving machine learning, it would make sense that they would want to work first-hand with developers on technology that can help solve deep-rooted developmental problems – and also serves as an enticing bid for working on a console with this technology baked-in.

Looking further at the implementation of this technology in future consoles, there are a number of other ways this potentially solve some of the issues within the industry. With the use of cloud-based computing the stresses of producing increasingly more expensive and powerful hardware becomes a thing of the past – although it never took off the concepts that were being explored with Crackdown 3 showed real promise for the changes that this sort of computing could make for developers pressured to work with hardware that cannot meet the graphical expectations of consumers.

A robust digital infrastructure on a console no longer marred by incrementally outdated hardware makes digital marketplaces more accessible and beneficial. Why buy the physical copy of the game when you can purchase the digital edition for cheaper – and it works on your phone too? This is the beauty of the Netflix-style subscription service – endless content at an affordable price on any device. People used to enjoy their music in a very different way until Spotify, and the same for films and TV with Netflix – consumers are willing to pay for services like this when they are affordable and innovative – it is only inevitable that videogames will take the same route. Xbox Games Pass and PS Now are Microsoft and Sony testing the waters of an all-digital future – and their intentions to work together on this suggests they are both willing to take the plunge.

Both parties have announced further plans for backwards compatibility, and if cloud-computing, machine learning and subscription based services will be the future of gaming – perhaps the Playstation 5 and the new Xbox (Xbox All or the “New” Xbox, you heard it here first) will be the last dedicated home consoles to sit neatly under our televisions. Rather than hardware updates, there will be firmware updates – a database of games accessible digitally at any time, with constantly evolving graphical capabilities – safe in the knowledge it will always play your older games too. That is an interesting future for gaming and one that I’m not sure everyone is ready for – only time will tell how this new and admittedly strange partnership will all pan out, and whether Microsoft and Sony can do what it takes to ward off the looming threat of Google Stadia.

It seems all too eerie that two giants are collaborating on what could be their greatest departure of their long-spanning history. As long hours, in-house warring, splintered factions and complete collapse threatens the future, the two largest entities – who up until now have been eternally at war – are collaborating to discuss solutions. Not only are they working to fix the growing systematic problems with the way they do business, but also to ensure that they don’t fall out of the race when the inevitable big shake-ups start to happen. Will this partnership help carve a place for them in the future or have past mistakes meant fumbling at the first hurdle whilst something else takes it place? If British politics are anything to go by it will completely deteriorate and both parties will fail to compromise – but I have hope, and my fingers are crossed for this one too.

Videogames at the V&A Dundee – A Breath of Fresh Air for Games on the Coast of Scotland

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An exhibition to celebrate the rich cultural history of videogames in the city of Dundee has been a long time coming. it has been a major UK hub for video game development for nearly twenty years, and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. The Dundee-grown Grand Theft Auto series is arguably Scotland’s biggest cultural export so it seems only natural that there be some investment into championing this art form and the city that helped pioneer it in its current form. The city is in the midst of a major redevelopment project that has seen a huge investment in the cultural arts – namely in the breathtaking Kengo Kuma designed V&A Museum on Dundee’s renovated waterfront. The building – which has been open since September 2018 – now houses the Design/Play/Disrupt videogame exhibit, an exhibition that in the most part is an exciting, insightful and sorely needed examination of the painstaking design process of contemporary video games and their place in the world today.

The exhibition, which is in the ticketed area of the building (£12 for adults and £10 for concessions), first takes patrons on a tour of several major video game productions developmental journey – using audiovisual aids as well as traditional museum displays to map the journey from concept to creation for studios of varying size and scope. Dog-eared notebooks adorned with scrawlings of Lovecraftian creatures from Bloodborne accompanied by the sheet music from the game’s orchestral score are as at home in glass cases as early sketches by Lovecraft himself. An illuminated corkboard filled with innumerable post-it notes and a coffee-stained manuscript detailing the plot of The Last of Us are contextualised with analysis of the AI used to make Ellie feel as alive in-game as she does on paper. A testament to the collaborative process of video game story crafting and world-building that would not feel out of place next to the deconstruction of any autuer’s filmmaking process. A series of projectors display over 50 different planets from No Mans Sky simultaneously, with the books, toys and worlds that inspired the aesthetics of Hellogames’ universe on full display – the vibrancy of the colour pallettes and composition of the pieces that spoke to the game’s creators configured like the effects of a passed science fiction author. If you know anybody who still believes that video games are not an art form, take them here – if that doesn’t change their mind there’s a steep ledge over the sea at the outside of the exhibit that may instead.

