The axe, this Leviathan axe.

KRISTEN: There it is.

SID: So cool.

KRISTEN: Just throwing it back and forth.

SID: And just recalling it. Look at that, tripping enemies.

JUSTIN: Oh yeah.

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYING]

SID: Hey, everybody, welcome back to PlayStation Underground.

We got something real special lined up today.

Myself, Sid Shuman, Justin Massongill and Kristen Titus are

going to walk you through some new footage from God of War,

launching on PS4 April 20th.

And my goodness gracious, does this game look sensational.

What do you guys think?

JUSTIN: Wow. That looks very good.

SID: Now Justin. You have not played it.

JUSTIN: I'm coming totally fresh here.

SID: That's right.

Kristen, you and I got a chance to play this.

KRISTEN: Yes. Yes we did.

SID: And I think it's safe to say

that we liked what we played.

JUSTIN: So first things first,

I'm noticing R1, R2 for your attacks.

That's a big change.

SID: Yes, indeed. No more face buttons.

I believe that is still an option that you can select as an

optional thing.

But you're going to see why when you start playing the game.

It's just a lot more tactile. It's a lot more immersive.

And here we have a parry.

You still have that classic action from God of War.

And I'll say something,

this axe, this Leviathan axe --

KRISTEN: There it is.

JUSTIN: That's rad. SID: So cool.

KRISTEN: Just throwing it back and forth.

SID: And just recalling it, tripping enemies.

JUSTIN: Oh yeah.

So tell me how the actual mechanics

of using that axe works.

You use it like a boomerang?

SID: No, you throw it and you sort of aim at something.

You toss it.

And if it hits an enemy, it will freeze 'em in place.

You can use it in puzzles.

You can then hit a button -- I think it's square --

you can recall it back in your hand.

You can see he's frozen.

Now, right now, Kratos, the fisticuffs is very,

very fun in this game as much fun as the axe.

What do you think, Kristen?

KRISTEN: I loved whenever I would throw the axe and just

start beating up on somebody else.

Occasionally you'll have an enemy where you'll have to you

use that tactic.

It definitely wants you to use everything in your arsenal.

JUSTIN: So you have completely different move sets depending on

whether the axe is in his hands or stuck in an enemy's chest.

SID: You have a shield, like a full blown shield.

A little dab of Dark Souls there.

You kind of walk around.

Shield comes in handy for this hand-to-hand combat too.

JUSTIN: The best defense is a good offense, right?

SID: So these are the lighter slashes with the axe

that I think is R1.

And it's a little bit reminiscent of the classic games

just with more impact.

You can see juggling the enemy, hammering them to the ground.

JUSTIN: That looks really chunky.

SID: Oh yeah.

I was talking to Cory Barlog,

he's the creative director at Santa Monica,

and they wanted this weapon, this Leviathan axe,

to have a weight to it.

And I say mission accomplished.

KRISTEN: Absolutely.

JUSTIN: I see a chain over there to the left.

SID: That's cool.

Still got those brutal --

JUSTIN: Yeah.

They are not toning down the brutality in this game.

SID: That's right.

There's that chain your eagle eye caught.

And here's a good example of a puzzle.

I remember this one instantly. This axe.

JUSTIN: Oh cool.

SID: Little things like that I really like how they come up

with the puzzle solving in this.

I liked the puzzles in last game,

but it got to be a bit much

with the block pushing and everything.

They really open that up in this game.

JUSTIN: Big change.

You didn't have to mash that button to open the chest.

SID: That's correct.

And Hacksilver is one of the resources you'll collect.

JUSTIN: Is that like a currency, a crafting material?

What's that all about?

SID: All of the above.

KRISTEN: A little bit of both.

Just recall that axe.

SID: So cool.

KRISTEN: Nothing is more satisfying when you do it.

SID: Got the big guy here.

JUSTIN: Big boy. SID: Yep.

So, interesting detail here, you can either sort of let Atreus

just circle the perimeter, and he'll kind of do his own thing,

call out enemy positions, things like that,

or you can actually manually direct him

with the "son" button, which I think is square.

You can aim and have him fire at what you want.

JUSTIN: I like how the axe bounced off him right there.

That's kind of fun.

SID: These trolls are not easy; I can tell you that right now.

KRISTEN: But Atreus definitely becomes very helpful.

He can distract your enemy for you;

he can sort of draw their attention

so you can dive right in there.

You have to give him some time to build back those arrows,

so they won't always be there.

JUSTIN: You can't always say fire, fire, fire.

KRISTEN: Exactly.

JUSTIN: Oh, and I see on the bottom right,

is that an indication of how many arrows he has available?

SID: Exactly.

