God of War Creator Is Unhappy With New Games and Kratos' Story
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comicbook.com
Despite being nominated for numerous awards and even winning Game of the Year in 2018, the creator of God of War, David Jaffe, is not a huge fan of the new direction the series has gone in. Jaffe himself hasn't worked on these new God of War games, but thinks that they're not staying true to the spirit of the character and the franchise. The creator noted that if developers want to pour their life experiences into their work, they should do it with new IPs and characters.
It may not be the work he wanted, but it was a positive direction. I know nothing about his other works, but new-kratos is a much expanded character and successful continuation on the original work. Not a hamfisted cash-in like so many sequelizations do.
Honestly seeing kratos grow up is what makes the new games that much more impactful. The series when taken as a whole just really makes kratos’s character that much better. Imagine 2018 GoW without the original trilogy, it would not be nearly as close to perfect of a game as it was
The original Kratos was basically one big long revenge story. Almost all of it justified and satisfying, but basically wiping out the Greek Pantheon was his ultimate goal.
His actions were reckless and fury driven, but often went over the top, both in violence and in actions.
My favourite example is from GoW: Ragnarok, when certain characters are reflecting on Kratos’ past, and how the one story of him killing the Sisters of Fate must truly be myth, then he corrects them saying it was true and how they deserved it. The third character then shines a present light on the fact that he did that in the past and says, “that’s the most dangerous and irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard.”
I think that sums up Greek Kratos in a nutshell.
his other works include twisted metal and drawn to death.
not bad games, but also not games known for their ahem quality storytelling.
the Original God of War Kratos had all the depth of a puddle.
nuKratos is by far the superior character.
Modern Kratos wouldn't be nearly as impactful or enthralling if we didn't intimately know his past and what he is capable of. Replacing him with another character who acts identical and had a similar background revealed in flashbacks would just undercut how Kratos acts now.
We see him show restraint his younger self was incapable of, and how when hes holding back, its not for his benefit, but for those who are antagonizing him and his friends. HE knows he is a monster, doesn't view himself as redeemable in the slightest, but has no intention of returing to his old ways while he has the ability to help those he's come to care for, and also show his son a better a path than the one laid out for him.
So while yes, ps2/ps3 kratos had all the depth and bredth of a puddle, modern Kratos is built entirely off that puddle and wouldn't hold its own weight without the previous foundations.
as someone who’s only played GOW 2018 I still thought he was a compelling character 🤷♂️
There were innumerable opportunities for kratos to develop character beyond raging angry guy of rancorous fury. Every betrayal and every reconciliation was so bland after a while. The originals were one long soap opera.
Meh. Not everything need to be deep. It’s a video games. Nobody is asking what the DOOM character backstory is. He’s there to shoot some hellspawns and that’s fun.
There’s a place for both, really.
My friend, you're missing out on the batshit insane lore of DOOM Eternal. The game itself is amazing, but the lore is even better!
My favorite part of the lore is how doom guy doesn't give a shit about the lore.
Not every franchise needs to be deep, and doom eternal kind of suffers for being more story focused.
Really? I enjoy the lore very much, but it seems more than easy enough to ignore - most is told through collectibles, so you can just breeze through everything without reading pretty much anything.
I kind of disagree - I like it when a lot of thought has been put into things. I'd rather have it available and be able to ignore it than not have it available at all.
To repeat myself from a response to another user:
You don't even need the deep lore hidden text and recordings for Doomguy. The show-not-tell storytelling is fucking amazing in Doom 2016.
Like they don't need any deep lore dumps or in depth explainations. The simple and casual disregard of Samuel Hayden for the lives of his employees and everyone else on Mars is in direct contrast to how deeply it's immediately obvious that Doomguy DOES care about those same dead scientists and colonists just from a few simple actions.
No long-winded explanation necessary. Those 10 seconds were a masterpiece of visual storytelling. It lets us know the stakes, it shows us that Doomguy cares about the lives lost far more than any ostensible greater good or Hayden's justifications.
Sure, but when someone whines "Why did they give this character depth? They could have made them shallow and boring!" I'm not going to give that person much credit.
Also, DOOM guy does have some backstory for those that care to look for it in the games. Easily ignored for those that don't.
You don't even need the deep lore hidden text and recordings for Doomguy. The show-not-tell storytelling is fucking amazing in Doom 2016.
Like they don't need any deep lore dumps or in depth explainations. The simple and casual disregard of Samuel Hayden for the lives of his employees and everyone else on Mars is in direct contrast to how deeply it's immediately obvious that Doomguy DOES care about those same dead scientists and colonists just from a few simple actions.
