Ex-PlayStation Boss Shuhei Yoshida Pushed for God of War Reboot Delay After Realizing It Needed More Polish
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While Santa Monica Studio’s God of War reboot that was released in 2018 might possibly be the most impressive reboot we’ve seen of a game series to date, that wasn’t always the case.
Even internally, the game didn’t impress right away, and it was a major concern from PlayStation’s higher-ups that the game was delayed for more polish.
Former PlayStation Studios Boss Thought God of War’s Reboot Was a “Problem” After Trying It Out for the First Time
In a new interview with Game File (locked behind a subscription), former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida was asked about an incident where Creative Director Cory Barlog heard that Yoshida thought the game was “horrible.”
First off, Yoshida clarified that he was “horrified,” and that he didn’t say the game was horrible.
Continuing with it, Yoshida explained, “Yeah, so that was one of the biggest games in development. The company had huge expectations and had an amazing reveal announcement. But it was, like, six months before the planned [2017] launch. I visited the studio and Cory presented and let me play. The game was maybe 80% complete. But I had really struggled to play that one level that Cory wanted me to play. The enemy was shooting at me from behind the camera. I felt really cheated. And there were some frame rate issues and multiple things were not working.”
After what he experienced, Yoshida noted, “Thinking about the time left for the team and all the expectations from the company and maybe even the players, I was like, ‘This is a problem. But, because Cory is such a creative guy and a very nice person and very passionate, I couldn’t tell him. Even though my facial expression was communicating something.”
The ex-PlayStation executive then pushed for the game’s delay after his initial playtest. “So, after the meeting, I went back to [executive producer] Shannon Studstill’s’s office and said to Shannon, ‘We have a problem.’ And eventually we were able to push the game back. The game was planned for October release of that year. We pushed it to April in the next year. So an additional six months. That really helped the team to polish.”
The extra six months is all Santa Monica Studio needed, as the game was a massive hit critically and commercially. Released in April 2018, the God of War reboot is considered a modern masterpiece. It’s sitting at an impressive 94 score on Metacritic, and a 94 too on Open Critic.
The 2018 reboot was followed up by God of War Ragnarok released in 2022, and was even considered a step up to the first one in eveyr way. Our review of it on PC, which was released last year, garnered a 10/10 score. While Santa Monica Studio hasn’t announced a new entry in the series, the developers are still supporting the game somewhat with patches that bring in new content from time to time.
No word yet on what will happen to the franchise’s future, as the long-rumored God of War Greek Saga remaster has yet to be confirmed by Sony.
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