God of War: Ascension

“	I pay the price... for my ambitions.	”
–Kratos, beginning of E3 demo.

God of War: Ascension is the next installment in the popular God of War series, set for a 2013 release. It is the seventh game of the series, and will chronologically be the first chapter in the series, forming part of a saga with vengeance as a central theme.

It will predate Kratos' entire reign as the god of war, and supposedly features a timeline roughly six months after Kratos' unintentional killing of his wife and daughter. If confirmed, possible flashbacks could also occur, seeing as how this timeline follows his allegiance to Ares, which was already addressed in the original God of War.

It will mark a new chapter in Kratos' story, as its listing notes to "Join Kratos as he takes his first steps on a now legendary quest for freedom, redemption, and the clarity to avenge his family in the most ambitiuous God of War adventure in the series so far."

Story

Single Player

According to eurogamer, the single-player will feature a "revamped" combat and weapon system, "promptless" mini-games and new puzzles. Sony stated the game will offer "fluid, life-like characters, dynamic lighting effects, and world-changing scenarios", although the story is apparently shorter than previous games.

Taking place right before the events of God of War: Chains of Olympus and God of War, it's been 6 months since Kratos murdered his wife and child due to Ares' trickery. Having sworn off his oath to the God of War and refusing to fight for him or do his bidding any longer, the three great Furies, Goddesses of Punishment, Justice and Torment have been sent by Hades to capture Kratos and imprison him in a Titan-sized prison for the living damned, where he is tortured for months on end, driven insane, and constantly haunted by the visions of the night he lost everything dear to him.

Fueled by a desire and lust for revenge against Ares, along with a need to redeem himself among the other Gods to earn salvation, Kratos manages to break free of his imprisonment and sets out on a journey to murder the Furies. If he can successfully murder them he can sever all ties to Ares without consequence. Throughout this journey Kratos will battle famous mythical beasts and icons of ancient Greece, as well as his own plunge into madness as he fights his constant nightmares, further testing his humanity and his determination for salvation and redemption.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer part of Ascension, will feature multi-level arenas, where several warriors can fight one another. One specific game mode, called The Favour of the Gods, requires the champions to kill each other, while a chained Polyphemus, interferes whenever players come too close. Warriors score 100 points by killing the men from opposing teams, eventually, the Spear of Olympus falls from the heavens and it becomes a race for each team to obtain it. Once someone has pulled it from the ground, they can begin to attack Polythemus and knock him unconscious. If the beast is grappled then the warrior will split his jaw with the godly spear. The team that kills him gains an extra 1000 points. Whoever reaches 8000 points first wins the match. The multiplayer will most likely not allow split-screen possibilities, but instead pan out whenever needed to actively show all participants. In the Ares' trailer, a new arena was revealed: The Arena of God of War III. The champions of the gods fight each other in the arena as Hercules watches the battle, he jumps down on occasion to knock warrior off the arena's sides.

By pre-ordering the game, the player gets access to the Mythological Heroes Pack DLC for the multiplayer. This pack contains 4 heroes who are playable in the multiplayer: Orion, Achilles, Perseus, and Odysseus. If the player pre-orders at Gamestop they get the King Leonidas costume and Spear. Pre-orders from Best Buy will get Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.

Items and abilities

Weapons

Blades of Chaos: The cursed blades given to Kratos by Ares as symbol of his servitude. These carved swords look quite similar to the Blades of Athena in God of War III, only silver instead of gold.
Enemy weapons: Kratos can carry now the weapons of his opponents as secondary weapon. They can be discarded anytime, by doing so, he throws the weapon at an enemy stunning him in the process. In the E3 demo, Kratos steals the sword of a satyr and later, the spear of another group of satyrs.
Kratos' Fists: if Kratos does not have active weapons on his hands, such as the Blades of Chaos, he can still combat using his fists (punching) or feet (kicking). The proof is from the E3 demo.

