David Jaffe created God of War and the character of Kratos. It originated in 2005 and underwent a huge transformation in 2018, though Jaffe had nothing to do with said transformation. In fact, he hated what Kratos became, and now he hates the latest new thing to come out of the franchise, the surprise drop Sons of Sparta.
David Jaffe Hates Another New God of War Thing
God of War fans were well-fed at the latest Sony State of Play stream. Most exciting, of course, was the announcement of the remake of the original trilogy. The first two games were console-locked, and the third was only on PlayStation Plus. Now, or in the future, they’ll all be available and modernized.
But that wasn’t all. The series also got a brand-new game, shadow-dropped that very day. Sons of Sparta is a 2D platformer with pixel art, a.k.a. something totally different from the other games. It’s a prequel set before the events of the first game, when Kratos is still a child.
David Jaffe isn’t a fan, though. The original creator has often spoken out about his disdain of modern God of War, and he did not hold back on the latest entry that Santa Monica Studios put out, notably without his involvement at all.
Jaffe admitted via IGN that this sort of game was what he had initially been interested in before ripping it to shreds. “This is the kind of game I’ve always wanted in terms of 2.5D ‘God of War,’ super into it — but this, to me, is not what I was talking about. I bought this game, it’s a $30 game, I don’t like it, I don’t recommend it,” the creator said.
Then, he ripped into Sony. “I wanted to make a video more about what are they thinking, like what the f*** were they thinking? It’s not a bad game by any means, it’s fine, it controls decently… but to me the more fascinating part of this is, why is this in existence? I don’t understand,” Jaffe said.
Jaffe admitted he only played for an hour and surmised that it probably gets better, but he just couldn’t bring himself to continue playing. He derided the decision to make Kratos a child because he thinks this game would be dead on arrival without the God of War tag applied.
“Let’s just make him some generic fing kid, like we’re watching a Kids WB TV show or something,” Jaffe continued. “It’s probably some bulls writer going, ‘Oh people want to know why, how did people become this way?’ No one cares. It’s a dumb idea… [Fans] wanted something like Blasphemous, in terms of it’s violent, it’s bloody, it’s serious, it has the tone of the early games.“
Fans may or may not have wanted that, but Jaffe clearly does. He isn’t interested in Kratos evolving, which is why he took issue with the 2018 reboot and Ragnarok. He called it offensively generic, and Jaffe thinks it has left a bad taste in the franchise’s fan base’s mouth.
His final comment seems to sum up why he feels this way. “It’s just insulting to the fans. It’s insulting to people who worked on the games that they would think this character right here is what people want. It’s crap. It’s dumb. It’s stupid,” he said, specifically referencing those who worked on the original games that he created.
Kratos has evolved past the killing machine Jaffe designed him as, and that upsets him. He said after Ragnarok the series had taken a seriously wrong turn by making Kratos “too soft.” He didn’t like that the character had changed since his early days of killing. Ironically, he viewed Kratos the same way Zeus did: nothing more than a killing machine.
Conclusion
The latest God of War games, including Sons of Sparta, have done a lot of work to redefine Kratos and give him real depth instead of leaving him a rage-filled murderer bent on destruction. It is, then, no surprise that David Jaffe really doesn’t like what the series has become.