No Man’s Collage

The exhibit has a further three rooms, all with a different taste of what makes games great. Focusing on sociopolitical issues in video games and the industry as a whole – including how we can change the industry for the better through accessibility and representation, and where developers are breaking the mould in the way their games engage with deeply rooted societal issues with often innovative, humorous and subversive ways is the focus of the muesum’s second room. This is an often overlooked aspect of video game criticism and something that I feel is a welcomed inclusion for both fans of games as well as other museum-goers. Many AAA publishers are afraid to talk politics in their games and I think that the way this exhibit situates games as both agent of criticism as well as subject of criticism regarding sociopolitical issues is a breath of fresh air in the sphere and an important perspective going forward in the industry.

A third room acts as a cinema strewn with big beanbags for patrons to sit on whilst a series of short films play detailing the vast online arm of gaming. This includes competitive play in Overwatch, vast expansive role-playing in EVE: Online and videogame fandom; whether it be a D-Va makeup tutorial or an IKEA built in Minecraft. In an exhibit that specifically highlights collaboration, competitiveness and group play it felt like there were some interactivity elements missing here. Opportunities for big-screen gaming and to engage with concepts of interactivity on a larger scale are few and far between, and it felt like this cinema-esque museum exhibit was the perfect environment for this. Most people wandered through this section quite quickly – it would have been interesting to see something that got non-gamers riled up and competitive in the same way those they just watched on screen might have. This is an apsect of gaming still in its infancy and expected to grow massively in years to come – competitive gaming and video game fandom on this scale is still an abstract concept to many and some demystifying here through play would have neen a fantastic opportunity to show parents why their daughter screams in delight when they win a game of Fortnite or why their son likes to dress up like a Creeper from Minecraft.

Although the cinema room does not necessarily give patrons the opportunity to nurture their competitive streak – the final room is filled with several lo-fi and independent game projects dubbed as the “punk” of gaming. Handmade arcade machines with endearing indie titles and super lofi experimental rigs show patrons those on the fringes of game development – away from the scope of AAA and the polish of the video game baftas – these guys are the ones having real fun with innovative passion projects. A collaboration with Edinburgh-based We Throw Switches brings some better-known titles from their annual beers and games GAMESAREFOREVERYONE nights at The Caves in Edinburgh, as well as a number of cabinets brought over from the previous Design/Play/Disrupt in London. This gives everyone a chance to have some fun mashing some buttons and flciking some joysticks on makeshift arcade machines. The set-up is great here and brings the conceptual foresight of the previous three rooms to a satisfying closure with the final finished project – some in-depth and political, some engaging and innovative, others just colourful and fun – all avenues of game development at the grassroots level are on show here. Although these games are fun and unlike anything most will have played, there isn’t much for children here and many of the games aren’t particularly accessible to non-gamers – it would have been nice to see something that took that first step in making games accessible to audiences with a newfound perspective on gaming.

For those with a keen passion for games looking for insight and further knowledge of a medium they love – there’s plenty on offer here and exhibits you wont see anywhere else. For those who haven’t played or dont know about videogames but have an open mind, there is even more to see – with articles that permeate to the mainstream of 100 hour crunch weeks, games causing violence and Fortnite addiction rehab centres, this is a welcomed celebration of an art form filled with hardworking and passionate developers inspiring millions of fans all over the world. It is a shame that homegrown Scottish talent was not on display in the exhibition perhaps as much as it could have been focusing more on developments across the pond. Also, there were some glaring holes of opportunity for interactivity – the shining star that makes video games the unique artistic medium that it is – where gamers and non-gamers alike could collaborate and compete. However, this is a thoughtful exhibition that will have people paying a lot more attention to video games once they leave through the doors of the V&A. When Grand Theft Auto III released, a small homegrown Scottish developer gave rise to a global phenomenon and changed the vidoegame landscape forever. This exhibition takes a massive step forward in empowering and inspring the next generation of developers to continue to make the tiny city of Dundee a big name in videogames.

