God Of War's Creator Is Unhappy With The "Direction" Of Kratos

19.12.2023 - 00:25 / thegamer.com / Nathan Fillion / Cory Barlog / Of War

God of War creator David Jaffe has expressed his unhappiness with the current direction of the God of War series, and Kratos in particular, as he thinks the feelings and personal lives of the developers at Santa Monica have negatively impacted the character.

In a recent video on Jaffe's official YouTube channel (thanks 80 Level), he claims that while he enjoyed the first God of War reboot game, he doesn't actually want the character of Kratos to grow as the developers and fanbase get older. Instead, he thinks this new, softer, and more mature Kratos is due to developers injecting their personal lives into the series, and that's something that the game's "core audience" doesn't actually want.

God of War Ragnarök sold over 11 million copies in its first 10 weeks after release, becoming the fastest-selling game in the series.

When confronted with the opinion that Kratos would be too boring of a character if he was to remain an angry dude for five mainline games, Jaffe points to the likes of James Bond and Spider-Man as examples of how to properly maintain the personality of a franchise character. This is despite the fact that God of War isn't nearly as long-running as a franchise and only has one iteration of its main character when the other two have had many.

This probably won't come as a surprise, but Jaffe's opinion on Kratos isn't exactly a popular one. God of War fans have been mocking the video pretty relentlessly ever since it was shared on Twitter, with some claiming that "he's just mad" he's no longer working on the series, and that PlayStation was right to give him the boot. Even God of War (2018) director Cory Barlog got in on the act by responding with that one gif of a confused Nathan Fillion.

Thankfully, the young, angry Kratos is far behind us now, but that doesn't mean Santa Monica doesn't want to pay tribute to the games that made his Norse journey possible. If you've played the recently released God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla DLC, you'll know that a lot of love is shown for the older God of War games, including multiple references, tributes, and super secret boss fights we wouldn't dare spoil here.

If you want to jump into Kratos' latest adventure, you can do so at no extra cost. All you need is an existing copy of God of War Ragnarök to jump into the Valhalla DLC, which functions as a cool roguelike mode in which you can test your skills. There are a few little story beats included too, most of them involving Kratos' past, so if that sounds interesting to you, you can go check it out right now.