God of War Won't Have Any Cuts, According to Developer

God of War will strive to immerse players into Kratos’s new journey. One of the important elements of immersion will be the cinematography. The whole game will be presented as one single shot, switching seamlessly between gameplay and cutscenes. In a new video, the game’s Director of Photography Dori Arazi explains how they managed to pull it off.

According to the different promotional material that we’ve seen so far, the new God of War is shaping up to be quite the ambitious project. It’s clear that the developers are planning to present us with a drastically different game than what we’re used to. Kratos’s new journey will be much more emotional than before. He’s a parent now; harsh as he seems, he’s leagues softer than he was previously. To sell this new Kratos, the developers have to craft a very immersive experience to keep players hooked to this emotional journey.

Part of this magic will be the cinematography. That’s where a new God of War video published on the PlayStation channel comes in. It features God of War’s Director of Cinematography, Dori Arazi. In the video, Arazi explains how they managed to pull off the entire game with the “single-shot effect”. What this means is that the whole game will be presented as a single shot. No cuts, and presumably, no loading. This is a technique is difficult to pull off in movies, let alone games. In movies, it’s usually just one sequence; very few movies are shot that way throughout.

Now, God of War will be made in a way that only simulates the single shot; there are cuts in between, and, of course, gameplay. Still, it’s an impressive feat, and Arazi is rightfully proud. He explains that it was an extremely difficult process. It required a lot of communication, to begin with. Also, they had to execute every single cutscene perfectly, all in one take. You can learn further details from the video below.