God of War: Ragnarok’s production was impacted significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new video by Sony Santa Monica Studio. According to Ariel Angelotti, Senior Producer for Narrative, they were shooting footage for Ragnarok as late as a week before the lockdowns began in March of 2020.
“I remember being on and off that set, running back to the office and having to talk to studio leadership about what was going down, and how this was going to impact us moving forward,” Angelotti said. “And those were trying times.”
It’s the nature of the business to work directly with actors for motion capture. Especially in the case of God of War: Ragnarok. But, according to Jodie Kupsco, Supervising Dialogue Designer, they were forced to exercise unique methods of adaptation to ensure safety was prioritized alongside quality.
“We had some actors stand in for other characters,” said Angelotti. “Actors who were already core to one of the scenes might just be able to play a background character in another scene, to be able to avoid a situation where too many people were on set on any given day.”
Angelotti goes on to explain that they sought to avoid compromising God of War: Ragnarok’s story as a result of these newfound limitations.
“There were no cinematics that we changed. We still have the same characters in them in the final game, we just had to get a bit creative with how we shot the content.”
Because the pandemic has stretched as long as it has, Kupsco explained, the actor who portrayed Kratos’ son Atreus experienced voice changes in the time since production began.
“His voice changed dramatically throughout the several years on this title,” Kupsco said. “We had to go in and even out that performance so it sounds like it took place over a short period of time.”
Related: Live-Action God of War Series in the Works at Amazon
God of War: Ragnarok is set to release November 9, 2022. It was initially announced in 2020 with plans to release in 2021. It will be available for both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Published: Oct 18, 2022 03:58 pm