No long-winded explanation necessary. Those 10 seconds were a masterpiece of visual storytelling.
100% my biggest issue with modern games right now is there’s too much damn lore. I need to know a hundred different things to understand the game, and I generally don’t know those things.
I’m a huge fan of Doom Eternal, and it’s one of the few single player games I’ve finished in the last few years. Too many games now end up needing to spend half my play session in conversations or cut scenes, and I realized I don’t have fun playing games like that.
A buddy of mine got me to play Dark Tides and I had fun, but he kept telling me I needed to look into the lore of the Warhammer universe.
Looked into it and realized I don't have the time or interest to get into such a fictional universe that feels like it has more depth than most religions. I feel like there could be a degree track for Warhammer historians..
Not hating on people who are into it. But it's too overwhelming for someone like me who just wants to play games to clear my mind and distract myself. Also socialize.
I have friends that are deep in the tabletop 40k universe and know all the lore. I couldn’t give two shits about the story and have still enjoyed many sessions, plus the computer games: vermintide, darktide, etc.
It’s possible to play and ignore all that.
Oh yeah, I was doing just that. I wasn't saying the lore interfered with the gameplay at all. I was just relating to feeling like I can't be bothered by extended universes.
Honestly, I liked him better when he was just an angry sad revenge monster man. The way the games were structured made so that was never a crutch.
That said, David Jaffe needs to disappear already.
He wasn't deep but he was Metal AF.
When everything’s deep, shallow is a breath of fresh air
I understand Jaffe not being happy that the games are going in a different direction than he imagined, but he's also the guy who thought Drawn to Death needed to be made.
David Jaffe is a fucking idiot whose opinion doesn't matter anymore.
David Jaffe is unhappy that his generic revenge puddle of spit character has actually grown in depth and is truly interesting now.
Instead of just "man literally too angry to die."
I mean on the one hand you have a story of a father and son grieving over loss while finding themselves…
And on the other you have Kratos fucking bitches via rhythm-based mini games.
I really do wonder what he thought was so great about the character before?
Ehh, h's not wrong. If this David Jaffe guy is a pro-revenge type, of course he has the right to be unhappy: the writers for the new games blatantly said in interviews they completely changed the story around to oppose revenge, completely against the wishes of this Jaffe fellow apparently. Which is ironically a vengeful act.
People don't have the right to just change stories to suit their personal opinions and the new writers need to learn to respect that.
Lest the writers after that change it back to a pro-revenge story with depth and good writing just to spite them.
Blatant anti-revenge stories are bland, predictable, preachy and uninteresting.
I think the new writers absolutely do have the right to change the story as they see fit, on account of they're the writers and David Jaffe isn't
They don't, because they're not the original writers and stories are art, not corporate marketing products.
You don't have the right to do whatever you want simply because you like it.
Yes... Yes you do? Lmao brother have you experienced any story or art in the last, I dunno, ten thousand years? Everyone is just retelling an existing story with their own little tweak or twist.
Look, it seems like you didn't like the creative direction of the new games, and that's fine. But getting mad at the writers and claiming they didn't have "the right" to write the story as they saw fit (in a brand new series of video games btw, not remakes of the existing ones) is weird.
No, you don't.
You can certainly write fanfiction and create fanart all you want to. People have done it for thousands of years. But it'll never be the original story no matter how much you want it to be.
You are not the original creator of the franchise. Grow up and get over it.
Getting mad at me for telling you the truth won't change that fact, and it won't make Jaffe any less correct in his complaint that the writers deliberately destroyed his creation and his original intent. Because they did, and they admitted they did it because they didn't want a pro revenge story in media.
Go look up the interviews with the recent GoW writers. Go actually do some research instead of throwing a temper tantrum here because I won't let you do what you want.
Objective reality is a thing whether you want it to be or not. You don't get to decide what the truth is.
Dawg where have I claimed to be an original creator of the franchise? You're being koo koo for cocoa puffs right now lmao. And the writers didn't destroy anything. The original games are still there. If Jaffe wanted the new games to be different, if he wanted to preserve his "original intent", he should have written them himself.
Jaffe writing the original story doesn't give him the power to dictate how new stories based on his work are written, and that's objective reality, not whatever fantasyland you're living in.
When your dumbass looked at me telling you you can't just do whatever you want, and you responded, "Actually yes, I can". Like a fucking child.
When you devolve into insults instead of responding with anything substantive because you know I am right and you are wrong.
And when deep down inside you felt the pit in your heart grow like a fucking maw when confronted with the fact that reality exists independently of your whim and whimsy.
