 Two years ago I stopped playing God of War. I don't know why I did it, I was loving the game and I was well on my way to completing it, having reached about the halfway point and having had the best of times. I tend to do that, just abandon the game I'm having a blast with and I've been working hard to go back to some of the greatest titles of this past decade and to complete them. Lucky for me university is out, there's a plague out that's keeping me from going home and I have an itch that only bearded men yelling GOMI can scratch. I don't usually cover console games because I don't yet have a capture card for the footage, but this time around I couldn't help myself. I need to talk about why the side quests in God of War 2018 work. This footage I've made use of I got from the YouTube channel KGL and UGC Gaming Media and I have of course linked to both these videos in the description below. Modern open world games suffer from a bloating of content. That is to say they often have far more gameplay than subject matter to discuss in stories to tell, so you wind up with something like Assassin's Creed Odyssey which has a hell of a main story, remarkable characters, fantastic side quests occasionally, such wrong of forgetables, content to really give you those solid 150 hours of playtime. God of War is not an exception to this, with many dozens of menial tasks such as killing 51 ravens, collecting masks and ships, masks of ships and ships of masks and another half dozen categories of side content. But what it does very well is it contextualizes side quests in a way that forgoes any feeling that you're doing busy work. While playing the Anatomy of Hope, I talk to myself, hey so this is a quest with a fairly basic gameplay structure. This is a run of the mill side quest. Go to three different locales in this large open world area, gather three pieces of an item, in this case the bones of Gullveague and bring them back to the quest giver. Have a final battle and grab your reward. Standard tarot fan, most games seem anemic to providing the necessary context of making it even a smidge attractive. So why does this work narratively here? It's the dynamics of the characters. The father-son relationship between creators and atreus is the emotional game rests on and every side quest explores a facet of it, a different one, a fresh one, one that gives you perspective. Side quests offer learning experiences and better yet these are a two-way street often enough. In the Anatomy of Hope atreus learns an important lesson about placing his trust in outsiders who have done nothing to deserve it. Long story short, a spirit asks the two to gather the bones of his beloved and that he will repaint them by building up a bridge to the afterlife which will allow atreus and kratos to talk with mother. Except early on kratos tells atreus the spirit lies. Trusting kratos in these masses is a good idea, something the game has given the player ample reasons. Do know by now. As kratos you have the choice not to teach the boy this lesson. As the boy's father it's his prerogative to choose to ignore his son's pleas to help the spirit. As player it's your prerogative to ignore any of the side quests and continue on your way. But choose to humor the boy and this feeds into the narrative of kratos allowing his son to make his own mistakes and to learn from them. The reason is internalised in that way. It's no longer something you do purely for experience or items or resources. It's a narrative, reason, complex and intriguing. Allow me to extend this argument further. In Fafnir's whetstone and its follow-up atreus learns to expect the worst, assume nothing and always anticipates an attack. While kratos finds that atreus is angry with him as the two discover the ghost of a man killed by his own son. This leads to a reversal of sorts when kratos asks atreus about why he's angry with him. For a few minutes it is atreus who takes on the responsibilities more commonly taken up by the father and not the child, reassuring kratos whose uncertainty and worry of course are not without base considering his own relationship with Zeus and how that all ended. And yet in this case, that uncertainty plays out sweet, shows an aspect of kratos that's anything but one note. See? Two-way street, multifaceted. By the end of the last side quest of this tentative quest chain which begins with Fafnir's whetstone, time heals all, kratos has a deeper understanding of atreus. His last words are, this single line is so good, I have to dig into it a little more. From early on in the game, atreus fears that he is a disappointment to his father because he is so unlike kratos and be known to him and to the player kratos fears the exact opposite, that atreus is too much like him or might become too much like him. And that is exactly why he has always been a distant parent, unknown and unknowable to his son, as illustrated by that perfect shot early on in the game. So what atreus hears here is, in a way, a confirmation of his own fears, but what his father says are some of the kindest words in the entire game. One last good example of the back and forth here can be found in the dread freight quest, which also involves a spirit and touches on the burden of leadership. The spirit who hands you this quest is out of a good leader of men, someone who took responsibility for his mistakes. These are good lessons for a child and better lessons for a god. They feed into the main narrative and underline the personal scope of the game's narrative. Boy, I used narrative a lot here, didn't I? Well, let me finish up by saying God of War accomplishes what so many other games fail in, making the pursuit of even the most basic side quest objectives a character-driven experience. Thank you all for watching. Join me next time. If you enjoyed this video, like, share and subscribe. Leave a comment down below. Tell me what you thought about the side's content in God of War, the side quests especially. Until next time, I'm Philip Magnus. Farewell.