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Conversations with Creators - Episodio 4: SCE Santa Monica Studio.
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00:04Grazie a tutti.
00:30Grazie a tutti.
01:00Grazie a tutti.
01:01Grazie a tutti.
02:02Grazie a tutti.
02:07Grazie a tutti.
02:38When people think of PlayStation games, you're like, oh, what is a PlayStation game? You think of God of War.
02:44It's like one of the canonical PlayStation games. So I would love to go all the way back to the
02:50beginning. What came together developing
02:53this particular game at that particular time?
03:26Pretty much that was it. We didn't have an engine that could really translate action adventure game or a team
03:33that had done a title like that before. So it was one, you know, challenge after the next to try
03:40to build the foundation of what we know today as one of the pillar franchises.
03:46Yeah.
03:48And I think that's when everything started to click.
03:51When I got there, Dave actually described Kratos as Martin Riggs and Maximus from Gladiator. And that was it. And
04:00he was like, go.
04:29Yeah.
04:31And that fueled us through a lot of that to kind of go, look, we're going to pick the best
04:34parts of every game we play. The Castlevanias, the Rygars and Zelda and mash it all together and just make
04:42the game that we want to play. You know, that was a big part.
04:46Kratos is such an iconic character and is one of those characters that you don't even have to play the
04:54game to know who he is. Do you remember the first time you saw someone cosplay as him?
05:02It's Corey, actually.
05:05Did you cosplay as Kratos on a trade show?
05:07Not get into that embarrassing moment. No, I think it was on the release of the first one we had
05:13somebody dress up as Kratos.
05:16And then we had that weird viral campaign, that you always so eat Kratos.
05:20Yeah.
05:20That was awesome.
05:21Yeah.
05:22Was there anything that really surprised you?
05:24Was there a thing that you just did?
05:26Really? Did you really have? I mean, listen, we all sit down to create things. And I think that part
05:29of what drives us to be creative is that constant, like, I call it Carrie's mom, you know, going, they're
05:35all going to laugh at you. They're all going to laugh at you.
05:37You're always trying to do better. I think that to me is the cycle that I'm driving and driving at.
05:42But I honestly, at the end thought, oh, this is really cool.
05:45But it did surprise me.
05:47There's things that happened in God of War 1 that I think we kind of take for granted. But when
05:52it originally came out, things like completely shifting the perspective to get a different kind of gameplay experience, making puzzles
05:59kind of like just difficult enough to be satisfying, but not so difficult that it goes like, like nothing drives
06:05me crazier than a video game asserting itself as a video game.
06:09Right? When you get to like, and now it is a boss level, and I'm totally out of the narrative.
06:13I think part of it is, like I know since God of War 1, there was always three pillars to
06:17the game that everybody would always talk about where we had combat, we had navigation, and we had the puzzle
06:21solving.
06:22And I think every game always tried to have a healthy mix of all of those three, so you don't,
06:26you know, of course there's a lot of combat and a lot of Kratos killing things all the time.
06:29But when you're not doing that, there's actually some interesting puzzle solving, some interesting layout, and I think all of
06:35it together is actually what makes God of War what it is and why it kind of can stand alone.
06:38So striking that balance, what is your testing process like to find that balance of like, all right, this is
06:46hard, but not too hard?
06:48Well, I think it's just a lot of playtesting. Like that's a big theme of our studio, like ever since
06:52God of War 1 where, you know, as Corey said, we'll play the game and we can't really tell because
06:58we're really close to it.
06:59So we bring as many people as we can in and we all watch them play creepily in the distance,
07:04like with a camera.
07:05Because then you watch it and then you go, there's like, all egos go away and it's just like, okay,
07:10yeah, this is too hard, or this was wrong, or we took this for granted.
07:13So they're constantly arguing is basically what Nate said.
07:16Yeah, but then playtests are kind of the thing that decide who wins the argument.
07:20Right, yeah.
07:20Or we both lost.
07:21It is fair.
07:22But there's always arguments, so you guys are always in playtests proving who's right or who's wrong.
07:27But I imagine that creative tension's really great because it forces you to come up with something where like, I
07:32mean, game of the year award after game of the year,
07:35award after game of the year award, and we're like 10 years on since we first played it, and we
07:41have this character.
