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"Atreus is a Terrible Character", Says David Jaffe, God of War Creator

Is this the same chap who made a video defending SBI and calling out people as racist who opposed them? I thought he would be all in on Atreus and Angrboda. Maybe not woke enough for good old David eh? Maybe he wants to see some more diversity next time with Atreus becoming trans or something else along those lines.
 
I don’t see the point in positioning Atreus to sunset Kratos.

He’s not a God of War. He’s Loki with tweenage angst issues.

Plus Kratos is an immortal God. Or should be. He doesn’t need to be sunset at all.

I think the audience is excruciatingly eager to see Kratos pursue new adventures.

He should head off in search of the legendary ambrosia, consume it to reinvigorate himself (returning him to the youthful mid-30s age appearance and juggernaut-tier strength and combat ability) and then set off to new lands to deal with the next great mythological pantheon.

Egyptian? Aztec? Sumerian? Japanese?

There’s a ton of fascinating lore building they can do with this, in a similar way to how Assassin’s Creed has attempted to do.
 
Tangential but real talk. I miss the fuck out of young Kratos. The responsible Dad of War novelty long ran its course and I want to true Ghost of Spartan, homicidal anger and all back. Young Kratos just had a swagger and punch a god in the face cause he midly inconvenienced me balls that is sorely lacking in games now. I know, I know it's the same old grass is always greener bullshit but still I'll take irresponsible, gonzo violent young Kratos any day of the week. And if only by the virtue he was always entertaining in his fuck up ways and not such a fucking drag. He was a magnificent trainwreck mess of a protag.

I mean I get it. Sony would never greenlight it cause he was problematic and we want him to be all serious and drama and shit... but, damn... young Kratos is missed.
 
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Saber

Gold Member
People hated Raiden until they turned him into the fucking ninja. Give them time to cook, he may turn into a fine character with his own spin off.

I don't remember his game downgrading Snake. He was still awesome, if anything he look way more cooler despite not being the main character.
Kratos got totally downgraded in the sequel.
 

RaduN

Member
I don't remember his game downgrading Snake. He was still awesome, if anything he look way more cooler despite not being the main character.
Kratos got totally downgraded in the sequel.
Putting God of War in the same sentence with MGS in terms of narrative prowess? Now i've fucking seen everything.
 
The new GoW stories are painfully pretentious and cliched as hell.

You can argue the same for the old games, except with the major difference that the story didn't feel like the main focus of the developers. Gameplay/story ratio was way bigger on gameplay, it didn't shove this trash down your throat.

Also, no matter how cringe you might find the edginess of old GoW - at least it was honest. Nu GoW tries to emotionally manipulate you with this annoying little brat crying over dying dogs, desperately trying to say something about violence.. Yet 15 minutes later you're back in mindless hack'n'slay gameplay, lol.
 
I don't remember his game downgrading Snake. He was still awesome, if anything he look way more cooler despite not being the main character.
Kratos got totally downgraded in the sequel.
Yeah he's awesome now in 2024. Go back to old message boards. I remember when I was 15 some dude on a long deceased message board was very open about how much he liked Raiden and people would come for him about how they just wanted to play as Snake.
 

R3EUIL

Member
Someone didn't like my comments and decided to delete them, so I'll try to be less aggressive this time: David Jaffe was an important person for the industry, he knows how to create characters in IPs he works on, but nowadays, he's irrelevant, he doesn't produce anything and uses his position as creator of GoW as a bargaining chip when it comes to saying something.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
desperately trying to say something about violence.. Yet 15 minutes later you're back in mindless hack'n'slay gameplay, lol.
Just like Norn said, This Kratos still killing gods but now his sad about it.
2lFlidd.jpeg
 

Arachnid

Member
I finally finished the game a few minutes ago, and he is spot on. Loki role in Norse Mythology has been debated a ton, but people more in the know than I settled on him being either the God of Fire, Trickery, or just a straight up Lucifer type character. I thought we saw pieces of it in the first game when he discovered he was a god and instantly went on a power trip. I thought there was a sliver of it in Ragnorok when he stated that he operates best in chaos.

