God of War is one of the oldest and most successful PlayStation first-party franchises. Gamers everywhere are pretty much aware of how legendary this franchise is, even if they haven’t played one of these games. This franchise spans eight mainline installments that were released on major consoles and one very small game that was launched on mobile devices.
Besides releasing on various console generations, these games have gone through a number of directors. The franchise started with its creator, David Jaffe, then was taken over by Stig Asmussen, who worked on GOW 3. Finally, the franchise went to Cory Barlog, who gave it a soft reboot with God of War 2018. But David Jaffe is not very happy with the latest game, God of War: Ragnarok.
David Jaffe suggests Kratos is not the way he is shown in God of War: Ragnarok
In his original outing, Kratos was a hate-filled god who saw nothing but vengeance as his chosen path in life. He goes around killing other gods just so he can redeem himself for something he regrets doing. The games tell an action-filled tale of violence that is too fun to ignore.
Eventually, six games were made in this very format, with a camera that was drawn way back. They featured a lot of gore, and they featured enemies that were gigantic. All these games were so successful that some developers even made games similar to them, the greatest example being Dante’s Inferno.
Once God of War: Ascension was launched, this series was halted for a while. And then it returned in 2018 in a whole new form. A camera was over Kratos’ shoulder, an unknown world, and people that made Kratos a calm dad, not a god full of anger. This character was made even more empathic in its sequel, God of War: Ragnarok and series creator David Jaffe did not like this. He said in one of his videos that this is not what Kratos was, and the developers should not have changed him the way they did.
“I don’t want these characters to grow. I don’t give a f*ck what you’re going through at the studio. If you’re going to build a brand-new IP, or you’re going to build a character into the God of War lore, and that character is struggling or dealing with your problems that a lot of you at the studio have dealt with, that’s great. But don’t take the character Kratos and go, ‘I’m older now and I’m really into family and I wanna tell stories about fathers and sons’. No, f*ck you! That is not what this character is. Stop! Someone needs to be able to tell these people no sometimes.”
No doubt he is not happy that someone took his character, which was full of anger, and turned him into a relatable character. It’s like David Jaffe does not care for character development; he just wants all of them to stay as they are forever.
Maybe the franchise will someday go back to its roots. But currently, it would stay as it is, as God of War: Ragnarok became the fastest-selling first-party game for Sony ever.
Developers of God of War: Ragnarok based the characters on their lives
It is indeed true that game director Cory Barlog made Kratos the way he is in this game because he had become a parent around the time when God of War 2018’s development started. He decided to show players how parenthood changes people, and he showed Kratos was not an exception in this field either.
This attempt succeeded too; the games are successful, and a relatable Kratos is getting a lot of love from gamers all over. Besides those trivial things, Kratos is still fighting a bunch of massive enemies, and his boss’s battles are still against gods who aren’t easy to defeat.
It remains to be seen where this franchise will go next, though. As they have already ended his story in Nordic mythology. Some say he would go to Egypt; others say he would head somewhere else. The confirmation would only come from the developers, though.