07:42This is one media, I like called Kratos, the single most impressive looking character ever in video games.
07:47Oh, fantastic.
07:48Awesome.
07:49I mean, that's great.
07:50I mean, take that, Bubsy.
07:51Think about that, right?
07:52I mean, I have an English teacher who told me I was stupid and I'd never be a good writer.
07:56So when my first book was published, I like thanked her in it.
07:59Oh, that's fantastic.
08:00Yeah, you know, so when you hear things like that, do you feel like, yeah, are you like, yeah?
08:04That is a little bit of vindication.
08:06It's nice.
08:07Yeah.
08:08I mean, it still doesn't make up for the fact that the Hades levels were probably not tested enough, but
08:14that's a good example of like, you know, playtesting is so integral.
08:18To get other people's opinions and actually be able to sift through the opinion and the confusion, you know, so
08:26that it's like, oh, okay, well, that's a subjective thing, and it's not really in line with what we want
08:29to achieve, or actually that one is really good, and that's going to make the game better.
08:34You're heading into like the fourth generation of hardware since you started this.
08:42Would you talk a little bit about the different iterations of the game and the, like, how you use the
08:49hardware, maybe where you were limited and how it informed your game design choices?
08:55I mean, like, you know, God of War 1 in particular, when it came out, we were pushing the PS2
09:00pretty hard, you know, and it was always one of the best looking games, so we knew that after we
09:05got out of PS2 and we had to make a PS3 game, you know, we had to keep that, we
09:09wanted to maintain that, and we wanted to figure out how to make it so, you know, people are just
09:13as impressed with God of War 3 as they were with God of War 1 when it first came out.
09:16So part of that was Cory Barlog's sweet ending of ending Kratos right on the Titan's shoulder, you know, and
09:24then for God of War 3, we had to figure out, okay, well, how do we actually make this happen,
09:27and we actually tackled it head-on without, like, trying to find some excuse why you fell off her shoulder
09:31or something like that, because that would have been the easy way out.
09:34So we figured out a way to actually make the Titans kind of come to life, and I think, you
09:38know, for PS3, you know, even to this day, it still stands out as, like, one of the, probably some
09:42of the most exciting sequences we made in God of War 2.
09:44It's sort of this weird loop we got caught into of, like, trying to top ourselves every time, you know,
09:49and that first one, pushing it that we had progressive scan, 60 frames a second, no loading, you know, and
09:54no loading was one of those things that was constantly pushed of, like, we're loading, we're just hiding it all
09:59the time, and figuring out with each hardware iteration, the 1 and 2 were both on the PS2s, it was
10:05awesome, we already knew a lot of magic tricks, and we only had to learn a few more, but then
10:09going to PS3, it was all about, like, okay, we have to learn all new magic tricks,
10:12but still trying to make Titans a reality, so it is very hard to get caught in that, I think,
10:19never-ending loop of topping yourself, because eventually, it's going to be impossible, so you've got to figure out a
10:23new way to blow people away.
10:26How do you deal with the expectations?
10:28What has made God of War successful for so many years is that concept of having the core singular vision
10:35of, like, I have this idea, and then everyone starts to hang little pieces on the idea to try to
10:41build a much bigger, cleaner, crisper, sharper version of that core idea.
10:46It was the David versus Goliath, it seemed, in all the earlier ones, but maybe that's different now. You look
10:52at a lot of games today, they seem to be all about huge worlds, gigantic worlds, which I guess is
10:58kind of cool. I don't feel like I want every game to be like that, though. I would get bored.
11:02I'm curious to know, it sounds like, like, Corey got into a little bit, but Shannon, since you've been around
11:07since the beginning, the philosophical pillars that kind of, that are, like, the foundation of Santa Monica Studio, like, what
11:14would those be?
11:15For me, they've always been communications key. We've always had kind of low wall desks, no offices, so that anyone
11:24can stand up, look around, see what someone else is working on, and it inspires them, hopefully, to do better.
11:33Collaboration is another piece to Santa Monica. I think we're a highly collaborative studio. We are crafting within the walls,
11:39and that really, I think, differentiates us from a lot of some of the dev teams that are,
11:45active today. And I think one of my hidden sort of, you know, gems is compromise.
