Quotes from Cory Barlog

I wanted to experiment with more deliberate combat but I never wanted to lose that DNA of what 'God of War' is.

We're growing into an entertainment medium as opposed to 'We make games. We make Mario jump.' We no longer have to focus so hard on the technical hurdles and can ask, as a player, why am I doing this? Why am I making these choices? Games that don't have that strong foundation stumble.

At its root, 'God of War' was always the promise of adventure.

My wife is Swedish, so I'm familiar with the Scandinavian kind of odd humor. It's very dark and very deadpan.

The Resident Evil' series. Not only are they great games, but the creators' willingness to reinvent the game every so often is something I think positively affects our industry.

Puzzles are always a difficult thing, I don't think I've played any games where the puzzles are perfectly contextualised, unless the entire game is a puzzle game built upon that concept.

I'm not a competitive player at all, but I don't want competitive games to go away, because for some people that's why they play games, to compete.

It's better to do something really really well and thorough, than I think to have a surface level version of a lot of different things.

If something evokes a strong emotional reaction in me, I need to push myself in that direction.

You have to have this straddling balance of realizing that games are incredibly complex. You can have an idea of where you want to go with something, the structure of something, but the actual moment to moment figuring all this out-it unravels over the course of, in 'God of War''s case, about five years.

Play the way you want to play. I want to give as much power back over to the player as possible. That's where games are leaning: give me the tools, let me do what I want to do with it. Let me solve the problem the way I want to solve it - experience the combat the way I want to experience it.

Resident Evil 4' truly changed the way I look at making games.

We did so much work developing the character of Kratos, why would we throw all that out? We're sort of treating the first seven games like chapter one of this character's life.

The Wii is fun, but nothing feels all that accurate or precise. I don't want to play an action game with controls that sloppy.

But that's a part of life; you're going through and nothing ever works out how you wanted. Nothing ever completed cleanly the way that you wanted. It is sloppy and messy, and when you think it's over, 'Oh great. We have a bit more to do.' There's always another bit of road ahead, even when you think you've gotten to the end.

Any sort of major change we want to make in our life is hard. Change is not easy and true change takes time and takes thousands, millions probably, of failures along that path and that's the interesting thing.

Picking just one game above all is nearly impossible for me, but if I had to, it would be 'Metal Gear Solid.' I remember being completely blown away with the story, the mechanics and the overall presentation on my first playthrough.

The thing I really liked about the early 'God Of War' games was the idea that from the menu screen it felt like you went right into the game.

Working with George Miller was an education. It was eight college degrees in character development and directing all at once.

I went to work with George Miller on game stuff, but to also learn every possible thing I could from somebody I admire so much.

I'm very - I love talking about games, I love talking about movies and TV shows and love what I do at work. But after work, I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm super private. I stay home.

Sometimes a crazy idea can make something special.

And I could see - this franchise is very successful for Sony and I think it's awesome. I was big part of making that a success for them and I think it's great that they should continue doing it, but I don't want to make 'God of War IV' and 'God of War V' and 'God of War: The Expansion Pack' and 'God of War: The Role-Playing Kart Racing Game.'

There are some who expect every game to make a dramatic change the way that 'Resident Evil 4' did over its predecessors. And for that series I think the change was fantastic and completely necessary. I honestly think it should have happened much sooner than it did. But that kind of change is not necessary for every game.