Multiplayer for "God of War: Ascension" Revealed

How many Kratos' does it take to bring down a giant cyclops? Somewhere between two and eight, apparently.

A feature from Eurogamer has confirmed rumors that God of War: Ascension will bring multiplayer to the action series for the first time.

Ascension will feature both competitive and co-operative elements, pitting teams of players  battle each other and/or giant monsters. Multiplayer games can range from two to eight players, and can be played on or offline.

The demo revealed by SCEA showed Domination mode, where played fight for control of two key points on a map. That's pretty standard: What happens after the match is where Ascension stands out. The winning team doesn't simply earn bragging rights - They take on giant monster just like the one of bosses just like the ones you'd find in the single-player campaign.

"What makes God of War epic?" says director Todd Papy. "Killing a big guy does. That was the inception idea. How does that work in multiplayer? We're still going through that right now. What you saw today versus what we're going to ship with is going to change."

Like many team-based multiplayer games, GoWA will feature a class system that gives individual players sets of special skills in order to foster team play. Every character makes a deal with a god, just like Kratos did with Ares: Which god you choose will determine players' skill-sets. There are four gods to choose from: Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, and Ares.

Though much of the combat will remain true to the series, multiplayer will have a couple of unique game mechanics. For starters, tag-team attacks will apparently play a large role - special two-on-one and three-on-one attack sequences will help gangs of players dispatch their enemies. However, there will be a way for the victims of these attacks to avoid death, possibly even turning the tide of battle in their favor.

It's not all fantastic news: Papy conceded that the Ascension single-player story will be shorter than past entries in the God of War series. "We've mapped out everything and given time estimates. It'll be pretty damn close." Papy also made it clear that the development team isn't trading away single player content to bring multiplayer to the series. 

[Via Eurogamer]

Latest in Pop Culture