8 Crucial Lessons I Learned by Playing God of War 4 That Will Help Software Engineers

Can you imagine what are the crucial lessons from God of War and even more curious, how they connect with software development?

** Spoiler alert, I will reveal some information about the game, only continue if you don’t mind about it. **

In the God of War 4 game, Kratos is more mature and has now his son Atreus. Kratos’s wife dies at the beginning of the game and then she is cremated and her wish is that her ashes are thrown from the highest mountain in Midgard.

Kratos and Atreus then start their journey to take her ashes from the top of a mountain but many things happen during their journey, Atreus is unprepared for the challenge and Kratos has to mentor him about how to be a great fighter.

I learned many things that can be applied for us software engineers, let’s then explore the following points.

1 – Stay Focused

During the game Atreus tends to lose focus on his main objective, he gets distracted several times which might lead to failure of achieving the main objective, Kratos constantly reminds Atreus to stay focused on the main objective. I see this same focus problem happening to many software developers, sometimes it’s very tempting to try to learn everything all in once since technology evolves so fast and there are tons of microservices technologies out there. But trying to embrace the world usually leads to no results and frustration.

Lack of focus is the best way to grow slowly in the software development career and comparing with the God of War 4 game, it’s very wise from Kratos to stay focused consistently.

2 – Help People on the Way

While Kratos and Atreus are on their journey, they see the dwarf Sindri who builds weapons and armors for them being attacked by a huge dragon, Atreus immediately wants to help him, Kratos is not so sure but in the end, they decide to attack the dragon. It’s a tough battle, Kratos and Atreus win the battle, the dwarf gives an amazing reward to them, he gives a special arrow that is the only one to beat Baldur the son of Odin, and Freya who is invulnerable to physical or magical attacks. If this special arrow wasn’t given to Atreus, Kratos would probably die in his final battle with Baldur.

The same might happen with software development, when you see people who need help, it’s great to help them, I am not saying that we should use our whole time to help everyone, if we do that we lose focus. However, it’s good to help people in a way that won’t make us lose focus, amazing friendships or connections might be lost if we deny help. One thing that is useful to apply is the 5 minutes rule, if you don’t have time to help someone, offer 5 minutes of your time to help this person. By doing that you will be amazing connections, you won’t lose your focus, and might even receive an amazing reward just like the special arrow from the dwarf Sindri. Just don’t forget to help someone else without expecting anything in exchange, otherwise, you are trading, not giving.

3 – Have a Mentor

Kratos and Atreus just wanted to have a normal life isolated from the world, however, Baldur the invulnerable goes to Krato’s house and threats him and his son, Kratos realize that it’s not a good idea to stay at home and decide to go on a journey with his son.

Atreus clearly is not prepared for the journey and Kratos has the big challenge of mentoring his son in the danger. Atreus doesn’t know how to control himself yet, he acts emotionally on battles. Kratos and Atreus go through several tough situations and in a very short time, Atreus becomes a fine warrior and that’s the power of having a mentor.

I also had and have a mentor and with his help, I could massively grow in a short period of time, you can also do the same.

4 – Stay Vigilant

In a certain part of the game, Kratos and Atreus are going to the top of the mountain through a big elevator, many enemies appear in this elevator. Kratos is ready for the battle and Atreus asks him “father, why do you worry about the enemies if you are so strong”? Kratos answers “staying vigilant is what keeps us alive and it also serves me well”.

That’s an important lesson from the game which means that no matter how strong you are to be always vigilant to anything bad that might happen. I don’t mean to be anxious or worries all the time but to not lower the guard and be careful to not think everything else is inoffensive just because you are strong.

In the software development industry, one subject we can apply that is for technologies that come up, we should be vigilant about them and never stop being curious. What we can do to refine our abilities with new technologies is by creating POCs (Proof of Concepts) so that we can actually learn what is crucial from the new technology. Never underestimate technologies too, they won’t be learned overnight, it will take time and patience to master them.

