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Game Mechanics To Increase Narrative: God of War

Successful video games tend to utilize their game mechanics to increase narrative and push the story along. After watching the two videos and playing loneliness, the first game that game to mind about mechanics as metaphor, and using game mechanics to enhance a story is the newest God of War. The story-line in God of War is easily one of my top five favorite stories of all time, and I believe is arguably one of the best storied video games ever made. There is an underlying mechanic that is portrayed throughout that is implicitly emphasized. Although the ultimate goal of the game is to spread your wife's ashes at the highest point in the nine realms, while evading Odin's men, the underlying goal that is not explicitly explained is the relationship between Kratos and Atreus, and the character development of Kratos in terms of fatherhood.

As an avid player of the entire God of War series, I knew Kratos as the demigod controlled by rage and vengeance; this was the character I grew to love over the original trilogy and what I anticipated for the newest installment. However, what I received was a much calmer Kratos who has relinquished his past identity in order to protect Atreus from discovering who he used to be. Throughout the game, we are shown different instances where Kratos is struggling with how to treat Atreus, whether that be to coddle him in moments of Atreus' anguish, or to teach him how to take care of himself because of the dangers coming for them. Even though Kratos does not explicitly explain his struggles, we are able to see and understand his inability to make a definitive choice in certain situations; the realistic struggle of fatherhood displayed by Kratos drastically improves the narrative throughout this story because without it, we would have a boring stock character in Kratos, which would be aggravating for loyal players of the series because going from a murderous god killer to a melancholy, laid-back demigod would have left us wanting more in terms of  an inner conflict. 

The specific mechanics that displayed Kratos' struggles with fatherhood were in the dialogue and certain sub parts of missions. For example, when you are fighting for your life against Thor's two sons, there is a clear discrepancy in what Kratos' does with Atreus and what he thinks would be a better option. Kratos knows, and so do you as the player, that Atreus being in the fight is a weakness, especially against a god's sons, but what we see is Kratos allowing Atreus to be involved to learn the survival skills necessary in such a battle. Kratos would be better off trying to protect Atreus by removing him from the situation. but instead keeps him involved to teach him; to me this is a clear example of the struggle, and we see it in how Kratos speaks to Atreus and how he acts throughout this battle.

The success of this mechanic gave the game a deeper, more realistic tone. Fatherhood is something that most men will deal with at some point in their lives, so I believe implementing that type of conflict made a demigod more relatable, which allowed for the player to connect with Kratos more, as well as still thoroughly enjoy the brutal killing of countless enemies.

Up next I will be diving into the immersive world of Rapture in Bioshock, Talk soon. 

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