Now you don't get a say in what is canon and what is not. Only original creators can do that. Other people's works are derivatives at best. That's the reality you have to learn to accept because reality won't change simply because you don't like it.
Now when you grow up and actually become an adult, we can continue this conversation. I am not gonna waste any more time arguing with a child.
Lol ohhh I get it. You're projecting 👍
As someone who has played from the beginning, and seen the entire storyline unfold through the multiple directors, I was so disappointed......in nothing absolutely at all whatsoever about the new games.
I thought it was really cool how they stitched the story back to GoW3 and developed the new character so thoughtfully. Christopher Judge seemed to take the character much further while adding depth, and being thoughtful too.
If Jaffe doesn't like that Kratos isn't a mindless rage machine, different strokes I guess. He's definitely in the minority and I think every subsequent game director did an overall better job than he did in GoW 1. *shrug
Parts of 2018 and Ragnarok and the ending of both actually had me tear up a bit, not many games accomplish that. It was very heartfelt and emotional I enjoyed seeing a proper character arc for Kratos and his kid and watching them develop.
I also really liked the themes of redemption and trying to be better not just for yourself, but for the people around you, I liked that Kratos has to reflect on his actions and actually come to terms with how he was for all intents and purposes, a monster.
I liked that even enemies where made more complex and given good character arcs. 2018 and Ragnarok are so well done and I love them. The old GoW trilogy was also fun and had good writing in it's own merit and direction, but the new games are something else entirely in a good way and I vastly prefer the character and relationship focused writing in the newer games.
Sounds like Jaffe does not akree
I love this positive note! Thank you for not being Reddit.
Well he can fuck right off, God of War 2018 was amazing
Was Ragnarok less loved? I got a bad feel for it with some comments so left off playing it. Then I got it and loved every second of it.
Wait until the franchise falls into decay like what happened to the to Tolkien’s work after TLORs massive success.
Something about the new games that really bothered me was how it handled puzzle rooms. You'd walk into a room and start to look around then your kid would yell out "hey I think we should shoot that target up there which should knock down this bridge for us". Golly thanks, guess I won't get to attempt to figure things out myself then. I pretty much fell off about 10 hours into the first one because I found that so frustrating. Does that go away after a while?
Not from what I've read elsewhere.
I can't think of any times he did that when I played. Most things I either figured out right away or missed quickly. I went backtracking while he was in his rebellious phase and he was mostly useless as a tutorial prompt. Any scenes out of order that required him to be cheery made him seem mentally unstable too.
Yeah, while I personally really enjoyed both new games, I can understand not liking the way the gameplay went. However, I think Kratos' story is a perfect evolution for the character, so I cannot really understand his opinion there
David Jaffe is kind of a nut these days though. Like what has he done in recent years?
The last thing I saw regarding him was him being unable to comprehend how secret rooms in Metroid work. It was painful.
Jesus. Kudos to that video editor stitching videos of other people doing it.
Hahahahah. Thank you for this.
Brutal. He's so wrong and he has no idea.
Which is something super common in Metroid too.
Hell he probably hasn't figured out you can shoot up and just tries to jump to fire horizontally at enemies instead.
You can't even chalk this up to an old man not understanding how modern games are played, either. The OG Metroid on the NES had blocks you could break by shooting upward. He's just an idiot.
I mean he directed God of war and twisted metal. He knew what was up back then.
Apparently not, since he doesn't even attempt it here.
I kinda wish the article has expanded on what he said, if anything. Does he still think they are well made games even if he doesn't like the direction?
Like, I don't like the new Zelda games, I don't think they have stayed true to the original Zelda (not you Zelda II) games. That said, I cannot deny that a lot of care and polish went into them, I just don't like the direction.
Sure, the new God of War games are not the original avatar-of-rage Kratos but they are still exceptional games.
Yeah, I like BotW and ToTK, but not as a Zelda fan.
The year before GoW 2018, he released Drawn to Death… PS Plus release that had some cool style but otherwise crap game! He was relevant back in the late 90s and early 2000s… but now his opinion hardly matters and he’s a bit of a drama queen. I don’t really give a shit what he thinks.
I'm pretty sure this is less about the quality of the game and more about ppl working on his creation without him. You can see this a lot in comic books
Creators will be pissed that ownership has continued work on something they created without them.
Pretty much why Allen Moore hates comics so much. Or even why John McAfee hated his anti virus program.
I mean, I too would be unhappy with the new games' stories. They're not very good stories overall.
But, they're better than the vast majority of video game plots, because that's a low bar.
