15 Years Later, The Storytelling in God of War’s Opening Level Still Blows Other Action Games Away
Every so often I’m standing in the shower, thinking about the day ahead, when the same thought creeps into my head:
Goddamn, does God of War still own.
The 2005 original has remained of my favorite games of all time, a stunningly focused package that manages to accomplish more in its short 8-hour playtime than most games can with triple that length.
And it all starts with the opening level.
Everyone knows the Hydra sequence at this point. Over 15 years later and it’s still one of the most thrilling openings of all time, rarely topped in intensity and spectacle outside of its own sequels. There are reams of articles on all of the things it excels at and the trends it started — from opening the game with a multi-stage boss fight, to popularizing quick-time-events in one fell swoop.
But something people rarely talk about is just how good the storytelling is.
Put simply: I cannot think of another action game that more elegantly, compellingly, and efficiently sets up its story, main character, and dramatic mystery in such a short period of time.
But to explain why that is, I need you to do something for me:
Forget everything you know about Kratos.
I know — it’s HARD. He became Playstation’s defacto mascot for a time, and if you’re a gamer, you’re probably aware of his personality, his backstory, and have a general opinion of him being a giant rage ball ( thanks mainly to how his character devolved across much of the series).
I need you to come with me back to a time when no one knew who the hell Kratos was, when he was just a pasty guy on a box staring furiously at a temple in the distance.
Are we there together? Okay then.
There are three things the story of an all-new property needs to do immediately:
- Establish the main character.
- Establish the tone and world.
- Establish why should should care — i.e. what is the hook? What is the mystery?
God of War establishes all of these in the first 30 seconds.
The First 30 Seconds
As soon as the start menu appears, you see Krato’s face staring at you, flames lighting the background behind him. And then as soon as you hit NEW GAME, he speaks. No loading, no transition, the man just speaks. Check it out below:
“The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me.”
The camera pans back. Kratos is standing at the edge of a cliff, staring at the bottom. He hangs a foot off of the ledge.
“Now there is no hope…”
And then he jumps.
Immediately a narrator takes over. “And Kratos cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Greece. After 10 years of suffering, 10 years of endless nightmares, it would finally come to an end. Death would be his escape from madness.”
His body rushes towards the rocks below. We cut to black right before he hits.
“But it had not always been this way. Kratos had once been a champion of the Gods…”
In barely 30 seconds, you‘ve been given a mystery along with vital details about who you are: I used to be a champion of the Gods? What drove me mad to the point that I would kill myself?
And then BOOM. You’re 3 weeks earlier, standing on the deck of a ship in a thunderous storm, creatures swarming all around you, and before you know what a single button does, you are under attack.
Character Through Gameplay
The enemies approach, and instantly you’re tearing through them. You’re outnumbered, but it doesn’t matter. Kratos moves with unmatched power and fluidity, his chain blades ripping enemies apart from across the room effortlessly. Hell, you can even grab an enemy, and with a single button press, tear them in half like they’re made of tissue paper. You immediately feel firsthand what a warrior Kratos is.
Then, barely 60 seconds after you clean up the deck, a Hydra head bursts through the ship and starts trying to eat you whole. A minute into the game and you’re already fighting a boss — one that the game expects you to take down with ease.
This is who Kratos is.
But it’s not the whole picture.
After the fight you move to another ship where you see your first civilian, who immediately panics and tells you to stay away from him. When you approach, he locks himself in a cage.
“I know who you are, Spartan. I know what you’ve done. I would rather die than be saved by you!”
Holy shit. What have I done? Why is he so afraid of me? You won’t find out the true reason for his fear until much later, but the beginning of the answer lies in the next room. You jump onto the deck of the ship to find monsters AND civilians running through the battlefield — and the game just lets you go for it.
This is such a small but incredibly important decision. The designers made a specific choice to have civilians interspersed in your battles, all of whom will get indiscriminately ripped apart by Krato’s blades just as fast as any enemy. You are not penalized for it, and sometimes you are given health when they die.
Kratos may be an incredible warrior, but he’s no hero. Just how little of a hero he is will be revealed throughout the rest of the game.
