"This is Not God of War" Original Creator Criticizes God of War Laufey

David Jaffe, creator of the original God of War back in 2005, has criticized the reveal of God of War Laufey. The next entry in the franchise was shown during the recent State of Play, highlighting how players step into the shoes of Kratos’ wife Laufey (or Faye) as she battles other Gods (including other Gods of War) in the Everywhen—the afterlife of the gods. And Jaffe isn’t having any of it.

It’s worth noting that Jaffe has long been a huge critic of the recent Norse God of War games, going back to the 2018 title. Just some criticisms of these games include, but are not limited to, making Kratos too soft, ruining the cinematic aspect of the franchise (action-packed and bombastic versus slower, mature storytelling), and making Atreus a “terrible character.” It should be no surprise that most of Jaffe’s criticisms fall in line here with God of War Laufey.

Original God of War Creator Reacts to Laufey

The relevant time mark begins at 1:37. Jaffe livestreamed his reaction to the State of Play franchise, and off the rip, he described God of War Laufey as “so uninspired. It looks so dull, and you guys have to remember that this is the opening of the game, probably.” Many games often start off with a slower pace to establish characters and setting, a tactic seen in the recent release of 007 First Light, as but one of many examples. “It’s dead. [God of War Laufey] is not going to do well for what they expect it to do,” he continued, before discussing how the classic God of War games succeeded because of specific hooks.

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“God of War, the originals, had their hooks, right?” It was ‘Kratos is a badass,’ Greek mythology, violence, etc. And then, it wore out its welcome. Cory came along with the brilliant idea of evolving it, and that was awesome for 2018. I loved that game. Then you get Ragnarok, which felt like it was running out of gas and now, yeah.” The hook argument continues the “Kratos is too soft” criticism, and praise for the 2018 game notwithstanding, there have been plenty of critiques of it over the years, from him and others.

Ultimately, Jaffe says that God of War Laufey does not resemble a traditional God of War experience (“traditional” being an important keyword there): “This is not God of War, I don’t know what the f*ck this is? This is like some fantasy novel…If they had taken God of War off the title, and you didn’t know the God of War story and there wasn’t Kratos, it was just a story about this goddess who dies, you would not be talking about this game…I’ll probably play it for the stream, but if it wasn’t for that, I’d have no interest in playing that game.” It’s worth noting that it was well established that Kratos loved Faye for her strength, among other things, and it would be impossible not to know this about the current, modern God of War story.

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Overall, it’s some strong words from the original creator, but given the popularity of the Norse games, the 94 Metascore of the 2018 game (+9.0 User Score), 9.4 Metascore of God of War Ragnarok (+8.3 User Score), and how GameRant readers voted both the 2018 game and Ragnarok into the top 10 best video games of all time, it’s fair to say that plenty of folks disagree with Jaffe.