The God Of War franchise has been united across a few consistent themes: Greek mythology, gory violence, nominal protagonist Kratos acting like a giant butthead. But, interestingly, in the franchise’s return, its first entry on the PS4, a lot of that has been set aside. Instead, we’ve got a single dad just trying to raise his kid to be better than he was.
Of course, scores of mystical creatures have something to say about that.
The trailer above doesn’t feature much in the way of gameplay, although we’ve seen that elsewhere, and it’s quite different from previous entries in the franchise — with Kratos wielding ax at ground level, instead of daggers on chains trashing crowds of enemies. That said, we definitely see Kratos lifting doors, fighting giant bosses, and engaging in what sure looks like a quicktime event. But more interesting is the story. Kratos has clearly been trying to contain his rage problem and appears to have made a decent go of it, but his war-like nature and godly abilities are passed down to his son, and human children generally can’t contain that much power.
We also get a look at more of the setting, and it appears that the original game’s Norse stylings involve a bit more of Celtic and Pictish legends, and the game turns out in general to be far more colorful than fans might have expected, although it does still resemble a moving metal album cover in a lot of shots. As for when we’ll get to see how a gentler Kratos is still nobody to mess with, the game will arrive April 20th.