With PS4 exclusive God of War’s massive success and fans already calling it ‘game of the decade,’ it is hard to imagine how close to the razor’s edge things were for Santa Monica Studios during development of the game. That said, Kratos’ latest adventure through Norse mythology is considered ‘perfect’ through many review outlets, and all that work had to have come from somewhere. Now, thanks to a recent interview with game director Cory Barlog, we know just how difficult things were for the studio during the development of God of War.

Cory Barlog recently sat down with the folks over at Games Industry to discuss the trials and tribulations of reinventing the iconic PlayStation series from the ground up. While Santa Monica Studios is now being lauded with creating one of the best games of the decade,  there were some very dark times during the development of the game, which Barlog touches upon in the interview.

“I wanted to give up many times throughout this game,” Barlog revealed. “At the beginning I wanted to give up. At the end of the game there were some dark, dark points.” Thankfully he did not give up, and he revealed that his team was in no small part responsible for keeping both the game – and him – together during the darker times.

The reason I ended up succeeding is because of this team, because of these people who cared so much about the individual aspect of the game that was theirs. They took ownership, and they pushed themselves farther beyond than they ever thought they would to get there.”

While many are already clamoring for a sequel to God of War, I think Barlog deserves at least a bit more R&R before we ask him to go through that again. Hopefully this time around, he’ll be able to take his time and not be forced to cram three years of work into two years.

God of War is now available exclusively for the PlayStation 4.

So, thoughts on the difficulties of developing God of War? What did you think of the game? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!