★★★
A documentary about the making of the award-winning video game 'God of War (2018),' which reframed and reformed the central character and told a story of fatherhood and betterment.
God of War was 2018’s game of the year from various publications and was praised by gamers and critics alike, it would be easy to think this documentary from Sony Playstation would be a victory lap, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. While Raising Kratos does address the success of God of War, for the most part it chronicles the uncertainty and anxiety that drove the development team for the majority of the game’s production.
Santa Monica Studio essentially gambles everything into God of War under the leadership of game director Cory Barlog, Barlog’s vision for the game is grandiose and ambitious from the get go. Even though Barlog wasn’t entirely sure himself what the game would be. This documentary does dig deep into the personal struggles that comes with game development not only from producers, designers and artists but also from the actors themselves. God of War told a story of father and son, of redemption and reinvention and the journey in the game came clearly be seen to have been influenced by the trials that the game developers went through. From unimpressive test runs, to thousands of game breaking bugs, delayed releases and mounting pressure, Raising Kratos doesn’t shy away from showing how Barlog had the fate of a whole company resting on his shoulders.
The documentary doesn’t dig as deep into the development or more personal issues as I would have liked but it is covering a five year development period and fairly covers every developmental process. The whole film isn’t stress and doom and gloom either, portions of the film do cover the joyous moments from the casting of Christopher Judge and Sunny Suljic as Kratos and Atreus, research trips to Iceland, composer Bear McCreary composing the score and the official reveal of the game at E3 2016. These moments especially the E3 reveal captures the passion of video games extremely well and how this passion can be both a blessing and a curse. Raising Kratos implements the online gaming community and their reactions to the reveal of the game, the announcement of God of War kickstarts a chain reaction of excitement that only adds fuel to the fire of stress at Santa Monica.
As mentioned before, Sony doesn’t use Raising Kratos as a propaganda film, the issues that Santa Monica overcame makes God of War‘s success all the more impressive but they really allow the moments of dread to last throughout the documentary. Private interviews with Barlog, Shannon Studstill, and Yumi Yang show how the brave face they were putting up for their employees could crumble at any moment. Sections of the film implying, team members resented Barlog for his leadership style and design choices in the game. However Raising Kratos displays the fortitude of these individuals and these teams, despite every hurdle they got back up and kept running. As gaming evolves, it becomes clearer and clearer that this is an art form that inspires such an incredible amount of commitment.
Even if you’re not a fan of the franchise, Raising Kratos is a great addition to documentaries dealing with the development of video games. While access doesn’t delve as deep as one would like, the film does tap into something deeply personal that will give one a new perspective on video games. It serves as an amazing redemptive story for a studio facing layoffs and further troubles and shows how suffering for one’s art has its rewards. The film doesn’t focus heavily on the laurels hurled at God of War, the uncertainty Santa Monica has, even in hindsight creeps out throughout and does leave one wondering if that made it all worth it?
Director: Brandon Akiaten
Cast: Cory Barlog, Shannon Studstill, Christopher Judge, Sunny Suljic, Bear McCreary, Yumi Yang
Release Date: May 10th 2019
Available to watch on Playstation Youtube
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
Comments