God of War Creator David Jaffe Says He Doesn’t Want Kratos To Grow

David Jaffe, creator of the original God Of War got on his soapbox to talk about how he doesn’t like the directions SIE Santa Monica Studios has taken with its protagonist, Kratos.

In the video, he mostly comes from the angle of approaching the God of War brand- saying that Kratos should be a character akin to Indiana Jones or James Bond, never needing to grow between games.

“I don’t want these characters to grow”, he explains. “I don’t give a fuck what you’re going through at the studio”.

His objection comes from the idea of the studio making the character their own- creating stories from their own experiences.

Instead, his suggestion was to have those experiences be presented through new characters instead, and keeping Kratos out of all of it.

“Somebody needs to tell these people no sometimes”, he rants. “Look, we love that you’re arty-farty, we love that you’re taking shit from your personal life, we love that you’re treating the medium (and Sony always has) as an art form as well as a business”.

“Somebody needs to step up and say ‘you need to do all that within the pen that we’ve set up, if you step outside, the electric shock collar’s gonna get ya”, he says. “You need to do all that within the pen that says this is what God of War is, that’s what Indiana Jones is”.

“If you wanna make something else that’s cool but don’t fucking call it God of War and don’t call it fucking Indiana Jones”.

Jaffe’s opinions are a little to the inconsistent side- despite hating the family-centric tone of the Cory Balrog run of God of War he actually sang praises for God of War 2018, calling Kratos reflecting on his violent past “meta”.

The personal growth of Kratos is in the spotlight again following the release of the Valhalla DLC for God of War Ragnarok– what was originally pitched as just a fun roguelite mode turned out to be story DLC, with Kratos coming to terms with his violent past.

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