Avengers Schmavengers: What Hollywood Can Learn From Santa Monica Studios

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I’ve stopped going to the cinema to watch superhero movies – what used to be the realisation of a childhood dream to see my favourite characters and stories actualised on the big screen has since been reduced to a series of diminishing returns in which little risk equals the biggest reward. As the Disney execs rub their fingers together at the sight of another blockbuster hit, I shake my head in disbelief as another lazy, two- and half-hour long advert for the next film in the series daftly and half-heartedly plods along. Blockbuster set-pieces have been replaced with pop-culture references and in-jokes; top class acting and voice acting has been stripped for safe faces to slap on the posters; and the eager wait for the climax or final fight has since been reduced to a post-credits teaser for a film three years away. Continued financial growth in Hollywood begets laziness, and the tired format of AAA superhero movies is the star-studded epitome of this problem – a problem that has seemingly trickled into the AAA video game industry in recent years.

Santa Monica Studios God of War is one of few exceptions – a stellar couple years of first-party exclusives for Sony has secured itself as a console and publisher intent on delivering high-quality, polished AAA content that warrants a £50 price tag. My time with God of War was so adrenaline-fuelled, emotionally driven and just darn fun to play that I spent a lot of the hours wishing that there were a way to play it on the big screen in place of the current slew of superhero movies and other AAA Hollywood titles that flood our cinemas week after week. Major big-budget video games have learnt a lot from Hollywood – series like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and Uncharted have all taken notes from some of their big budget movie predecessors – and in the same light video games have since inspired recent Hollywood efforts. It is by no coincidence that studios are always finding ways to reinterpret popular video games as films – there is brilliance in their storytelling and execution that seems ready-made for cinema. All the series mentioned previously have either seen movie treatments or have movie treatments in the works, and however poorly executed some of these may have been, it shows that there is a clear understanding that much can be learned from paying close attention to what’s popular in both the AAA video game industry and Hollywood. Bearing this in mind I started thinking,  What have Santa Monica Studios learnt from other successes in their five year hiatus from God of War? And furthermore, what could studios like Disney and Warner Bros. learn from God of War to inject some excitement into a rapidly tiring and lazy formula I have come to know and hate?

God of War creates not only several stunning set-pieces throughout its thirty hour or so story, but it pretty much writes the rulebook on how to keep players engaged. The narrative puts its foot down on the pedal within the first hour of gameplay and doesn’t let up until its ultimate climax. This aged and weathered Kratos is not the one we have known from previous games, and that is made very clear from the start – he is more decided in tone, more focused, and although his words are numbered, they hold much greater gravitas than his younger years in Sparta. Now living a life in hiding in the realm of the Norse Gods, the passing of his wife Faye has left a rift between an already tested relationship with his young son Atreus. His wife’s final wishes are for her ashes to be spread on the highest peak in the realms, and the promise to fulfil this wish is the game’s narrative backdrop and singular motivation for Kratos and young Atreus to make this journey together. The story immediately sets up an end goal, a problem, and a test for both titular characters. Both Kratos and Atreus want to see passing Faye’s final wish granted, however – Atreus has lived a relatively sheltered life and Kratos sees a weakness and lack of training that will involve forming a closer relationship with his son if rectified – something that for several reasons he has avoided until now. This end goal is always in sight as you progress through the story, and although you may stray from this goal from time-to-time, there is a strong narrative hook that continually draws you back to fulfilling Faye’s dying wish. As well as this, the relationship between Kratos and Atreus is not only tested regularly but as time passes, they become closer, and subtle cues in dialogue and gameplay make the player constantly feel that they are helping nurture this bond. Boss fights are not the sole responsibility of Kratos and his new (and incredibly satisfying to use) Leviathan Axe, but Atreus plays an important role in both the combat system and the blockbuster level set-pieces. Each passing sub-plot and boss defeated sees a fragile relationship tested, and ultimately made stronger through the cooperation of two people learning to work together for a common goal. It is this relationship that is the true stand-out achievement for Santa Monica Studios – their success in grounding a character so heavily shrouded in mysticism, lore and the pursuit of violence through the introduction of Atreus, who not only forces him to adapt and think differently, but who gives him vulnerability and weakness. As young Kratos would see it fit to die with honour on the battlefield or in the pursuit of revenge, the Kratos we play in this God of War would die not for honour or revenge, but for the life of his son.

