A longtime industry veteran has now found a permanent home in a somewhat unlikely place. God of War 2 Director Cory Barlog has now joined Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider) in a yet to be revealed capacity. The man behind the second God of War game left Sony Santa Monica shortly after the game released to pursue greener pastures, one of which was working on a Mad Max video game.
Neither Crystal Dynamics nor Cory have commented as to what we can expect from this announcement in the future, but all around its good news. While not a huge industry figurehead like Ken Levine, Cory does have a lot of talent both as a Game Director and a writer as he returned to the God of War series to pen the script for God of War: Ghost of Sparta. Right now work on Tomb Raider is being wrapped up so I doubt Cory will add anything major input to that, but Crystal Dynamics is working on an unannounced project which I’m hoping deep inside my gamer heart is a new Legacy of Kain title.
Cory’s new position with Crystal Dynamics is good and all but it does bring up the question of whatever happened to the Mad Max video game. While never publicly announced and detailed, Cory did reveal that he was serving as the Game Director on the Mad Max game along with alluding that Avalanche (Just Cause 2) were developing the title. But considering the last we heard of the Mad Max game in any form was two years ago one would have to assume that something is amiss with the project and based on previous comments it seemed like the project switched developers to KMM, the video game company created by Max Mad creator/director George Miller. I guess the possible developer switch may not have pleased Cory hence his exit from the project.
As a gamer I’m just hyped to see what Cory can do at Crystal Dynamics. I think Cory is one of those guys who simply gets how to make a game thoroughly entertaining and Crystal Dynamics have improved incredibly as a studio in the last few years. Even if a new Legacy of Kain game remains nothing more than a dream scenario, I’m sure there’s some goodness brewing between Crystal Dynamics and Cory Barlog and I can’t wait to see what it is.
