With God of War Ascension, Sony Santa Monica is saddling Kratos with a multiplayer component for the first time in the series' history. The developer's translation of its trademark hack and slash combat into online gameplay evokes Assassin's Creed's unlikely venture into the space just a few years ago. Yet, how does the God of War team retain a seamless combat experience in light of new challenges such as lag? By looking up to 200 milliseconds into the future, that's how.
The development team recently uploaded a video diary chronicling the creative process over the span of two years, which specifically details the challenges programmers and designers faced while implementing multiplayer.
"God of War is historically a single player game and there is a lot of code that works, until you put it in an online environment and it falls apart," says Programmer Blair Holloway.
The issue of latency reared its ugly head in early play-testing, but the team responded by committing players to hits before they connect in order to veil the lag. Despite Lead Designer Mark Simon's admission that technology was "the biggest problem with multiplayer," the developer now considers lag a solved problem.
Unlike many studios that outsource their multiplayer modes, Sony Santa Monica wrote all of the code in-house while developing the single player campaign simultaneously.
As for the single player, Ascension's official synopsis reads, "Six months have passed since Kratos stood over the bodies of his wife and child, his hands stained with their blood - tricked by Ares into murdering the only people he ever loved. Swearing to avenge them, Kratos broke the blood oath that bound him to Ares, but oaths to Olympus are not so easily broken...Sentenced to an eternity chained within a prison for the living damned, Kratos battles insanity at the hands of the Furies. He will be tested as he seeks freedom, redemption for his sins, and the clarity to avenge his family."
God of War Ascension launches on March 12, 2013. Check out the full developer diary at IGN.