Level Analysis - God of War: Reach the Bridge Keeper

This week has mostly been taken up by writing my level design analysis. I chose to do God of War as it is one of my personal favorite games and it's critically acclaimed for its design. It's been cool to play and watch it again with the perspective of a level designer. I can see the reasons of why certain decisions were made in the process of the design, that help create a more immersive feeling while having a gameplay purpose. Which is crazy, because as a player I didn't even notice them the many times I've played it! It just goes to show how integral those design choices are to make a player almost forget they're playing a game.

The most challenging but also one of the more interesting parts of the analysis was applying the design terminology within the level and keeping an eye out for those use cases specifically. One of the ones that I previously knew but still appreciate was the use of Visual Language with color. Yellow paint is almost always controversial among players, but is absolutely necessary. I remember learning about the in-universe reason for it, even when I wasn't at FIEA yet. At the end of the game, it is revealed that this has all been hand painted by Kratos’ deceased wife, who was clairvoyant and journeyed the entire path before Kratos and Atreus did on their journey, thus guiding them to their goal. I have always loved behind the scenes knowledge and knowing the inner-workings of things, and I feel that is a strength I can use for researching for my role.


The most interesting part for me was focusing on the artistic and functional design; made up of focusing on the lighting, composition, sound, and environmental story telling. Diving about their choices of the environment with the specific green-ish colors that were used, and different objects that were placed, and even the lack of sound except for a harsh wind, all helped piece together the feeling the player should have in Hel. It is a cold desolate place of death, and I believe they captured that perfectly. 
It's been cool to see a full level with this new lens, and I look forward to doing it a lot more in the future!


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