There is a trade-off - it means that you can never see what is happening off-screen - but it all comes together to make the journey feel more personal. It is filmed in a single shot, the camera dancing in and out of the action with no visible loading between areas. Just as there’s a steadfast commitment to its themes, God of War is unmoving in its style. "The pantheon-punching God of War series has always been as subtle as a demigod’s boot to the face, but this sequel has more class, more confidence than ever." Kratos is just more world-weary, mindful of the consequences of his Greek revenge spree, and now he has something to lose. He is also still a brutally efficient murderer who moisturises his ashen skin with the blood of his foes. Kratos is still a sullen slaphead whose brain is probably made of a bicep (he punches certain chests - treasure chests, not pectorals - open for Christ’s sake). God of War has always been thematically consistent, but rage is not the sole driving force here. This is a story about the sins of the father - a central theme wrapped around the experience like a flaming chain and mirrored in the characters you meet. Rather than kicking off with a massive boss fight - though you punch someone through a mountain within an hour - God of War 2018 begins with a slow walk. The adventure begins with the funeral of Kratos’s wife, shortly before he and his son, Atreus, take a journey to the tallest peak in all the realms to scatter her ashes. He came here to start a new life - a new life as a man. He did not come here to carve up the gods, however. We join Kratos in the frozen, craggy land of Norse mythology, a place ruled over by deities Odin and Thor. There’s no flashback to explain what he is thinking - everything you need to know is right there in his face: he has left the Ghost of Sparta, and the Blades of Chaos, behind. He stares down at the dangling cloth as his hand instinctively tries to catch some invisible hilt, grasping at nothing. In one early cutscene, Kratos’s wrist bandages untangle. The pantheon-punching God of War series has always been as subtle as a demigod’s boot to the face, but this sequel has more class, more confidence than ever. In God of War 2018, the camera pans away instead, and the act itself takes just one clean cut. The original games would have relished in the act, pulling the camera close for each grisly axe swing, zooming in as the tendons snap back like stretched elastic bands. There’s a scene in God of War where Kratos decapitates someone to free them from a magical cage within the mangled roots of a tree.
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