11:54Everyone needs to kind of give a little bit and come together on the vision and, you know, really embody
12:01where we're all going together.
12:03And because of the technology limitations and challenges and the opportunities to build on, you know, great hardware, we've got
12:11to find new paths and new ways to get there.
12:13So I think those three, along with quality, quality is number one.
12:19And I think the products that we've had over the course of 15 years, 35 strong titles have all shown
12:27that.
12:27It's something that we are collectively very proud of.
12:30When I was talking with Treyarch about putting together the Call of Duty series, and they have these three sort
12:36of, like, different kind of things that all come on the same disc, that all work with the same game,
12:40different departments will sometimes need to kind of, like, fight over the same resource.
12:44Like, we need this group to do this thing. Do you ever encounter that?
12:47That's the compromise part. And I think we're very fortunate in Santa Monica to work with a bunch of creatives
12:53that are willing to go above and beyond.
12:55And the crew is always willing to jump in and give it their all.
12:59There's a lot of dand if you do, dand if you don't, though.
13:02Yeah.
13:02A lot of that, like, all right, you're going to lose this if you want that.
13:05That's the world he lives in.
13:06Yeah. I live in a very hostile, everyone's-taking-my-toys kind of world.
13:11Have you ever lost a thing from one part of a game and it's found its way into another part?
13:17Oh, totally.
13:18Yeah.
13:18Hercules.
13:20It's a different game from Hercules.
13:22Yeah, Hercules, we've got to work, too.
13:24Deimos, and I wrote the script for Sparta. It was because we had cut Deimos out of another thing.
13:30Yeah.
13:30I was like, cool, I'll use it for that.
13:32Yeah.
13:32So, yeah, we recycle.
13:34He gets it back.
13:35Yeah, Hercules was actually trying to do a lift door in God of War II.
13:39Yes.
13:39And then that got cut in, like, with three months to go.
13:42And then it became a really good boss fight in God of War III.
13:45So, yeah, that one, I'll totally admit.
13:46I wanted to kill him just, like, you just arrive and you lift up a lift door and then just
13:50kill him with a lift door.
13:51Just, like, one move.
13:52Yeah.
13:53The most famous-
13:54Why do you hate Hercules?
13:55I wanted him to die quickly.
13:57But I thought that was cool, but actually the boss fight in III was fantastic, so.
14:01Yeah.
14:01Sort of made up for my dumb idea.
14:05It probably seems ridiculous to talk about what is ancient history for you guys, but because it's so recent for
14:10me, you know, like playing God of War I for the first time, fighting against that Hydra in, at the
14:16very, very, very beginning was really satisfying for me.
14:20And I'm not a person who likes boss fights.
14:22I just find boss fights to really be just, like, oh, stop making me grind through.
14:26Because they usually are that.
14:27They're usually, like, skill tests where you just got to be super awesome as opposed to more thoughtful.
14:31It was about, like, okay, observe the environment, figure out how to use it against them.
14:35Yeah.
14:35When you get to that point where you're like, I know what to do, it's not that hard to get
14:39there.
14:40Yeah.
14:40So, although sometimes we, you know, I made it a little bit too hard on certain things.
14:45We also, that was one of the last levels we designed.
14:47Yeah.
14:48We usually do that.
14:49Yeah.
14:49We always wait for the first level as the last level we do.
14:52Oh, that's so interesting, because you're able to take what you've experienced during the entire development process.
14:57and let the player have that, like, right at it.
15:01So then you know exactly what to do in the beginning to differentiate everything else.
15:05A lot of what you want to do, you're able to do at that point within the game development.
15:09We did a thing where we asked members of the PlayStation Nation to submit questions on the PlayStation blog,
15:16because I thought it would be cool to ask you guys things that they wanted to know about,
15:21instead of hoping the things that I want to know about happen to overlap with them.
15:25You play tested.
15:26This is the question.
15:27Player experience is the lifeblood of projects developed both externally and in-house at Santa Monica Studios.
15:36What is it that you think makes your games so creative and fun to play?
15:42And what is your favorite part of the creation process?
15:46It is the idea of constantly soliciting feedback,
15:51constantly engaging outside voices to give us the straight dope, like, if they hate it, that's great, because we want
15:59to know why they hate it, how we can make it better.
