"Well, I think our studio will use this engine again," he told me today, "and it'll get better. And I think we're probably about 50- or 60-percent at it right now. I think there's a lot more we can do with it." What improvements could be made? For one, Asmussen says the game's animation system could be tweaked. In fact, he says they already have the tech.  "I think individually our animations are incredible," he said, "and our animators are incredibly talented. But I think we could make our system technically better, in the way we blend animations. And I'm pretty sure that we already have the code to do that, and we just didn't implement it in God of War III because it came in real late."

He also points to other obvious engine improvements, including lighting, seamlessly transitioning from cut-scenes to gameplay, and more. While this might seem like a "captain obvious" -- of course it's working to improve its engine -- looking at God of War III, it's exciting to imagine what could come next. My head, it has exploded.