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God of War's Creator Thinks That the Character of Kratos Took a Wrong Turn

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
He said he likes GoW 2018, he doesn't like the direction of ragnarok and what it means going forward.
He talks about fundamentally changing characters in general, for no other reason than "characters much change!", and how that is a shitty practice
It’s not considered classy
 

Skifi28

Member
New Kratos is a big cuckold. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with anger/vengeance being the primary motivator in a piece of fiction.
Nothing wrong with vengeance in a piece of fiction, but we're talking 6 pieces. It did get old eventually.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
I didn’t mind Dad of War in 2018, but the game fell short of the originals for me.

Seeing responses on Ragnarok is killing my interest for when it comes to PC. What the hell did they do to my boy?
 

Metalman96

Member
I got where he’s coming from and I’ve felt similarly. I love GoW 18 and Ragnarok, but there’s just something about angry Kratos that, imo, is a more interesting and fun character to play.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It really comes down to what a game company wants. Money from the masses, or stick to the media's core creation.

After years of angry hack and slashing GOW games which it seemed Kratos would even kill senior citizens in a retirement home if given a chance and then bang any hot nurses in a bedroom, they transformed him into sad dad with a kid to guide. Best decision ever for sales. But a total 180 in terms of original material.

Watching videos, the older games had much better boss fights. There is no way any modern GOW game has fights like Hades.
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
Old GoW was fun, new GoW is boring. If i wanted to deal with real life issues I wouldn't play games.
Games are supposed to be a way to "escape" real life for a few hours, but Sony is turning them into a second family with characters nagging and relationship problems.
No we need to see that Thor has a drinking problem and is pushing his kids away. :messenger_smirking:
 
I got where he’s coming from and I’ve felt similarly. I love GoW 18 and Ragnarok, but there’s just something about angry Kratos that, imo, is a more interesting and fun character to play.
New Pantheon kills off Atreus for digging into some of their shit. We get a rage filled Kratos but one who has still grown from his days in Greece.

Sets up a new game with plenty of new gods to murder, and makes everyone happy moving forward.
 

BouncyFrag

Member
New GoW’s pacing is atrocious and kills replayability. Boi becomes insufferable later in the game when he is constantly whining that he can fix the massive problems he created.
 
Both are great the franchise would be stale if he didn't evolve as a character but sony need to remake the original trilogy instead of all of these other remakes
 

Gojiira

Member
I think there was a better middle ground, like I think Kratos should have had more clear slips back to his bloodthirsty past, it should have been a whole section of GoW 2018 or better in Ragnarok if the plot was tweaked a little and Atreus was actually taken by Odin, Kratos flying into a rage and unleashing everything would have been incredible.
BUT I get what they are going for, and the Valhalla ending was masterfully written and presented and with his acceptance now of his past he could maybe find a better middle ground.
Still can you imagine GoW3, bashing Poseidons skull or tearing into Titans with PS5 visuals? Ngl I would love a Trilogy remake with all the spectacle intact…
 

Skifi28

Member
At which point end the franchise and create daddy feelings simulator as a separate IP.
Or reboot it as the same franchise and become highly successful from the looks of things. I mean I get both sides, but in hindsight it looks like they made the right call. A separate IP might have been harder to sell than a reboot of a character you already know.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
The character became a soy boy. "I must kill, but everything hurts"

Kratos wanted to kill since ever? No. But he didn't cry. He was angrier for that
 

Aion002

Member
Old God of War had become uninteresting after 3, Ascension was considered a disappointment:


I personally liked Ascension and I enjoyed the mp mode, but old Kratos was too predictable and the gameplay set pieces had become repetitive, God of War 3 was the apex of that combat system and Ascension was just more of the same.

GoW 2018 revived the series, in my opinion the current combat system is better and current Kratos is more interesting than the old edgy Kratos.

I just wish that Atreus wasn't present all the time... he is annoying and kinda detrimental to the game for me, he talks too much..
 
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I actually really liked 2018, played through it twice almost in a row at different difficulties. I was super excited for Ragnarok, but put like 7-8 hours and I haven't gone back. Gameplay is the same, story is meh. It's sitting in my backlog, but I'm just now excited for a bunch of other games. I'm sure I'll go back, but by God it's story didn't grab me at all.
 

