12142018 Gamasutra - 'BOY' was Atreus tricky to implement, says God of War director
0#game information Just more layering.”
Throughout all this, however, Barlog points to one thing as the lynchpin keeping the wheels on the cart, what he refers to as the project’s “secret sauce” - the simple fact of God of War’s five-year dev cycle, which he says allowed for a level of handcrafted charm that truly allowed Atreus to shine. And that’s how we ended up with the boat, which was one of the game’s least popular features internally, until we finally implemented the storytime [conversations between Kratos and Atreus] less than nine months from the finish line.”
Barlog describes the process of creating a lifelike companion like Atreus as a tremendous amount of legwork, with the boy’s humanity slowly trickling in as features were implemented - he went from not speaking at all to only speaking in combat barks, for example.