God of War Ragnarok is nothing to sniff at. With players playing between 20 and 50 hours of gameplay, this foray into Norse mythology is expansive and quite difficult to plan.
The organization of the plot, combat and exploration in God of War Ragnarok would give anyone a headache. in interview with Game Informer (opens in a new tab) God of War Ragnarok director Eric Williams explained how he and his team overcame this massive task.
The solution to all this was simple: create one Excel spreadsheet to rule them all. This spreadsheet broke down every moment of the game and “how much time you’re going to spend in them,” Williams said.
Despite the size of the spreadsheet, only “10% of the final product” was predicted, Williams added. Even after many pages of content, reigning in God of War still proved particularly difficult.
Perfect planning
During the development of God of War Ragnarok, Williams learned that he had Aphantasia
Some might think that a master Excel spreadsheet of this size is quite intimidating. However, it turns out that this detailed planning was crucial to Williams as director of God of War Ragnarok.
During the development of God of War Ragnarok, Williams learned that he had Aphantasia. It describes the inability to form a mental image of an object that is not right in front of you. Williams described it as if you were telling him to “think of a green apple.” I can not see it. I can’t imagine anything in my head.”
That’s why the voluminous Excel spreadsheet was so groundbreaking for Williams. “I had to compensate for that with a crazy ton of references,” said Williams; I need “images for everything”.
Hiero-gif-ics
There were definitely images of everything in that spreadsheet. From the fight scenes to the dialogue, if you can think of it, it was probably there. But the icing on the cake was the appalling amount of GIFs.
In the end, the spreadsheet contained about 6,000 GIFs. One of the best moments was when Williams described through images and GIFs the exact type of roundhouse kick he wanted in the fight scene. When his team told him that they already knew what a roundhouse kick looked like, he replied “yes, but not this one.”
Some developers even accused Williams of “taking all the creative fun away” from creating the fight scenes. It took a while for both parties to get used to each other. “They had to get used to me because he is completely different from Cory [Barlog, director of God of War 2018]Williams said. At first he thought, “why are they so hard?” until he realized that his penchant for GIFs and bulky Excel spreadsheets was not the norm.
Thankfully, everyone was able to work through their differences, and the final product is something we thought was truly memorable. Turns out Williams’ need for spreadsheets and GIFs may have been the best thing that happened to God of War Ragnarok, as the game has an amazing sense of identity and direction.