Outside of the main narrative, there is a constant looming threat of Odin the “Allfather”, contextualised wonderfully through nuggets of information scoured from the various realms you visit – it seems that Odin and his kin have little to no time for the lives of mortals or other creatures, and this is made apparent through the various stories told. Shrines and passages translated by Atreus, whispers of spirits held in purgatory through unfinished business with the Gods – and when the brilliantly Scottish Mimir is introduced – whimsical and often macabre stories are all told to contextualise events, locations and characters. The world-building here really makes this new God of War universe feel alive, and makes the player believe that there are much bigger and more complicated events going on outside of your main quest – and that your presence in Midgard is perhaps more pertinent to the future than originally believed. Leading up to the final climax of the game’s main narrative, there are still so many questions left unanswered, and the surrounding world post-game feels expansive and living – not simply an explored landscape full of undiscovered collectibles as several developers are wont to leaving their worlds feeling. The post-game content adds a significant level of difficulty for those looking for a greater challenge, and rewards players who dig deeper into the game’s lore and expansive side content. I left no stone unturned and still had questions unanswered – not frustratingly so, but in excitement at what the inevitable next game in the series could bring. Kratos and Atreus’ story is in a very different place from the PlayStation 2 days and is certainly far from over – something that seems odd to write in 2019, fourteen years after his story first graced consoles.

So – let’s say Disney have taken my advice and asked Santa Monica Studios to help pen Avengers 5 in three years. What invaluable information has the studio learnt over the last five years and then innovated on, that can be transferred over to the creatively withering formula of the superhero movie format, in the hopes of revitalising it?

The first point that I believe was really paramount to the success of God of War’s narrative, and would be invaluable for Hollywood production companies to bear in mind when they are executing vast cinematic universes – a succinct and engaging story that has a clear goal, a clear finale and although questions are left unanswered, the player/viewer never feels like they only experienced half a story. Disney seem to think it is acceptable to – in the two most recent Avengers movies for example – to tell half a story with the promise that all will be revealed in the second part. Cliff-hangers are an easy way to create suspense and hype, but the magnitude that recent Marvel efforts have used them is simply exploitative. Santa Monica Studios started with a simple goal – fulfil the dying wish of a woman whom a father and son both loved – and despite all the events that transpire that central goal is never far out of view; the mountaintop a constant reminder of what brought them on this perilous journey in the first place. When the game’s heart-breaking finale plays out, this new chapter in the God of War universe comes to a close, but it is by no means the end of the book. Point number one, Disney take heed.

Expanding on what Santa Monica Studios have done here, there is an artistry to exposition – especially in video games – that helps contextualise what is often a much wider and inexplorable world. Much of Kratos’ backstory has already been set up – the new God of War is accessible to new audiences, but it derives a lot of its narrative beats from the understanding that this is an alien and inexplicably difficult situation for the Kratos we know from previous games. Nonetheless, the world he now inhabits is new to audiences (although centred around Norse mythology), it is both refreshing and exciting but leaves many lingering narrative threads. However as previously mentioned, the exposition here is executed so well that the story unfolds naturally and organically – the introduction of Mimir partway through the game a clever move on the part of Santa Monica Studios. Mimir adds not only some well-timed comic relief, but as a Dwarf knowledgeable on all things Norse, he stands as the perfect storyteller to contextualise myths and legends whispered throughout the realms. I believe taking a note out of Lollipop Chainsaw’s playbook here – a flawed game but through its clever “zombie head belt attachment trick” one that managed to make dialogue snappy and witty between characters whilst keeping the gameplay tight and engaging – God of War never feels exposition-heavy, and relationships are tested and nurtured naturally; new characters introduced gracefully. The Last of Us and Telltale’s The Walking Dead are clear inspirations here as well, and I think staff at Santa Monica Studios saw how perfect the introduction of someone that made Kratos vulnerable would be to take the series in a refreshing new direction. This again serves as some worthwhile advice to those studios embarking on long drawn-out cinematic universes – exposition needs to be tight, characters need to be introduced carefully and organically, and relationships need to be tested over time, never with the assumption that audience members know who the characters are and what they’re all about. The most recent Avengers could have benefitted greatly from this advice; often character introductions rely on popular culture and expected audience understanding to write the relationships themselves; it is not inherently funny or interesting that Drax the Destroyer and Spiderman are meeting for the first time – use their strengths to your advantage and think about how this interaction would take place. How do their personalities mesh or clash – not what already established character tropes can we recycle in place of well-constructed dialogue? This style of storytelling is inherently lazy and is something that needs to be rectified going forward into the uncharted territory of potentially lesser known licenses and faces on-screen, that won’t garner the same audience acceptance. Looking at how exposition can be written and then unfold smartly over time is a good start.

