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How God of War Conquers Load TImes

How God of War Conquers Load TImes

Loading screens have been the bane of our gaming lives since, well, their introduction. There is nothing that can pull you out of a game’s story like a long loading screen. Think about Assassin’s Creed. Your blade just sunk into the spine of yet another Templar, and nothing felt more satisfying after your far too careful and stealthy approach. Then, hey! It’s a lovely Animus loading screen to run ever tighter circles in. Who did you just kill again? Though I must say, Dragon Age: Inquisition on the PS3 was the worst. I was reading those cards, the screen went to black for three minutes, and then I’m had to wait for Skyhold to render from the code up.

Coming off of that, I heard that the new God of War is going to be in one continuous shot . Well, I had to check it out! Behold, there was indeed a loading screen in the E3 2016 trailer! It took about three seconds, but it was there. Yahoo, no more too long loading screens!

Immersive and hidden loading screens are not new, Resident Evil did it with doors and Mass Effect with elevators. But I have to admit, the one in the God of War trailer is both short and smooth. Even that slight jerk of the camera, as the game switches between areas, is almost invisible. Unless you’re looking for it, your eyes are on the text displaying the name of the place Kratos just entered.

This is awesome, because it means there will be very little wait time between areas or events. No more checking your email or fetching another 7-Up during a load screen. Instead, you will be pushed from one exciting conflict to another, keeping you on your toes. As a result, immersion is not broken. God of War ‘s story will remain uninterrupted and we’ll stay highly invested in what will happen next.

Not only that, this is quite an achievement for a video game, if God of War does it successfully. Though it was accomplished gracefully in film with the famous Russian Ark , a 96 minute long shot is not highly recommended in the industry. Mistakes during production, with actors, props, costumes, cameras, and scheduling, are bound to happen. It’s so much easier to either edit the mistake out in post-production or to stop the camera’s recording and start it again later. A video game does not have such physical problems. All the developers have to do is go back and take away or add whatever they’d like. Of course it’s not that simple, but their end product will not require a cut from one shot to the next like in a film.

How God of War Conquers Load TImes

That said, with one continuous shot comes realism. The Russian Ark avoids this with a far more surreal story, as time is not presented in any particular order and the main character is a ghost. God of War , however, does not have this option. I don’t think it will reflect any type of survival game, where you must ensure that Kratos eats, sleeps, and sharpens his axe. But I do wonder what amount of time it will cover. A few days? If so, than how does the game keep the player’s attention?

If God of War is an open world game, it should be small, because travel time is tedious for a player without a fast-travel method. Boring travel would certainly counterbalance the positives of no loading screens. In addition, natural stopping points will be critical in a continuous game. Players must feel satisfied enough with some quests to put it down, sleep, and want to pick it up again later. Without this, the player will grow tired, 3am often comes around before the adrenaline from the last fight will allow them to rest.

That said, I hope that God of War succeeds in having one continuous shot for the entire game. It would be very clever. No boring loading screens would certainly make me very happy. The developers must be careful, of course, and make sure the game isn’t so fast-paced that the player feels they can’t put it down, but they could pull it off.

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