The video game series God of War heavily relies on traditional Norse mythology to tell its story, but it can often stray from the path to suit its narrative. Sometimes this involves changing characters and storylines altogether.
The game was a huge success. So with our audience’s newfound passion for Norse mythology, we presented the game to a well-known Norse language and myth expert and not only got him to react to what he’s seeing, but educate the audience about the changes and their likely inspirations.
The challenge is always how you present the contents of a 25-hour-long story to a self-confession video game newcomer. What’s involved is a carefully selected curation process that not only provokes talking points our audience will be interested in, but also doesn’t overwhelm the expert. The recording session with the expert was tricky to navigate and finding the balance between entertainment and education is difficult, but I’m proud of what we accomplished.
The video was not only a huge commercial and critical success, but it fueled huge discussions in the comments about Norse mythology and its ambiguous depictions over the years. The audience was interested in how their game weaved through these ancient stories and our expert was the perfect authority to explain it.