This third piece of advice comes as a bit of a no-brainer considering Santa Monica Studios penchant for including them in their games – set-pieces. When Kratos and Atreus fight Hraezlyr the dragon in one of the game’s earlier significant boss fights, the studio takes full advantage of what could have been a very difficult sequence to fit on-screen and to make enjoyable to play. Santa Monica Studios have a brilliant intellect when it comes to fitting very large baddies into small spaces, making them engaging and enjoyable without feeling like you’re simply an ankle-biting nuisance, slashing away mindlessly at the feet of a hundred-foot ogre. When you do eventually whittle down the boss’s health Kratos kills the Dragon in spectacular fashion ending in a Buster Keaton-esque sequence as the creature falls to the ground beside him. Santa Monica Studios know they are fantastic at making these sequences work, and the newfound power of the current generation of consoles allows them to achieve so much more, likely executing ideas that have been floating around in staff members heads since the PlayStation 2 days – its fantastic to see them make full use of them here. Big summer blockbusters invented these sequences, all the way back to D.W Griffith’s 1915 The Birth of a Nation – audiences are taken aback by wonderfully rendered and shot sequences that defy reality and subvert expectations. However, the lazy paint-by-numbers formula of present day Hollywood movies has lost its charm and resonance – the monster sequence in The Force Awakens that stars not one but two actors/choreographers from the fantastic Taiwanese The Raid series, yet fails to capitalise on this in an interesting way. Doctor Strange failed to meet the standards it set itself with the wonderfully animated hallucinatory experience Stephen Strange has when he first meets the Ancient One – the fight scenes have the consistency and flair of wet toilet paper as we see two men with the ability to manipulate time and space engage in good ol’ fisticuffs. Point number three – look at what makes your skillset, characters, and situations unique and exploit them to the nth degree – this is Hollywood after all.

Finally, and possibly the most important piece of advice going forward for Hollywood blockbusters and cinematic universes – sacrifice. God of War has always been associated with themes of vengeance, sacrifice, death and honour – and the most recent offering plays with these themes in an intelligent and subversive way new to the series. Kratos has spent his life killing, and although there may be plenty of difficult fights in the game, it is humility that comes most difficult at times for Kratos and Atreus. As the game comes to its final moments and Kratos and his son have learnt the importance of this, their actions create a situation in which it seems that nobody wins, despite them making what they believed was the right decision. There is no binary yes/no answer to the most difficult questions and situations, and often player choice in video games can forget this principle – often a choice can negate a more powerful ending that is tailored to the story. Santa Monica Studios narrative effort echoes Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite, which showed the futility of free player choice whilst crafting a story that unfolds under the nose of the player. This was ultimately one that was more engaging and affecting than one that offers the player a series of obtuse binary choices. Sacrifice for the greater good is often not a simple yes and no, and people are always likely to be hurt no matter which path you choose – it is how you move on from these decisions that will define you. For too long characters in superhero movies have come away unscathed, unharmed and unaffected by events that unfold in previous films. The finale of the most recent Avengers film refutes this, but when actors are signed on to do films five years in advance, it all but entirely removes any sense of dread or fear as to the future of beloved characters.

It is not the saving of a ferry full of people in a shiny new suit that defines Spiderman, it’s the people that he couldn’t save and the suit that he couldn’t bear to wear that created the iconic, complex and thoughtful Spiderman from the comics. Santa Monica Studios know that it is not the evil dragons slaughtered, corrupt gods slain and belligerent ogre heads crushed that define the titular character we have come to know over the last fifteen years, but those he killed that could have been saved – his ashen skin a constant burning reminder of his mistakes, and the driving motivation for a better life for his son.

Because of this close attention to detail, narrative intellect and understanding of core video game principles, God of War is an inspired love letter to what makes games great and marks the setting of a new bar for AAA entertainment – your move Disney.