Deerock71

Member
Well-timed with the free DLC buzz and 15m+ announcement.

The man knows how to seed engagement gravy, I'll give him that.
Hot Dog Money Shot GIF
 

Kenpachii

Member
I liked the early games of god of war way more then the newer ones. However a buddy of mine likes the newer ones better over the older ones. It's just your own taste.
 

GermanZepp

Member
Yes the demographics that played the gow series now are 30 year old dudes with kids. What.. what if.. we make Kratos to deal with his son and we put a dedicated button for him. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

Flutta

Banned
Why do people want every character to have the same personallity? How many anti-heros games do we have compared to the opposite?

Kratos went from a mighty spartan warrior to a wimp that is forced to bend the knee to his son and gets talked down by a toxic feminist lmao. It’s garbage and made for weak beta males of todays era.

I mean read up on spartans if you want to know how they were like and what we got instead is woke propaganda bullshit. No need to dance around the bush, it’s clear as day.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Or reboot it as the same franchise and become highly successful from the looks of things. I mean I get both sides, but in hindsight it looks like they made the right call. A separate IP might have been harder to sell than a reboot of a character you already know.
Yeah, of course. Same can be said for companies like Disney choosing to reboot legacy franchises. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made $800m at the box office, and The Last Jedi $1.3b. That doesn’t make them good movies though.

This is currently very profitable for Sony but long term but for me it’s always better in the long term to rely on quality over brand recognition.
 

Fret Runner

Member
My biggest gripe with the new GOW games is that the epicness has gone for some reason.
Kratos was always gonna have a change of mindset and that's fine and makes sense after GOW3 ending, but the boss fights and shit compared to the older games has become so lackluster feeling. Don't get me wrong the new games have their moments but for me the coolness of the GOW games was the spectical and over-the-topness of the boss fights.
Things have never really felt the same since 2018.
 

Jigsaah

Member
I don't think the title of this thread is accurate at all.

I was there during the stream. What he was saying is that he loved GoW 2018, but that continuation of this character just wasn't appealing anymore in Ragnarok. In 2018 the new Kratos was fresh, but after that initial gloss wore off, he didn't really evolve much.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
The funny thing is Nintendo don’t position themselves as making these ‘deeper meaning narrative driven games’.

I play Zelda for fun. If I wanted bad writing I’d watch a Netflix original.
*Slowly steps away from those ardent fanboy lore threads for every Nintendo game, especially Zelda*
 

Skifi28

Member
Yeah, of course. Same can be said for companies like Disney choosing to reboot legacy franchises. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made $800m at the box office, and The Last Jedi $1.3b. That doesn’t make them good movies though.

This is currently very profitable for Sony but long term but for me it’s always better in the long term to rely on quality over brand recognition.
That's a different argument altogether though, I thought we were arguing about old vs new Kratos as a character direction. I don't think the new games as a whole are worse in quality the same way the new star wars movies were. If anything I think they're of much higher quality than the earlier God of war games which were a bit mindless and one-note. We can agree to disagree on that.
 

TheTurboFD

Member
Why do people keep saying "He's the God of War, he's supposed to be angry blah blah" ? Did ya'll not play the game at all? Kratos has matured and that's because of all of his life experiences. You cannot be the God of War for long if you're just blood thirsty all the time. Kratos is more calculated and does not allow the rage to blind him. That alone makes him stronger than young Kratos. It even goes over this in the Valhalla DLC.
 
Why do people want every character to have the same personallity? How many anti-heros games do we have compared to the opposite?

Kratos went from a mighty spartan warrior to a wimp that is forced to bend the knee to his son and gets talked down by a toxic feminist lmao. It’s garbage and made for weak beta males of todays era.

I mean read up on spartans if you want to know how they were like and what we got instead is woke propaganda bullshit. No need to dance around the bush, it’s clear as day.
These kinds of posts are satire, right?
 

ungalo

Member
So what a lot of yall are telling me is that you like 1 note characters with minimal development.
It made sense for what the games intended to do, this is what Jaffe is trying to explain but people don't understand and try to compare the characters purely on the writing.

A character being underdeveloped is only a problem when games are actually trying to develop them, through hours of dialogs. Which can make the games boring and tedious for some people.

They took a franchise that wasn't about that, and made it primarily about the story and characters, it wasn't just a pretext anymore.
 
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