This guy takes punishment.

The detail on these characters is staggering.

Real quick, if you look at Kratos here,

look at his butt, his thighs,

you can see his remnants of his old armor poking out.

You see those red straps?

JUSTIN: Oh.

SID: See what I mean. There's a ton of details.

Look at the wrappings on his arms from the chains.

It's super, super cool character design in this.

Obviously he's got the classic red war paint or scar

or whatever that is.

Different kinds of chests have different animations.

JUSTIN: That's one way to open a chest.

KRISTEN: Classic Kratos.

JUSTIN: He doesn't have time to open chests.

SID: There's a lot of looting in this game.

There's a lot of kind of just items and things,

reasons to explore sort of the world around you.

I was digging into every nook and cranny.

JUSTIN: Do we know any more about how that all works,

like the progression in terms of the currency systems?

SID: Yeah.

We're going to see a little bit more of that later on.

But, yeah.

It is deeper than you might be anticipating.

So stay tuned.

JUSTIN: Oh, I got the old instruction manual here.

SID: That's very funny.

JUSTIN: Reversible box art there.

KRISTEN: A little bit of Norse mythology.

Atreus the scholar.

SID: Yeah.

He can sort of the read all the runic messages that are

scattered around.

JUSTIN: Is Kratos able to read that stuff?

SID: He is not.

JUSTIN: Oh, I see.

SID: So that's one of the things that's interesting about this

game -- that's super cool right there.

I love that.

Atreus really is, as you could see, he's not --

there's like zero maintenance involved.

Here's one of these kills.

Bam.

Satisfying.

Yeah.

You can -- there's actually a stun quality that you can apply

to enemies using your fists.

So you kind of add stun damage, and then you can click R3 and do

the sort of one-hit takedown which is really satisfying.

JUSTIN: Man, the way enemies react to hits is so just like --

SID: Juicy.

JUSTIN: So organic. It looks awesome.

I saw something on the side of the screen a moment ago

that said "new labor."

It looked like those are, like, challenges.

I saw when he shattered that enemy it said

"New labor, Shatterer."

I assume that if you go shatter a bunch of enemies --

KRISTEN: Exactly.

The more enemies that you come into contact with,

the more you fill out your bestiary.

You'll get labors like "kill this amount of enemies,

and you can receive X, Y, and Z."

But some of them will be do a specific move to take them down.

Just giving you a little bit more challenge

than just a hack and slash.

SID: Look at Atreus holding that guy down.

And then look at that, kicking people into each other.

KRISTEN: It's just seamless. SID: Yeah.

JUSTIN: A tool tip a moment ago, "Press down on the D pad to do a

quick turn."

KRISTEN: Absolutely.

You'll also see on the bottom left there's a meter towards the

bottom that is filling up

as Kratos keeps beating people down.

That's his rage meter.

SID: Spartan Rage.

KRISTEN: So when that fills up --

SID: Some things just don't change, Justin.

As you could see -- bam.

I mean, it's just really crunchy combat.

That's the thing that I immediately noticed

as soon as I started playing.

Man, that axe feels good.

JUSTIN: The camera actually lends to the way that combat

feels too.

KRISTEN: Absolutely.

JUSTIN: It shakes a little bit when there's an impact.

KRISTEN: You get a sense of that impact.

SID: I mean, the Blades of Exile,

the Blades of Chaos from the last games,

they were really cool weapons, but this one just has this sort

of nastiness to it that I really appreciate.

It will feel familiar when you're using it.

There's some of the strategies are still kind of evoked there.

JUSTIN: Another new thing -- I guess you sort of had -- I guess

there was the progression in the old games.

Now you have the standard XP.

SID: Yeah.

We're going to get a closer look a little later.

KRISTEN: The effects here are just insane.

JUSTIN: I like how they actually went to the trouble of building

in the little hook on the back of his armor for the axe

rather than having it just floating there.

SID: So, as the game reminded us, there's actually different

levels of enemies that you fight.

So that was actually a super smart move there,

driving that guy off that cliff.

But some of these Draugrs you're fighting here -- that's some of

the foot soldiers, the undead foot soldiers --

some of them are much tougher than others.

JUSTIN: "Hold L1 and then press R1 to perform a light runic

attack."

SID: That is a type of magic. It's something that you can get.

You can imbue your attacks with it.

JUSTIN: Was that R3?

SID: Yeah. And that was my move.

I would run in there bare-knuckle brawling.

I loved it. So fun.

JUSTIN: I love how the axe can even hit guys on the way.

It's smart to throw the axe at somebody that's kind of line of

sight with yourself and then call it back.

SID: It is much more strategic, the combat in this game.