God of War 3 at GDC: New Footage, Framerate Details

SCE Santa Monica developers Jim Tilander and Vassily Fillipov presented a speech on God of War III's technology at GDC today, and as a reward for sitting quietly through the class, the two gave the crowd a peek at some gameplay footage of the anticipated title.

The video showed Kratos approaching a small, rocky area. The camera zoomed in to show a wounded soldier, then smoothly zoomed back to the over-the-shoulder view as a dozen or so spear-wielding enemies leapt down from above.

At one point a giant cyclops lept down to face Kratos, leading the player to jump on top of the beast in a series of timed button presses. What followed was a predictable scene of mayhem, as Kratos rode the cyclops in circles, a kill counter keeping track of his destruction.

Tilander and Fillipov explained that the game will not be locked at 60 frames per second, and will likely drop below that during intense scenes. However, it will never fall below 30 frames per second.

Responding to a question about cloth physics, Tilander also revealed that God of War 3 doesn't actually do any physics processing.

"I guess you might be surprised to hear this, but God of War 3 doesn't have physics," said Tilander. "So does that answer your question?"