Finding the Captain
A few minutes later, you discover the women and children have locked themselves into the hold of one of the ships, and it may soon be breached by monsters. In order to rescue them, you’ll need the Captain’s key, and he is nowhere to be found.
To find him, you start climbing a mast to board another ship, and here is where you learn something both important to gameplay and characterization— Kratos can can literally fight on anything. I remember being blown away when I first played the game and saw you could fight while climbing, grabbing enemies and throwing them to their deaths or cutting them up with your blades.
Not only is a great gameplay moment, but reinforces Kratos’ prowess as a warrior. Put simply: Killing is what he does.
Kratos comes across Poseidon, who offers him assistance in killing the Hydra in the form of a magical thunder attack. At at this point, the relationship between Kratos and the Gods is one of respect. Kratos refer to him as “Lord Posiedon”, and is deferential, something he will never be again by the end of the game.
Eventually, you find the Captain running around on a deck like a chicken with his head cut off, when king daddy Hydra head comes out of the ocean and eats him — and the key — alive.
The End of The Beginning
After an absolutely thrilling showdown the Hydra, you kill the beast by impaling the main head on the mast of the ship, and just as you have a moment to catch your breath, you hear screaming from inside the beast’s throat. You run inside and find the Captain still in its esophagous, in danger of tumbling into its belly.
Kratos lifts him up.
“Oh thank the Gods you came back for me!” the Captain shouts.
Kratos looks him in the eye.
“I didn’t come back for you.”
And then he rips the key from the Captain’s neck and lets him plunge into the stomach below.
Yikes!
Sure, some of this scene can be chalked up to an attempt at errant badassery, but it plays into everything you’ve learned about Kratos so far. He sees people as tools, as a means to an end (like when he’s murdering civilians for health), and disregards those who have no purpose for him.
Of course, this scene also plays into a great joke late in the game, but that’s a conversation for a different article.
You make your way back to the Captain’s Quarters only to find you’re too late, the monsters have breached and killed most of the women and children. Kratos makes quick work of them, but afterwards, while he stares at the bodies of the dead, he thinks of his own past, horrific images flashing by— bashing a person’s head into a wall, slaughtering a group of people, a woman cackling ominously near a fire, and more.
Just what the hell did this guy do?
Kratos boards his ship and we learn he has been sailing port to port in service of the Gods for nearly a decade, struggling to find solace from his former life. But tonight, he decides enough is enough, and demands to speak to Athena on the deck of his ship.
“10 years!” he shouts. “10 years I have faithfully served the Gods of Olympus! When will you relieve me of these nightmares?”
And now we get the true goal of the game. Athena explains that her brother Ares is laying waste to her city, and because of her Godhood, she’s not allowed to intervene. If Kratos kills him, she says, he will be forgiven.
“And if I am able to do this, to kill a God, then the nightmares…they will end?”
“Have faith Kratos, the Gods do not forget those who come to their aid.”
And then, with the stakes of the game clearly outlined ( alongside the fact that you know, somehow, this mission is going to fail) he sets sail for Athens.
Conclusion
This, my friends, is how you start a story.
In 20 minutes, God of War has set-up it’s main character, it’s stakes, it’s world, and several overaching mysteries. Just what the hell did Kratos do that is so terrible? What is his relationship with Ares? And what’s going to go wrong that he’ll wind up killing himself?
And all of this is in a game that absolutely does everything it can to have you fighting, climbing, jumping, and puzzle-solving your way through it’s world at all times. Cutscenes take up the absolute minimum amount of time they can, and yet, so much is communicated within them and through the gameplay.
Even things I didn’t have time to touch on — like the character design — play into the plotting. One of the most interesting bonus features you can see after beating the game is viewing all of the other attempts they made at designing Kratos, and why each didn’t work out. Interestingly, many of the initial designs of Kratos had him covered with imposing armor, but game director David Jaffe didn’t think it felt right for the character. Through redesigns, they found that the less armor they gave him and the more animalistic his poses animations, the more intimidating he became, and the more he felt like the character they were going for.
I may talk about God of War again sometime in the future — I actually think it does a lot of clever things with its story (and finale) that rarely get talked about anymore, but I think that’s it for today.
If you have any suggestions for other action games that absolutely knock the opening 20 minutes out of the park when it comes to setting up the story, drop them in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
-Nick