Cory Barlog, creative director at SIE Santa Monica Studio.
Cory Barlog, creative director at SIE Santa Monica Studio.
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God of War postmortem — Cory Barlog’s advice for game developers

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

God of War creative director Cory Barlog is sitting on top of the world after winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards. After a five-year journey (which was more like seven years for him), his story about a father-son relationship came together as both a gameplay and storytelling masterpiece.

I did a long interview with Barlog, who’s the creative director at Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Santa Monica Studio, about God of War. I asked him a few questions related to his advice for game developers and his view of design trends in the industry.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.