16:02We started with the idea that we like, we think this would be really fun, but we test the theory
16:06and determine whether or not we're crazy or, hey, that's a really great idea.
16:10Because it's kind of a creatively driven studio, there's still egos involved, but it's kind of a, you can, you
16:16get to a point of, like, boring.
16:18But there is a bit of, like, egolessness of people wanting to make the best thing possible.
16:22And once you kind of get everybody bought on with that and kind of moving together, when that works properly,
16:28I think that's kind of the special sauce that you can get out of a really good Santa Monica game.
16:31What's your favorite part of the creation process?
16:34Six months in, where it's like you've got all these big, grand ideas, and then you start kind of seeing
16:42how they're going to all kind of funnel and work together and start to overlap.
16:45That can sometimes take two years, to be totally fair.
16:49But it's basically that part where you've gone from, like, wow, we have this huge kind of, like, broad, grand
16:54idea, and then it starts to kind of, you start to see it take shape.
16:57You can start to see it form, and you can start to get a sense and a feel of what
17:00that's going to be.
17:01And it's a really kind of magical time in the game, at least for me.
17:05That's probably my favorite.
17:06Have you had an experience where you sort of start out and you think a game is going in one
17:09direction, and you get to that point and realize, you know, this is not what we thought it was going
17:13to be?
17:14All the time. I mean, my first experience with that was God of War 2.
17:16I mean, we were making a totally different game for the first nine months of that game, like six, nine
17:22months of that game.
17:23And then I think we essentially jettisoned everything except for Kratos Mechanics.
17:28No kidding.
17:30So tell me about that day.
17:32When God of War 1 finished and we came back, you know, after everyone went on vacation, we came back
17:37and we had a script of God of War 2, which was like the, you know, which wouldn't be what
17:42the actual game was going to end up being.
17:44So for a long time, we were basing it on that script and a lot of production was going in
17:47that one day, like it just, it just changed.
17:50Like it was just, it was something completely new.
17:52And it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't completely new.
17:54I mean, there was some elements that were kind of shared, but there was enough new there that it was
17:58like, okay, we got it.
17:59We're starting over.
18:00Did that come out of the mechanics of how you were building it or did it come out of the
18:05narrative of the way you were seeing the story evolve?
18:08It came out of my crappy first draft.
18:10I was going to say, when is Corey going to start?
18:13Yeah, that's really like, I think it was Jaffe and Studsdale in an office with me sitting across from me
18:18and being like, all right, Marlog, this is not really that good.
18:22You know, and I think I had the Wind Waker ambitions.
18:27So Corey was taking a boat to like all these different islands and stuff.
18:30It was just insane.
18:32But what was great about it is part of that whole process is now you're doing it, right?
18:37What was he thinking?
18:38He was traveling all over the universe.
18:39That never made it back in the game.
18:40I wrote that first draft with my dad and had realized that like we had these crazy ambitions and I
18:48was steering us in such wild, bizarre ways and not really seeing the forest for the trees.
18:54And what was fascinating is, you know, creating, writing something with your dad is a very interesting experience because you
19:01just clash all the time.
19:03But it's the good creative clashing, you know, the kind that you hang up and then, I'm not going to
19:07call you for 24 hours, you know?
19:09Then you call, I'm sorry.
19:11It was kind of interesting because I realized like that's it.
19:13That's the story.
19:15It's the father-son dynamic of like, oh, there it is.
19:18It's Kratos and Zeus.
19:19That's where it is.
19:21So it was a cool organic process, but at the same time, you know, that meeting sucked when, you know,
19:29Javi's like, this is terrible, dude.
19:31What are you doing?
19:32And I was just, yes, nonsense, nonsense.
19:36I would say, though, after that change happened, everybody got on board really quick and it just started moving forward
19:41at like such a rapid pace.
19:42Yeah.
19:42It was really exciting.
19:43It was a good time.
19:45And then, I mean, the combat went through some of that change, too, because I remember initially there was supposed
19:49to be like, I think,
19:49literally 16 magics or something crazy.
19:52Oh, yeah.
19:53I think we had numbers crazy on that.
19:54And it was like that for a very long time until like around that time where the story kind of
19:58shifted and everything shifted.
