Cory Barlog Shares His Original Plans for God of War Trolls Lore

For players, God of War‘s Trolls may either be considered a nuisance or an exciting gameplay challenge. Regardless, these creatures mostly come across as brutish with somewhat of an intellectual sensibility about them. They were, after all, once a flourishing race of peoples. Yet, not much is known about them. While Troll lore receives cursory exposition throughout the game, thanks to Mimir’s stories and other side content, Director Cory Barlog has revealed that he intended their mythology to be far more expansive.

In an interview with Noclip, Barlog shared regrets he harbors about God of War’s development in hindsight. One regret in particular concerns the Trolls, and their designation as boss battles. Because a regular enemy health bar wouldn’t work on Trolls, due to their size, the team at Santa Monica Studio decided to add a “boss bar” to each one when Kratos engaged in combat with them. Each Troll was also given a name, prompting Barlog to conceptualize about their history.

The director told Noclip,

I had a whole lore behind the Trolls, which I thought was such a great story that kind of filled in the mythology. But it never really got a chance to breathe, because we also had to sculpt that down. It became, you’ll get it in the journal, and then you might hear a little bit about it from Mimir.

But it was gonna be a big story of there was three tribes of Trolls. Then, through Tyr’s sort of messing about and the deals between him and Odin, they kind of eliminated all the Trolls. They performed kind of a genocide on these people. So the last Trolls that remain are bitter, angry Trolls that wonder around the world and a just like, ‘I will fight anyone who comes at me, because all of you are responsible for destroying what was a very thriving culture of Trolls.’ They lived in villages, they had languages, and it was three different groups of Trolls that didn’t communicate heavily, but they started fighting each other when Tyr was manipulating them. Either way, that never really got in the way I wanted.

It’s unclear how this mythology would have been weaved into the story. Through Mimir’s stories or other collectibles similar to the Jötnar shrines, perhaps? Still, it is fascinating to hear these anecdotes, specifically with regards to cut content.

Barlog also recently discussed ideas he and the team had for God of War DLC. Unfortunately, that, too, was set aside, as it would’ve have been far too big for a DLC release.