Magic

Life Cycle: Life Cycle is a new relic used in God of War: Ascension. It is a green beam that can warp time around the object or enemy it hits. Kratos uses this ability to reconstruct an elevator, which is destroyed by the Charybdis. When used on enemies, they are frozen in time for a while, so if they are in the air at the time the magic is activated, they remain there for a few seconds. This ability does not deplete Kratos' magic, instead, it requires the relic to recharge for a short amount of time.
Elemental Magic: Kratos' magic in the game is based on four elements: Electricity, Soul, Fire and Ice. These will be also connected to his rage ability, and also make his attacks stronger and give him a different style in his attacks. Each magic has own unique rage ability.
- The first magic, shown in the E3 demo is a Circle of Fire: If Kratos presses his blades in the ground, a circle of fire ignites around him and damages or kills his enemies.
New Rage ability: Like mentioned above, the rage abilities will be connected with the different magic.
- The first rage ability is the element Fire, Kratos can cover himself in fire and have more devastating attacks, quite similar to Rage of Titans. But he can also set his enemies on fire with his swords or use all his rage to create a living bomb out of his enemy.
- The rage ability is automatically activated when the meter becomes full, this is said to be so the player does not neglect the rage ability in combat.

Characters

Kratos: The main protagonist of the game. Kratos finds himself on the edge of madness, 6 months after the death of his wife and child, he broke his blood oath with Ares. This betrayal, brought for the judgement of the Furies. Now he haves to escape his prison and destroy the Furies before they capture him again.
Megaera: The first Fury to be seen in the game, she tortures Kratos relentlessly but in doing so, unintentionally releases him from his shackles.
Orkos: He helps Kratos to break the bounds of the Furies and is the one who tells Kratos to go to Delphi.
Archimedes: A historical mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer whose role in the game has yet to be determined.
Oracle of Delphi: Kratos is sent to Delphi to find the Oracle, she might help him in his quest.
Lysandra: She appears for Kratos in visions during the game.
Calliope: Just as her mother, she appears in visions to Kratos.

Enemies

Common Enemies

Satyrs: The satyrs have new design in the upcoming game, looking even more goatlike and are muscular. The Satyrs carry large swords with them instead of the regular staff-like werepon. There also Satyrs who carry spears that they throw at Kratos. It is possible that we will see Ascension as the first time to have satyrs replacing the Legionnaires and Sentries from the Original Trilogy.
Satyr General: The Satyr General is bigger than his fellow satyrs and wields a bigger sword. He commands them, similar to the Centaur General leads the Olympus Sentries and Legionnaires.
Satyr Fodder: The Satyr Fodder appear in a series of silhouettes of the Satyrs in God of War: Ascension. They carry a horn and a bow as weapon. Unlike the other two types Satyrs, they are smaller than Kratos.
Fire Talos: This new type of Talos is dressed in similar fashion to the God of the Underworld, however, they are on fire. Their head is styled like helmet of Hades and as they are activated, their hammers start to glow like heated metal. They are also killed in exact the same way as the Stone Talos in GoW III.
Elephantaur: This new monstrosity makes a similar appears as Geryon and is based on the unused concept art of the Berserker from God of War III. Kratos kills him by cutting open its head and exposing the brain. The monster is basically a new species of Juggernaut, this is revealed in the demo.
Megaera's Parasites: In the Public Demo, we see Kratos occasionally run into tiny green insects that originate from Megaera's chest. They are reasonably strong, but have low health. Kratos kills them exactly the way he did to the Hades Nymphs in God of War II.
Megaera's Minions: In the Public Demo, Megaera's Parasites attacks other prisoners in the Hekantonkheires and turning them into mutants, namely Megeara's Minions. They attack Kratos with their newly grown claws or with swords. They can be killed in the same way as the Olympus Legionnaires in God of War III.
Cyclops Berserker: In leaked footage of the multiplayer of God of War: Ascension (see below for the clip), we see one of Poseidon's champions prepare himself for battle and is attacked by a grey/green cyclops, wielding the same club as the Berserkers in God of War III. It has been confirmed as proof that they will appear again in Ascension's single-player campaign, as revealed in the Public Beta Teaser [see video , scroll to 23:52].
Gorgon: In one of the Dev Diaries about the Multiplayer, we can see several times how a gorgon appears out the ground. They look similar as they did in God of War III.
Empusa: A concept art was released for the Empusa, it is unknown to what their attack pattern is as of now.