19:59And then you get to a position where you're in dreamland and you're in your, you have all these ideas,
20:04like the 16 magics, like that was one of them.
20:06And then what ended up happening is that you're like, okay, you distill it down to like the best ones.
20:10And that actually ends up probably being the best thing that you could have done, but you just didn't realize
20:14that previously.
20:15As a writer, I treat that stuff as sort of like the scaffolding that you, that I have to use
20:20maybe to get to a thing.
20:22But I think it's an entirely legitimate part of the creative process.
20:26Just when you're limited and bound by time.
20:29Sure.
20:29It's scary as all hell.
20:31Yeah.
20:31Yeah, I get that.
20:32And you just want to say, guys, get it together.
20:34But, you know, it's not that easy.
20:35They're trying their best.
20:37But it's interesting because I love the beginning blank page part.
20:43Everything that's not reality.
20:45And then I hate the reality part.
20:48I hate being smacked in the face by everybody's like, look, man, you can only do four magics, seriously.
20:53When you look back and you see what you actually did to create the product and you're like, oh, that
20:57was pretty good.
20:57And you're like, man, why don't we just make all those decisions sooner?
21:00But a lot of those decisions you wouldn't have made if you didn't go through that process to begin with.
21:04Game development is essentially like a you, right?
21:06If you plot it, it's like you start really high and you're really excited.
21:09You have like tons of ideas.
21:11And then like over the course of the next few months, you're like, oh, no, no, no, no.
21:14And then you kind of figure it out and then it starts building back up to that excitement again.
21:19But it gets really, it gets, you get into some pretty like scary places.
21:24And that's, I guess that's not unusual.
21:26Naughty Dog talks about that all the time.
21:27Throwing out Ellie six months before they shipped.
21:30I imagine it never gets easier.
21:33It gets more expensive.
21:34Yeah, right?
21:35It's like if you're writing, right?
21:36You write a couple, you write a draft and you're like, think about it.
21:38But like with games, it's like you kind of have to make part of the game, which takes a lot
21:43of time and people.
21:45And so you make a part of the game and that could take like months.
21:48And then you're like, oh, crap, this didn't work.
21:51Yeah.
21:51Right?
21:51And so then you have to kind of move on.
21:53You know, once you see kind of the crappy version of it, you're like, well, I remember what we wanted.
21:57And now I see what we have.
21:58And you can kind of mold it into what it should have been in the first place.
22:01So let's shift gears away from the like grand scope of God of War and like, you know, there's really
22:09big titles and talk about indie development.
22:12Because it is something that I care a great, great deal about.
22:18Most of the games I play are indie games.
22:21So it seems like indie development is just like, it is fundamentally part of the DNA at Santa Monica Studios.
22:30And how, like, so why?
22:34And does it at all touch the other aspects of some of the bigger titles that you all work on?
22:39Wow.
22:40Okay.
22:41So for me, and this is kind of to that where it permeates the kind of culture, is that we
22:46do play tests and we'll do play tests with external games with internal, like, you know, God of War team.
22:52And I play tested a game called Flower that was like nine months into development.
22:57And it kind of blew my mind because I was like, you can make games like this, right?
23:03Like, and it was kind of super inspiring to me and kind of made me want to make that leap
23:07to external and start to kind of explore those spaces.
23:09I mean, I think kind of part of the DNA of the studio is that kind of creative driven and
23:13always searching for these kinds of new experiences.
23:15And a lot of that, I think, you know, also came from Alan Becker.
23:18And so he really kind of spearheaded a lot of that early stuff with, like, Flow and Everyday Shooter and
23:25the original Fat Princess.
23:27Nate very much carries that legacy.
23:29Yeah.
23:29Very much so for that department and that team and all the relationships that we have with developers that are
23:36worldwide.
23:37It is really remarkable to me that you are a studio that can give us God of War and then
23:42can also give us, like, Journey.
23:45That, I mean, they could not be more different.
23:47We have opportunities to bring veteran level talent out of internal development into the incubation teams that we have.
23:57So there's a really interesting crossover there where people that are down in the, you know, trenches of AAA are
24:05able to spend some time on indie development and helping some of these younger creators really translate their vision.
24:11It's like a two-way street, too, because I think, like, everybody gets really inspired when they see, like, what
24:16Edith Finch is turning into.
