In making God of War 3, it seemed like Sony Santa Monica threw everything at gamers but the kitchen sink. With battles that were a thousand times larger than life and a story that took players on a warpath against many of the Greek Gods, it appeared as if every idea the developers had ended up in the game. Unfortunately, there were some rather appealing ideas tossed around that ended up never making it into the final product. A new video interview with the team offers a brief taste of what could have been.

One of the main things that Sony Santa Monica was forced to do in order to make the game's release date and ensure a polished experience was to minimize a lot of their ideas. Instead of just cutting out whole sections, which still had to be done, many stages were made smaller to accommodate putting effort into other areas of the game. For example, one maze level was originally planned as having somewhere in the vicinity of 32 rooms, but the number was brought down to keep gamers from becoming frustrated.

A small puzzle involving a character called Ixiom and a much more epic final battle are among the levels that were altogether removed from the game. The puzzle with Ixiom required the player to spin a series of wheels in order to flood a room, thereby drowning Ixiom. The developers don’t shed much light on why this puzzle didn’t end up working, though the goal does seem rather confusing.

God of War 3 does have an epic set of battles, but in comparison, the final battle is a bit lacking. Originally, the game was to have a final three-way confrontation between Kratos, Zeus, and Gaia. In the brief taste of the battle shown in the video, we can see that while Kratos is in a hand-to-hand battle with Zeus, similar to what happens in the finished game, Gaia is shaking the platform on which the two are standing. At the end of the day, the developers had to make a decision on whether they wanted to add polish to some of the bigger battles or to make this final stage work. Given that there are a few camera problems here and there during the battle, perhaps they made the right choice.

God of War 3 ended up being a very engaging experience, and knowing that it might be the end of Kratos' story on PS3 made the experience all the more bittersweet. Getting a brief taste of what could have been certainly should entice players to jump back into the game once more, or maybe even to check out Ghost of Sparta. What Sony Santa Monica ended up putting into the game made for some of the best gaming experiences of all time.

Would you have rather had one of the other boss battles suffer in order to help polish the Gaia/Kratos/Zeus battle? What would you have liked to see Sony take out in order to make room for the Ixiom puzzle?

God of War 3 is out now for the PS3.

Source: 1UP