Bosses

Aegaeon: A large multi-armed giant that was captured by the Furies and was made into a prison for the living damned. As Kratos pursued Megaera through the prison, she lets him battle against the mutated arms of the Hecatonchires.
Charybdis: Charybdis is shown in the E3 demo of God of War: Ascension. Looking similar to the Kraken, she has large tentacles and tries to kill Kratos on several occasions during the demo. At the end of the demo, we see Kratos running over one of the creature's tentacles and charge to her giant mouth underwater. She also appears in the Single Player teaser and shows her as a giant octopus-like creature which has fought both on land as underwater.
Polyphemus: A boss exclusive to multiplayer, he is a huge cyclops and was featured in the multiplayer demo and trailers.
The Furies: The Furies are shown in the Furies trailer of God of War: Ascension and they seem to be boss characters. They are claimed to be pre-Olympus, born from an ancient battle before the First Titanomachy. Megaera is the only Fury to have been revealed thus far, how the other sisters (Alecto & Tisiphone) look has not been revealed, however shadows of them can be seen in the trailer.
- Megaera: In the trailer we see Megaera, looking like an Amazon but with huge spider legs, which are larger than herself, coming out her back. She uses those legs to skewer a warrior and toss him towards Kratos. Megaera can also release a swarm of parasites from a diseased looking rash on her chest, these parasites bury under the skin of the living and dead alike and force them to fight for the Fury.

Mini-Bosses

The Manticore: In the teaser trailer, we see Kratos fighting against the Manticore in Delphi; it fights Kratos outside a huge temple that is encompassed by a giant mechanical snake. The creature is big but it remains uncertain to whether it's a boss, mini-boss, or a major grunt.

Background

Following Amazon's leak, game director Todd Papy wrote on the official PlayStation Blog, promising a glimpse of what’s in store for God of War: Ascension' during a livestream event, which took place on Monday, April 30. A new God of War: Ascension page on the Sony PlayStation Facebook page also holds a trailer, and pre-order link to BestBuy.

Game director Todd Papy has previously worked as design director on God of War III. He now takes a development role previously filled by David Jaffe, Cory Barlog and Stig Asmussen.

The game will be released on March 12, 2013, according to its official PlayStation page. Together with the game, the special and collector's editions will be released.

The Collector's Edition wil feature: an exclusive 8" Kratos Statue, a Premium Steelbook case, Official Game Soundtrack (Digital Version), PS3 dynamic theme, PSN Avatar Pack, Multiplayer Double XP Unlock and a pass for future DLC content. The price is $79.99

The Special Edition will feature the same but without the 8" Kratos Statue and the DLC-pass.

Trivia

The E3 demo was released as part of the Total Recall Blu-ray disk available in December 2012.
It's not likely God of War: Ascension will have a sex mini-game like previous games have done, according to Todd Papy. If there's such a game, it will be made so to really fit the story and Kratos' feelings after the loss of his wife and child.
It should be noted that Ascension is the first God of War game that 'openable' red chests are not present, instead, stony boxes with a red crystal substance encasing the lid serve as places to earn free experience. This is also the case with multiplayer.
The public demo was released February 26th for all PSN users, it is different to the one that was seen at E3 and was included with Total Recall.
- Those who took part in the Rise of the Warrior and were part of the winning team got the demo on February 20th.
A demo of 'The Last of Us' is to be released with the final version of God of War: Ascension; it will not be included on the disk but Ascension will allow early access to the demo at a later date.
God of War: Ascension will see Kratos again be using the same Battering Ram technique from God of War III, as proof by this video.
- Also proof from given video, enemy weapons acquired by Kratos can be discarded anytime, depending on player's preference.
A live-action trailer was released for the Internet screening of Super Bowl, it shows both Lysandra and Calliope alive and recaps the events that took place when Kratos became the Ghost of Sparta.
God of War: Ascension will have a new game+ option and chapter select, this is a first for the series.
In God of War: Ascension, the secondary weapons cannot refill the Rage meter; only the Blades of Chaos and Kratos's physical attacks can.