24:18It just, yeah, I mean, it inspires people when you see those kind of things.
24:21That those things are also being made under, like, under the one kind of roof.
24:25I talked to Ian Dallas, the guy, the director on Giant Sparrow, or Giant Sparrow.
24:31And he was talking about their process, their creative process, how they kind of storyboard, how they kind of use
24:36post-it notes and kind of quickly iterate on things.
24:39And I thought, oh, that's really cool.
24:40So I got the whole team together and had them do, like, a little seminar, which was talking through their
24:45creative process, which I think was great because it inspired a lot of the people on the team, but also
24:51kind of showed them a way that nobody really thought of because it's a far more agile, very fast, you
24:56know, hey, check this out.
24:57What about that?
24:58Like, they're making the game with post-it notes, which I thought was fantastic.
25:01So I think having the incubations in-house is just awesome.
25:05It is truly a two-way street.
25:07There's so much interest in wanting to help, you know, like that cross-visionary support.
25:13And that goes, you know, from animators to designers to producers.
25:17Just people want to help each other to realize what that goal is.
25:21The ethos that you're describing is actually a thing that comes up over and over and over again when we
25:26do these shows.
25:27Like, I just keep hearing over and over again, I'm so inspired by the people that I work with, and
25:31they lift me up, and they make me work harder.
25:34And I don't think that it's a coincidence that that seems to be part of the fundamental philosophy is like,
25:41yeah, let's all work really hard together to make an awesome thing.
25:44I mean, on the God of War team, I know it was always like that for us.
25:47You want to make sure that you're on the level of everyone else, and it's always been something where it's
25:51like you have that healthy competition kind of within the studio.
25:53There's like this friendly rivalry that goes on about what people are working on.
25:57But at the same time, if Jason was working on something that I thought was, oh, I'm so jealous, but
26:02like I need his help on my thing, he'll totally like come in, like help me out.
26:06Like it's like it's a team that just wants to build each other up, even in the kind of spirit
26:10of that kind of friendly rivalry that you have going on.
26:12I really want to nerd out about Journey for a minute.
26:15I have not been like emotionally affected by a game the way I was by that.
26:21I got, in preparation to meet you all today, I got a copy of the game.
26:27That game became like a meditation for me.
26:31It became this like rejuvenative, restorative thing that I could like play and really unwind.
26:38When I finally finished the game, I actually just felt like I felt kind of sad that it was over
26:44and like I missed my companions that I had picked up along the way.
26:52I did not know until a couple of days after I finished my first playthrough that I was playing with
26:57other people.
26:58I had no idea.
27:00That is groundbreaking for me in games.
27:03And I don't know if I really have a question to go with this, which makes me a bad host.
27:07But I'm just so like, I'm so fascinated by that and that nobody like really, it doesn't seem to be
27:15like called out.
27:16It's like a thing that you discover.
27:18That was the whole point of the game was to have like authentic connections with other human beings anonymously, right?
27:24That you can really like feel that empathy.
27:28Basically, here's the funny thing about online games.
27:31If you leave any, if there's anything that you could troll someone with, people will troll.
27:37Yeah.
27:38So that's why there's no character.
27:39On the internet?
27:39Yeah, so there's no, so it's essentially part of it was also just figuring out how do you kind of
27:43strip away the things that people can grief other people with.
27:47Yeah.
27:47And just kind of, once people understand that like this is, this is like what this kind of game is,
27:52it's like that all that kind of goes away.
27:53And I don't think people even go into thinking like, oh, I want to grief somebody or how do I
27:57grief somebody?
27:58It just becomes a place that they're with another human being experiencing the game.
28:03I was on a level in Journey and there was like one of those little glowing symbol things and I
28:09really wanted to get it.
28:10And I realized that I couldn't get it unless the other helper person jumped up and we kind of boosted
28:16each other so I could get to the thing.
28:17And I'm looking at it and jumping and not getting there and then I realize that the other little helper
28:23person, who I still don't know is a person, has been jumping and like chirping at me and jumping and
28:29chirping at me like, come over, this is where we go, this is what we do.
28:32And when I finally figured that out, I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much.
28:36I still don't know it's a person and I find out like 48 hours later, I've made this deeply human
28:43connection with another person and I don't know who they were or where they were or what they were about.
