At the State of Play conference earlier this week, Sony’s home studio Santa Monica unveiled the latest spin-off for the “God of War” series, “God of War: Laufey.” As the title suggests, this game will focus on the story of the giantess “Lauffy”, the wife of the series protagonist Kratos. However, this immediately triggered a lot of discussion on the Internet, which also included a lot of backlash.
“God of War: Laufey” continues the recently launched Nordic duology chapter of the “God of War” series. It tells the story of Laufey going to the underworld of the gods “All Time” after his death, and competing with many other “gods of war” from different cultures, such as “Sekhmet” from Egypt and the protector god “Begtse” of Tibetan Buddhism. Interestingly, many rumors have always hinted at the possibility of the series going to Egypt, and this game may be paving the way for similar developments in the future.
However, the four “God of War: Laufey”-related videos currently released on PlayStation’s official YouTube platform have received a large proportion of negative praise. Many fans of the series believe that this work in the form of a spin-off escapes from the masculine style that the “God of War” series should have. Some people have even begun to criticize the appearance of the protagonist “Lauffy” as “too DEI.” Not only that, but even David Jaffe, the original producer of the “God of War” series, seems a little dissatisfied.
It is worth noting that David Jaffe has often expressed his dissatisfaction with the Nordic chapter of “God of War” on social media. He believes that this sequel series makes Kratos look too weak and emphasizes too much on film narrative. He also criticized “Atreus”, the son of God of War, as a bad character. Therefore, it doesn’t seem too surprising that he has some criticisms of “God of War: Laufey”.
David Jaffe watched the State of Play press conference with fans in a recent live broadcast, and shared many of his insights in depth after the event. As for “God of War: Laufey”, he thinks this side story work looks very boring and lacks creativity, but he also admitted that he has only seen part of the game so far, and it cannot represent the final product. Even so, he said he didn’t think the game would do too well.
According to him, the reason why the original “God of War” series is so popular is because of Kratos’ powerful side and the violent aesthetics that blended with Greek mythology. As for the 2018 version of “God of War” that was later taken over by Cory Barlog to develop, David Jaffe said that he did like that game very much, but still thought that the “God of War: Ragnarok” launched in 2022 was a bit weak. At the end of the live broadcast, David Jaffe said that “God of War: Laufey” cannot represent the traditional “God of War” game experience, and even bluntly said “This is not “God of War””
“I wonder what this is? It’s like a fantasy novel… If they take God of War out of the title, and you don’t know the story of the series, and Kratos doesn’t appear in this game, it’s just a story about a lost goddess, and you won’t know it’s a new God of War. I’ll probably play it live, but otherwise I won’t touch the game at all,” he said
In addition to the producers of the original “God of War”, even the famous pizza brand Domino’s has also joined the fray. In a recent Twitter post, he stated that “God of War without Kratos is like sausage pizza without sausage.” In response, Santa Monica officials also posted a response below, saying, “Okay, thanks for the reply, Domino’s Pizza official account.”
However, just because “God of War: Laufey” focuses on characters other than Kratos, it does not mean that the entire series will completely abandon this iconic classic character in the future.
In a recent interview with IGN, the God of War development team emphasized that they will always continue to tell the story of Kratos, but with this new game, they want to take this opportunity to tell a different story. Although the character “Lauffy” passed away at the beginning of the 2018 version of “God of War”, she still runs through the world view and background story of the entire Nordic duology chapter. Therefore, the team believes that this side story work is an extension of this chapter, rather than a departure.
“God of War: Laufey” will be exclusively available on the PS5 platform, and the release date has not yet been determined.
Source: KOCPC Chinese