God of War Ragnarok combat is "like chess," dev says

As we said in our God of War: Ragnarok preview, combat in the sequel has been polished and greatly expanded, but one designer at Sony Santa Monica says it's all just a game of chess under the hood. 

Combat and enemy design is the focus of the latest God of War Ragnarok behind-the-scenes documentary. Combat designer Stephen Oyarijivbie explains that, "Our design philosophy for creating new and memorable enemies is basically making them a combat puzzle, similar to like chess and focusing on the chess pieces. Each piece has its own theme and its own use." 

The chess comparison is especially interesting given the new moves and equipment available to Kratos. The theme or use of the chess pieces Oyarijivbie describes may encourage you to use a certain type of shield or magic, for example, while enemy placement or AI might favor specific moves like the new plunging attack. 

Oyarijivbie mentions "a couple of different ways that we go into making an attack very readable for the player" as an extension of this design philosophy. The rings of light which appear around enemies to indicate certain types of attacks, and which appear much more prominent in Ragnarok, are a key example. One enemy may use a lot of unblockable attacks which force you to stay mobile, for instance. Another snippet of the video shows an alligator-like miniboss with AoE attacks that force Kratos to keep his distance and either attack from range or wait for an opening. 

Enemy variety is essential to this approach, as senior visual effects artist Sabra Goebel affirms. "You will be fighting everything from small little creatures to things that take up the entire screen," she says. The footage in the new video shows monsters and humanoids from a variety of the game's nine realms, ranging from light elves to demon frogs to some kind of lava golem.

Ragnarok's previous behind-the-scenes video revealed that the game's extended recording took so long that Atreus had to be edited after his teenage actor's voice dropped.