28:49It's an interesting cycle, I think, that some people go through with Journey is that they go from like a
28:56lot of times what happens, especially when you play now, is you go through and there's people that kind of
28:59take on guide roles in that game.
29:02where they'll lead you around and help you and show you things and then it kind of takes on this
29:06life cycle then people that have that experience then they want to share that experience with someone else and so
29:11they'll kind of help guide someone through the space and it's really cool just the way like people will literally
29:17like they will guide, like they wait and they want to take people through the experience.
29:21It has like a mystical sense to it that I really, really like and this is a thing that kind
29:26of runs through other games that you guys have sort of touched on as well including Unfinished Swan.
29:32You know, and then we have sort of like the ancient kind of mythological stuff that is so just fundamentally
29:39part of God of War, like does this come from, is this a thing that originates with a person at
29:47the studio?
29:47I think at the beginning didn't David have like two or three things written down and one of them was
29:52like Greek mythology game?
29:54It was like let's do that one. You know, it was fortuitous because I think that's a brilliant decision. There's
29:59so much life and depth to not just Greek mythology but all kinds of mythology.
30:06It's so much of a telling kind of manuscript of a culture.
30:11I don't know, I think there's probably something to be said for having spaces that feel lived in a little.
30:16Like for me at least like, you know, it's like you look at Journey, like that's a place that tells
30:20a story.
30:21I think it's also just the, you know, the fantasy element to it all. Like, you know, God of War
30:25at its core is a fantasy even though it's like there's brutality and it's, you know, it's pretty harsh here
30:30and there.
30:30But it really is a fantasy and it kind of calls to, you know, everybody's love for things like the
30:36pyramids or just the old relics that are still kind of around the world.
30:39I think it's just something, like Corey said, there's so many stories, there's so much there that it kind of
30:43doesn't get old like the mythology aspect of it.
30:45I think a lot of other teams, you've got X amount of dollars and X amount of time and you're
30:50on a crash course of mechanical, get through it, you're a machine.
30:56And we're able to throw some stuff away and again learn from that and all that contributes to, you know,
31:03quality product that I think is more of an art than it is a machine.
31:08I think indie development is inspiring people to realize, look, we can, we can have a larger message in the
31:16game.
31:17There is a point of view in every sort of creative endeavor and being able to actually implement that is
31:25so unique because you're right, there's so many other studios where it's the bottom line is get it done.
31:29You know, the board of directors has said, you have this much time, we have to make this window of
31:33release and it needs to get this Metacritic, you know, nothing about the game.
31:37So the indie kind of community is great for being able to take, you know, some additional risks like Journey
31:42where you don't have to be wowed just by a graphical showpiece or something like that.
31:45It's actually the, you know, you're feeling when you play the game that you remember.
31:49Yeah.
31:50Though it is also one of the most beautiful games.
31:51But it looks great too.
31:53Yeah.
31:53It makes you feel like, wow, this is a gorgeous experience.
31:57I don't look at it as an indie game, I look at it as just a beautiful game.
32:00Because the style is amazing.
32:02You guys are all veterans of the game industry.
32:06And you have been involved in the games industry through some significant changes in societally and technologically.
32:15And I would love your perspective on say the last 10 or 15 years of the games industry.
32:20It's less far reaching for me, but I mean, I had two children, right, in the last three years.
32:27And I think for me, that's been a pretty huge thing for the way I kind of approach things and
32:31think about things.
32:32So it's like having games that can be kind of shared and kind of bring the kind of younger generation
32:38into what I think is kind of special about console gaming.
32:41Sitting in front of the TV, turning that console on, grabbing that controller.
32:45You know, I want my kids to have that experience and kind of grow up with that.
32:50I think art has also been put to the forefront more in games.
32:56Like, before it was a lot of the crates and scientists and, you know, shooters.
33:02But I feel like the concept of a game having a heart, you having this really personal point of view.
33:09For me, it's just seeing all the mediums kind of get taken seriously.
33:12It's not just, wow, you were just putting motion on the screen, because we've seen that already.
33:16I think we're evolving, we're changing.
33:18It's like the film industry has had so many decades on us, but they went through probably the same growing
33:24pains to reach where they're at.
