God of War Ascension will be a prequel to the God of War series but that’s not important today because this article will be focused on the games multiplayer mode which is the first for what used to be a single player series although that’s nothing new since the Assassin’s Creed series manages to do the same thing successfully
. God of War Ascension is due to be released for PS3 on the 13th March 2013.
In what I can only assume to be a first for a multiplayer game after you create a character you will then have to choose which of the four available gods you want your character to sell their soul to. The four gods you can choose from are Zeus, Ares, Poseidon and Hades and each god will grant your character a different fighting style and powers like how Zeus warriors get increased mana and the warriors of Ares deal but also take more damage. As you gain levels you will also unlock weapons, armour and spells specific to your chosen god.
Ascensions multiplayer is supports up to eight players who will be split into two teams, the Spartans and Troy. Ascensions main multiplayer mode is called “Favour of the Gods” in where two teams of players try to reach the target score. The only map shown so far is a desert map where both teams try to earn enough favour for the Gods so the Gods will drop the Spear of Olympus so they can slay the Titan Cyclops Polyphemus. If however the losing team is low enough to the target score when the spear drops then if they reach the spear first they can use it to kill the Cyclops and win the match otherwise they’ll just use it to wound the Cyclops and gain more points. You can earn points by killing enemies, capturing altars and collecting red orb.
In the areas you’ll be able to active traps or set them to activate when an enemy runs over it although there will be clues that the traps are active. There are also powerful weapons scattered around the areas that you can wield for a short while like a club that will send enemies flying and Hermes shoes that will make you faster and slows down the enemies fall after you launch them. One problem I noticed when watching a trailer is that sense players enter the area from a zip-line it would be easy for multiple players to camp near the zip line and spend the entire match killing anyone who spawns there although multiple spawning areas would help prevent this.
So far God of Wars multiplayer mode looks surprisingly good although it could do with more than one game mode but the closer God of War gets to it release date hopefully more maps and modes will be revealed.
