God of War Ragnarok‘s director has come forward to say the game’s developers thought the title was “not good” only three months ago. Speaking to GQ UK, Eric Williams talked about how the development team wasn’t exactly feeling very positive about Ragnarok during the final stages of development, but things worked out in the end, as Ragnarok has gotten rave reviews.
“When you work with people that are at the apex of what they do, you’re going to get magic. I just came from a room with those people. All I could say to them was, ‘Thank you.’ They were freaking out three months ago, ‘Holy crap, the game’s not good. What are we going to do?'” Williams said. “I can’t even imagine how they feel today. I wish I had a time machine to go back and feel like that.”
Cory Barlog, who directed the 2018 God of War and was a producer on Ragnarok, said the final stages of game development are hectic to say the least.
“By the end, development is kind of like riding a horse. When the horse decides it wants to run, and it just starts going, you feel like you have no control, and you’re just holding on,” he said.
For Williams, he said wrapping up Ragnarok’s development was a challenging endeavor because he could only see the flaws and what needed to be fixed before release.
“You have to be very judicious. The team’s already kind of burned [out], and you’re asking a lot of them at a place where they’re already pretty fragile. It’s tough. But we have a team of super duper talented people and they know what good looks like,” Williams said.
The full GQ UK piece is filled with fascinating stories and anecdotes about the development of Ragnarok.
After four-plus years of development, Ragnarok launches on November 9 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The game has big shoes to fill, as the 2018 title sold more than 23 million copies.
For more on the game, check out our full God of War Ragnarok review. You can also get caught up on the previous game ahead of time and learn about preordering God of War Ragnarok. Check out GameSpot’s God of War Ragnarok release time breakdown to find out exactly when the game arrives.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