33:26now.
33:27And I think we're kind of going through the same thing of coming into our own as an art form.
33:32And the audiences are looking for more, you know?
33:34Like, they want an experience to grab them.
33:38Something even as simple as, what is it?
33:40Thomas Was Alone?
33:41Right.
33:41Right?
33:42Friendship and jumping.
33:43With little blocks, right?
33:45Fantastic.
33:46I think this idea of connecting people and connecting with people on a human level is great.
33:53That's what gaming to me is about, is experiencing the human experience in a more active way.
34:00It's not the passive, watch a movie, which is great, but I'm involved.
34:04I'm the center of this.
34:06I'm changing.
34:07I have agency in this.
34:08And I think that also the kids that grew up kind of like playing all the little games when it
34:15wasn't taken as seriously are now kind of at an age where they want to take them seriously.
34:19And in some cases like me, like actually developing the games as well.
34:22So it just gives additional perspective where it's like, okay, I remember what I enjoyed about the old games.
34:26I also see kind of what's new, you know, what's more appealing.
34:29The little games as you said.
34:31Which one are those?
34:32The little games.
34:33Well, dude, like my parents used to watch me play the games and they would just talk down, not just
34:39to me, but just to the game.
34:40Yeah, yeah.
34:41Where it's like, what is this?
34:42Like, what are you doing?
34:43What is this crap?
34:43Why are you wasting your time?
34:44Tiny character jumping around and like, what is that?
34:46And they just couldn't take it seriously.
34:48They couldn't see past it, you know?
34:49Don't you see that?
34:50But there was obviously something in there because people like those games and even new games today that, you know,
34:55do have a little bit more to them.
34:56They still apply a lot of the same concepts that those old games had that made them popular.
35:01So what is next for Santa Monica Studios in this world in which we find ourselves?
35:09Where are you headed?
35:11Back to work.
35:13Yeah.
35:14We just did our post E3 summit, this little gathering of all the studio people.
35:21You've got to be really careful right now.
35:24I gave a horrible speech, but I was blown away with how awesome, and this sounds like a bunch of
35:30company puffery, but you know, honestly, speaking from the heart, I was blown away with how awesome it is to
35:35be making games right now.
35:36Yeah.
35:36Like to the lineup that we have, the stuff we're working on, it scared the hell out of me and
35:42made me want to go back to work and work harder.
35:44And that's awesome because that is a great time to be playing games, to be a gamer, you know, to
35:50actually be consuming this content.
35:52So, yeah, I think what we have is exciting. I don't know how specific we can get.
35:57Journey on PS4 is stunning, 1080p, 60 frames. Everybody's gone to the Rapture from the Chinese room in August, early
36:05August, which I think is going to be a great game.
36:08And then Fat Princess will be later this year as well. And then next year, what we announce is what
36:14remains to be the Finch, which is shaping up to be mind-blowingly amazing.
36:18Is there anything in this new technology that we're looking at, like, that we're closing in on that you guys
36:24are excited about?
36:25Yes.
36:27That's fair enough.
36:28Lots of cool stuff.
36:29Lots of neat things.
36:30Sorry, Internet, I tried my best.
36:32I want to thank you so much for sitting down and spending this time with us today.
36:37And seriously, for making my life more fun with just really awesome, great stuff.
36:45And congratulations on all of your successes.
36:48That's it.
36:49Thank you.
36:52Has there ever been a thing that you were just dying to do and you got really close to making,
36:57like, to pulling it off and just for whatever reason the hardware wouldn't support it or you just, there was,
37:03like, some technical thing that got in your way?
37:06Hmm.
37:08We did want to do that sock puppet musical of God of War, which I thought it's not really a
37:13technical limitation.
37:15It would have been badass, right?
37:16Yeah.
37:16I think, like, that angel episode where they all became puppets.
37:19Yeah.
37:19I think it would have been amazing.
37:20So were you saying you got everything you ever wanted?
37:23Oh, no, that's right.
37:24I probably should change my answer to, no.
37:25Yeah.
37:25I'm sorry, sock puppet musical is out there.
37:27It's already, I've written it down.
37:30Sock puppet musical.
37:31PlayStation equal.
37:32PlayStation.
37:33PlayStation.
37:34Grazie a tutti.
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