Presentation
It only takes Kratos, his blades, and a few very unlucky gods to immediately think of Santa Monica Studio.
The association is logical. Since God of War in 2005, the American studio and its franchise have grown almost together. Yet this public image tells only part of its history.
Founded in 1999 within Sony around a team led by Allan Becker, Santa Monica Studio started with Kinetica, a futuristic racing game published on PlayStation 2 in 2001. A few years later, God of War completely changed its scale and became one of PlayStation's great signatures.
The series first developed a culture of spectacle: gigantic creatures, monumental architecture, outsized combat, and staging constantly seeking to involve the player in something larger than himself.
But this logic eventually met its own limit.
After pushing the mythological escalation very far, Santa Monica chose in 2018 not to simply make an even bigger God of War. The studio kept Kratos, but changed almost everything around him: mythology, camera, rhythm, combat, and above all the relationship to the character.
The Greek past then stopped being a catalog of old installments.
It became the hero's psychology.
This transformation is one of Santa Monica Studio's most interesting threads: using technology and continuity not to repeat what already worked, but to change how the player looks at a very well-known franchise.
In parallel, another story unfolds far from Kratos. For years, Santa Monica has accompanied external teams and contributed to projects like flOw, Flower, Journey, or The Unfinished Swan.
The contrast is immense.
On one side, one of PlayStation's most spectacular blockbusters.
On the other, smaller, contemplative, or experimental experiences.
This dual activity gives the studio a particular identity:
Santa Monica Studio has long used its production power in two different ways: to push the scale of its own works and to protect the creative space of others.
History
1999-2005: building the studio before building Kratos
Santa Monica Studio was founded in 1999 within Sony.
The initial team formed around Allan Becker and sought to develop a production culture where disciplines communicate enough for ideas to circulate quickly between technology, design, and art.
The studio's first game was Kinetica, published in 2001 on PlayStation 2.
The project has nothing to do with the mythology that would later define its public image. It nonetheless served as a first experimentation ground for a still young team and reminds us of something important: Santa Monica Studio exists before God of War.
The turning point came in 2005.
God of War immediately transformed the studio's stature.
Kratos became one of PlayStation's emblematic characters, while Santa Monica found in Greek mythology an ideal ground to develop monumental staging and combat where scale itself becomes part of gameplay.
God of War pushes spectacle to its limit
The following installments developed this logic.
Creatures became bigger.
Confrontations more ambitious.
The technology allowed staging spaces and situations that seemed disproportionate to the character.
For several years, this escalation fit perfectly with Kratos and his trajectory.
But it also produced a problem.
By constantly increasing spectacle, each installment risked becoming a slightly bigger version of the previous one.
Santa Monica gradually reached a creative frontier: the franchise cannot continue forever by simple escalation.
The studio then had to decide what it really wanted to preserve.
The other story: supporting projects that don't look like God of War
While God of War took the spotlight, Santa Monica also developed an important supporting role with external teams.
The studio notably worked with thatgamecompany and Giant Sparrow and contributed to supporting productions like flOw, Flower, Journey, or The Unfinished Swan.
These projects share almost nothing with God of War in tone or scale.
This is precisely what makes this activity interesting.
Santa Monica does not try to turn the supported teams into smaller versions of itself.
Its role is rather to provide a framework, resources, and expertise solid enough for more fragile or unusual ideas to reach the public.
The studio thus learns to recognize two forms of creative risk.
In a blockbuster, the risk can come from technical complexity and production size.
In a smaller project, it can consist of protecting a simple idea long enough for it not to be normalized before finding its form.
2018: reinventing God of War without erasing its past
With God of War, released in 2018, Santa Monica chose a third path between repetition and complete restart.
Kratos remains, but the world changes: the mythology becomes Norse, the camera moves closer, combat is redesigned, and the pace slows. Above all, Kratos becomes the father of Atreus.
This decision changes the entire reading of the character.
The old Kratos is not erased.
He becomes precisely what makes the new one interesting.