5 – There is a Consequence to Every Action

Modi the son of Thor appears to Kratos and Atreus beat up, Kratos decides to spare his life but Atreus loses his control again, disobey Kratos orders, and kills Modi. Kratos explains that there are always consequences for killing a god and he disciplines his son about that.

If we take that to the software development industry, we should avoid as much as possible to generate unnecessary conflicts with other software engineers, the IT world is very small, and it is likely that many co-workers you worked with in the past to be working with you again now or in the future. If the conflict is really inevitable, you should try to talk to the person’s face to face to make things right.

What Kratos teaches his son is that they should defend themselves against the harms of the world but shouldn’t kill without a reason, we also should definitely but defend ourselves but not to harm others for no reason or when it’s unnecessary.

6 – Accept Help from Friends

Kratos and Atreus had a lot of help from people on the way, they wouldn’t be able to fulfill their objective of throwing Kratos’s wife’s ashes from the top of the mountain without help from their friends. Kratos and Atreus had help from the two dwarves named as Brok and Sindri, Freya and Mimir, the dwarves helped to build amazing weapons and armors, Freya was a guide to them, she helped clear the path for their journey, Mimir is the smartest man alive, he is the god of knowledge and wisdom, he plays a key role in the journey because he is the one who knows how to get at the highest mountain.

Sometimes software engineers have a strong ego which usually leads them to deny help from friends and this is a big mistake. We shouldn’t be asking for help for everything but shouldn’t also avoid asking for help at all. No one knows everything and the smartest and fastest way to get unstuck in development problems is by wisely and strategically asking for help. One other mistake I see from developers is to throw the whole problem to someone else which is something that should be avoided because it’s even disrespectful with the other person you are asking for help, instead, try as much as possible to get in the solution, be strategic, don’t make your friend waste his and your time.

7 – Don’t Limit Yourself

Kratos is a very intriguing character, he never knew he was a god and even though dared to challenge every god and titan only with his courage. This is the mindset of a true warrior, Kratos has been fearless during his journey, had help from many powerful gods and the biggest key for his success was that Kratos is relentless and took massive action to get what he wants even though the odds was greatly against him. Kratos also had many failures during his journey but he could use his failures wisely to fuel his energies against the gods and titans.

Software engineers also limit themselves very often, they think they can’t give a talk, improve their salaries, get promoted or learn new technologies. If software developers use the true warrior mindset, the same from Kratos, we can really achieve anything we want. By being relentless and going forward even when things are tough, we can get there. Limitations are usually something acquired throughout our lives and when we realize that we can change that at any moment, then we can change the game to a whole new level. There isn’t any limits, the only limit is the one we create in our own minds and to achieve massive level of success we need to be constantly breaking our own limits.

8 – We re not Superiors, Instead, We Have Discipline and Focus

At a point in the game, Atreus says to Kratos, we beat wolves, elves, witches, trolls, dragons, and even gods. Atreus says to Kratos that they can beat anything but Kratos says to Atreus that they are not superiors, what makes them beat all those foes on their journey is discipline and focus. Atreus then understands how important it is to have a disciplined training instead of thinking that they have their power for granted.

Taking that idea to the software development area, it’s important to keep in mind that technologies are not learned overnight nor the expertise of solving problems, discipline, and focus is necessary to achieve a high level of success. I use the deliberate practicing technique to stay up to date with technologies and I don’t learn a technology randomly, instead, I am strategic, I learn what is necessary which means focus, discipline means to do the work even when I don’t feel like to do it.

This is it for this article and I hope you enjoyed it! As always break your limits constantly, if you think you can’t do something, push your limits, and get it done anyway!

If you never played God of War 4 and really want to play it now, you have to acquire a PS4 because it’s exclusive to it:
PlayStation 4 Console – 1TB Slim Edition

Here is the game link:
God of War Hits  4 – PlayStation 4

If you wish to play the other God of War games, there you go the links:
God of War 3 Remastered – PlayStation 4

To play God of War 1 and 2 unfortunately you have to get a PS3 since this game is not still available in PS4:
God of War: Collection – Playstation 3