Still, Jaffe seems to imply the old stories in GoW were any better, when they were pure drivel. I might still be very underwhelmed by the story in the two new God of War's, but I at least like that they're trying (even if I think the direction of relying heavily on animation and visual flair is the wrong one, as far as telling good stories goes).
Jaffe always struck me as a perpetual adolescent. The two GoW games he worked on were great for the time, but the stories were shallow excuses to showcase as much gore as possible. His other big property, Twisted Metal, was genre-defining gameplay but any narrative was just edgelord violence and/or crass humor.
The last "big" project I remember coming down the pipe from him was Drawn to Death, which took his signature juvenile tastes and combined them with horrible gameplay and eye-blistering art direction. As far as I'm aware, he hasn't worked on a game since.
I'm not saying the new GoW games are perfect, but I wouldn't say Jaffe has a trusted critical eye.
I fully agree. If you read my first comment, I pretty clearly as much as the new ones are pretty bad (story wise), the two Jaffe worked on are even worse in that regard.
I played about 3 hours of 2018, and my honest opinion is that the story was kind of interesting, but the gameplay was slow and clunky. The most fun I had with my time was the fight in the beginning with Baldur, and most of it was a cutscene. I prefer the gameplay and fluidity of combat in the original trilogy, which I have beaten, to this new version. With that being said, it's still a good game, just not my cup of tea.
Oh, so he never matured at all then, huh?
Could the author have packed any more bias into the article? Like, we get it. You like the new games.
His tone, the way he mocks other creators, comes off as (for lack of a better term) developmentally stunted. I understand if you disagree with the product because your vision is different, but the way he expresses it is so reductive that it's hard to see his points as valid beyond his feelings.
With that being said, It's been awhile since I've seen David Jaffe and he's kinda got a "We've got Dan Harmon at home" vibe about him now.
Went and watched the original.
Seems like he just doesn't like the direction and it's a 'different strokes for different folks' kind of thing. I think his point about Ragnarok is fair, the writing is a bit all over the place and that can make characterization suffer.
Welp. I don't know what to say other than he's the creator and he's completely wrong.
Too Bad
meh. I played the first and second I think. I can't believe its still going. Its a pretty limited story to think of as a franchise.
What a whiney bitch. God forbid they turn it from mindless killing to a fantastic story.
I only ever played the first 2 until I got a PS5 that came with Ragnarok.
They're not even the same game anymore. The originals were more akin to Devil May Cry while Ragnarok felt like it could have been an Assassin's Creed game.
I can't say much for the story since I haven't gone very far in Ragnarok (and only beat 1 and 2 back in the day so my memory on details is a bit hazy) but the game play is definitely a lot different than it started.
I've always loved god of war. Chains of Olympus being my favourite one. And I still love the new ones both gameplay and story wise. I really like kratos as a character and I like the story of him finally having time to reflect on his actions in the original series and trying to better himself afterwards.
Jaffe Kree
Indeed, Jaffe does not akree.
He's not wrong, do new stuff, too many remakes and remasters nowadays.
I can understand him. God of War 2018 and Ragnarok have basically nothing to do anymore with the original games. They could have made a new IP but they had to take the name and characters for brand recognition.
His public presentation skills could get better, but I agree and support the essence of the idea. An art piece has an idea, a form, an ethos, and a character has a personality and is driven by specific world visions. To take an art piece, and just sh*t on the original spirit and forms to produce a derivative piece that fits someone else's vision while also using the familiarity to market it better is just cynical. Corporate media is just too cynical and hypocritical to not do exactly that: twist a art piece again and again to get better market outcomes.
He is right. God of War was created as a violent dynamical hack and slash with a Greek tragedy as background . It is not shallow, revenge stories after tragical events are a common trope. Kratos was a Greek tragic revengeful character that had a purpose and a vision , and he fulfilled his destiny. End of story. Call it pro revenge or whatever, its the spirit of the work.
The absurd was the newer artists not caring at all about fidelity or having the courage to create something new. Want to continue god of war ? Don't disrespect the original character and spirit and mechanic of the game, build upon it. Maybe a hack and slash about a Japanese kratos battling against shinto gods. Want to create a story with the opposite message, a completely different character and completely different gameplay ? Create a new game, new characters, and be happy.
I already find it hard to swallow when the original artist itself radically shifts the art piece, like what happened with Dragon Ball (compare the first episodes or chapters with Dragon Ball Z, and tell me its the same thing, its not). To see corporations being cynical about art, and being praised for it is even worse.
