Designing a Level In God of War (Part 2)

Building a Level

Levels are blocked out in basic shapes and spacing by the level designers. Anything built can be sent over to the team’s development kit -- be it the whole levels or pieces, to view a specific section of the level.

After the block-out and collisions are built, the level is now in a playable state. Environment artists can lay the assets down in the place of the blocks. The level in progress will then be iteratively tested with both block-out and any placeholder/completed assets.

Kratos’ model is also used to test and navigate around the level in development; Kratos' model is also used to measure the scale of level assets and height of walls by stacking one model above the other.

Deleted Levels

In God of War there are a variety of level types, including underwater and desert levels, but most center around the marvels of ancient Greek architecture.

There were also many partially-complete levels that were cut during production, due to time constraints such as the Colosseum, Rhodes Marketplace, Atlantis, Aegean Beach, The Aqueduct and Mount Etna. For instance, there was to be a level where Kratos flies a Pegasus, while escaping a Typhoon.

The developers also built many test levels such as a flight platform level to test the Icarus wings. In the original God of War, a prototype level was build to try out all of the the basic mechanics in-game -- including Kratos’ actions like running, walking, swimming, scaling ledges, fighting, climbing, rope swinging and wing flight. The level designers also built a river level to test Kratos’ movement walking across water and a snow level to demonstrate particle effects.

One major level that was cut would have been featured a large, vulture-like boss that guarded Pandora's Box. The level was built around a conveyor belt component that ran around a circle. There would be a Minotaur to defeat and a moving platform up above.

The vulture would be in the center of the stage guarding the box, with its eggs scattered about the level. Kratos must find and break the eggs, then use the infant vultures as bait to take down the vicious mother vulture.
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