The warrior who now seeks to teach his son self-mastery is also the one whose past is full of violence, anger, and irreversible decisions.
Santa Monica thus turns continuity into narrative material.
The franchise's past becomes the character's past.
Technology changes purpose
The 2018 narrative transformation also required a major technical transformation.
Santa Monica chose to present the adventure as a continuous shot, without a visible cut between most gameplay and narrative sequences.
This constraint changes animation, transitions, loading, staging, and character positioning.
Technology is no longer only used to show something gigantic.
It also serves to preserve closeness.
The same team capable of building a monumental creature must now make a silence, a glance, or a conversation between a father and his son credible.
Atreus reinforces this evolution further.
He is not only a scripted character.
He accompanies Kratos, intervenes in combat, participates in exploration, and comments on the world.
The relationship is therefore built during gameplay as much as in written scenes.
2022: consolidating instead of reinventing again
God of War Ragnarök was released in 2022.
The challenge was no longer to show that a radical reinvention could work.
It was to prove that this new form had enough depth to sustain continuity.
Santa Monica therefore developed the relationships, realms, and conflicts already in place rather than immediately provoking a new rupture.
This period shows another form of maturity.
A studio able to change strongly must also know how to recognize when it is better to deepen than to start over.
What Sets It Apart
Transforming a franchise without renouncing its history
Santa Monica Studio remains deeply associated with a single major property.
Its creative problem is therefore different from that of a studio that can simply abandon its universe whenever it wants to change.
The 2018 reinvention provides a particularly strong answer:
do not erase the past, but change what it means.
The old installments become a memory Kratos carries with him.
Continuity stops being only a commercial constraint.
It becomes a dramatic tool.
Using technology for scale as well as intimacy
Santa Monica historically masters spectacle.
But its modern period shows that this expertise can serve very different purposes.
A technology can make a gigantic titan credible.
It can also move the camera closer, keep a companion in frame, and make the transition between interaction and narration more natural.
Technical sophistication is therefore not the signature in itself.
The signature lies more in how this sophistication serves the emotion or scale sought by the project.
Turning a constraint into a production rule
The continuous shot of God of War illustrates this culture well.
The choice is aesthetic.
But it immediately produces technical, narrative, and organizational constraints.
A cut can no longer hide a change.
Transitions must work in front of the camera.
Characters must stay consistent in space.
Loading must be absorbed differently.
A formal decision ends up organizing almost the entire production.
Santa Monica shows that some constraints become interesting precisely because they force several disciplines to solve the same problem together.
Supporting other voices without making them uniform
Santa Monica's other great historical singularity comes from its external collaborations.
Journey, Flower, or The Unfinished Swan do not look like God of War.
That is exactly what matters.
The studio's support is not about imposing its own aesthetic.
It is about using a large structure as a protected space for ideas that don't need to become blockbusters to have value.
An identity built around transformation
Santa Monica goes from a racing game to Greek mythology.
God of War then goes from almost maximalist spectacle to a much more intimate adventure.
Tools, camera, and combat change, as does the way Kratos is looked at.
The studio's continuity therefore does not come from an immobile formula.
It comes from a recurring question:
what must be transformed for this work to stay alive?
Good to Know
- Santa Monica Studio was founded in 1999 within Sony.
- The original team formed around Allan Becker.
- Kinetica, released in 2001 on PlayStation 2, is the studio's first game.
- God of War appeared in 2005 and progressively became its main public identity.
- Santa Monica Studio also has a long history of supporting external developers, notably thatgamecompany and Giant Sparrow.
- The studio contributed to supporting projects like flOw, Flower, Journey, and The Unfinished Swan.
- God of War (2018) profoundly reinvented the series around Norse mythology and the relationship between Kratos and Atreus.
- The 2018 game is designed around a camera presented as a continuous shot.
- God of War Ragnarök was released in 2022 and continues this new period.
- Santa Monica Studio belongs to Sony Interactive Entertainment and is part of PlayStation Studios.