I said the same thing on reddit and got banned. Ragnorrak was pandering garbage compared to first trilogy
I just can't with this generation of PlayStation games. Couldn't finish god of war, Horizon or spiderman. They look good but the game and story sucks
I thought the story in Horizon was fantastic. I'm a Sci-fi nerd, so that all hit home with me. The second game, not so much though. It was like they didn't quite get why the story of the first game worked.
I have problems with God of War though. The story feels like an attempt to copy what The Last of Us did with Ellie and Joel, but without really understanding why their dynamic worked.
I feel like HFW kind of lost the plot when it introduced the Far Zeniths. They just didn’t work for some reason. I kind of wish if they were going that route, they had been the descendants of the people who left for Far Zenith and they had a better reason for wanting Gaia and Earth or something, so they weren’t just cartoonishly evil.
I think the main problem with the world of Horizon is that the most interesting event in their world has already happened.
The story of Zero Dawn worked so well because it is the interwoven tale of a young woman who sets out to discover why she was cast out of her village at birth, and the almost archaeological unraveling of why the world is the way it is. When you finally piece together both the plot is almost already at it's climax, and you are left with both the understanding of why it must be Aloy who stops the new threat to the world, and the motivation to do so.
But that doesn't work for a sequel. The format of Zero Dawn relies on exposition about the very nature of the world, that's why the main quest has a bunch of missions that more or less boil down to walking around an old facility and listening to recordings.
How are you going to translate that into a new sequel? Either you've got sequels planned already, which I find unlikely given what Forbidden West amounted to, or you need to try to invent more world building and plot. It seemed quite clear to me that Guerillas writers for Forbidden West didn't know their own world as well as I had assumed they did. The "how did we get here" plot in Zero Dawn revolved around a small cast characters, who, with the exception of one, were all both very neuanced and strongly invested in their own plot. The Zeniths of Forbidden West come across almost as inverse Deus Ex Machina, characters who fly in from the moon with what seems like no other reason to mess up the plot than "We had to find something".
I like the 2018 GOW and first Spider-Man, but just couldn't get into the sequels. I guess they're just so similar I felt like I was done and didn't want more. Horizon I never liked because I hate the combat. I also liked the first Last of Us, but didn't want to play as someone I hated in the sequel.
It's the reason why I've been holding off on getting a PS5, and recently decided I just won't. The only thing that has come out recently that tempts me is BG3, but I'm past buying a console for a single game; I'll just play it on PC.
BG3 really wants to be played with a mouse and keyboard. Using a controller is clunky AF.
Running around the world is better with a controller, but interacting with it is better with M + K.
Eh, it depends more on what you’re used to. I personally hate using a mouse and keyboard and greatly prefer a controller, and it’s not that different from other RPG games that use a controller interface. I’m used to a wheel interface from games like Mass Effect, so it’s more intuitive for me than a mouse and keyboard.
I mildly disagree.
First, I think its the first game of this type to have any successful control scheme for a controller at all, so I think it deserves accolades for making it happen at all.
Second, while I still mostly play in traditional mouse and keyboard, I am an old man now, having played the original BG as a teen when it came out. Having the controller as an option is huge for me when I am in pain.
Anecdotally, my partner never played these games growing up and she fucking hates trying to play with mouse and keyboard. She says it feels clunky and slow and confusing.
Is it the best? No. Is it an excellent effort? Yes, because it actually works.
The fact that a game with a ruleset as complex as DnD manages to have a couch co-op option and gamepad controls built-in is an achievement, imho.
Good tho know, thanks. I wonder how that will work in couch-coop.
I thought the same thing. All i vould think of is: man, i should really like this, but i don't
If you already own a decent PC, most of these games have already been released there, although later than on PS5. Only ones missing from that list so far are GoW: Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2.
Funny thing is, I realize now there’s multiple franchises I’ve stopped for gameplay reasons, not story.
In God of War, not only was I contending with an offset thumbstick that I didn’t feel like replacing, but I was stuck on a fight that I didn’t seem to be geared for, and was getting pummeled.
Last of Us, I got stuck on some stealth section against enemies that didn’t seem to behave as the tutorial suggested.
Demon’s Souks would just be leagues beyond me anyway, so no chance there.
How dare he (the creator of Kratos) don't like the new games! /s
Who cares. Just play your games
and STFU.I'm confused, is everyone upset the new games have more depth or are they upset the new games oppose revenge?
Anti-revenge stories are blatantly shallow, preachy propaganda pieces that seek to fulfill a political agenda.
Pro-revenge stories absolutely can and often do have depth and well-written characters.
So let's stop conflating the two.