Instead, he stayed lawful good the entire game. I spent the entire time waiting for his decent into a character more in line with Kratos in the originals, or someone more malicious to live up to what the OG trilogy was about. That someone never came. Wtf was he even the god of? It would have been so fascinating to watch Kratos wrestle with his sons choices and decent into mischief as he murdered Norse gods. Also, they robbed him of his kids. Jormungandre is just a random giant and Fenrir is just his dog? Hel doesn't even exist as a character yet (a queen of the dead would have been cool as shit)?

Also, for a God of War, Kratos himself was lacking to shit too. Not a single brutal kill worthy of the originals, other than the werewolves (heimdalls kill was boring too, but I figured it would escalate from there). Why did Kratos straight up savage some random werewolves but then give a speech to Thor/Heimdall and act all benevolent with Odin? NONE of them went out the way I thought they would. Also, the only good guys that died were some blue dwarf and Freyers dopey brother? Sif is all of a sudden homies and thanking us after we killed two of her kids? Feelgood bullshit. What a disappointing duology.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
they robbed him of his kids. Jormungandre is just a random giant and Fenrir is just his dog? Hel doesn't even exist as a character yet (a queen of the dead would have been cool as shit)?
This part was most disappointing, I was really looking forward be actual Loki's children but they completely butchered it made it super boring.

There was bunch of build up to more interesting story but in the end it amount to nothing, absolulty nothing.
 

R3EUIL

Member
I finally finished the game a few minutes ago, and he is spot on. Loki role in Norse Mythology has been debated a ton, but people more in the know than I settled on him being either the God of Fire, Trickery, or just a straight up Lucifer type character. I thought we saw pieces of it in the first game when he discovered he was a god and instantly went on a power trip. I thought there was a sliver of it in Ragnorok when he stated that he operates best in chaos.

Instead, he stayed lawful good the entire game. I spent the entire time waiting for his decent into a character more in line with Kratos in the originals, or someone more malicious to live up to what the OG trilogy was about. That someone never came. Wtf was he even the god of? It would have been so fascinating to watch Kratos wrestle with his sons choices and decent into mischief as he murdered Norse gods. Also, they robbed him of his kids. Jormungandre is just a random giant and Fenrir is just his dog? Hel doesn't even exist as a character yet (a queen of the dead would have been cool as shit)?

Also, for a God of War, Kratos himself was lacking to shit too. Not a single brutal kill worthy of the originals, other than the werewolves (heimdalls kill was boring too, but I figured it would escalate from there). Why did Kratos straight up savage some random werewolves but then give a speech to Thor/Heimdall and act all benevolent with Odin? NONE of them went out the way I thought they would. Also, the only good guys that died were some blue dwarf and Freyers dopey brother? Sif is all of a sudden homies and thanking us after we killed two of her kids? Feelgood bullshit. What a disappointing duology.
Loki was in a good part of the game being friendly with Odin, he only didn't get lost because of the prophecy of Kratos' death and because both Kratos and Atreus worked it out. Jormungandr is Loki's figurative son, not necessarily biological. Hel in GoW is a hierarchical position, not a person (i.e. that bird is Hel). As for the rest, well, nothing really bad, just a distorted/subjective perception of the duology
 

Arachnid

Member
Loki was in a good part of the game being friendly with Odin, he only didn't get lost because of the prophecy of Kratos' death and because both Kratos and Atreus worked it out. Jormungandr is Loki's figurative son, not necessarily biological. Hel in GoW is a hierarchical position, not a person (i.e. that bird is Hel). As for the rest, well, nothing really bad, just a distorted/subjective perception of the duology
Yeah, I get what they were trying to do with the prophecy and it not being real. Kratos not dying was still an obvious retcon due to the change in game director between 2018 and this. Also, Atreus and Kratos absolutely didn't work it out. It was some lame plan by Faye while they floundered. It's stupid how literally everything else in the prophecy came to pass except that, because apparently Faye is more all knowing than people who can nearly perfectly predict the future. Her entire plan to change the prophecy is to destroy some art. Genius writing,

Atreus being friendly in general was the issue. He could have been Atreus as a completely original character, and it would have changed nothing. If you aren't making Loki, don't name him Loki.

Jornungandr isn't in any way Atreu's son in GOW, figuratively or literally. Not mentally or biologically. He was a random giant soul placed in a snake. He had like four 30 second encounters with Loki over both games. That giant had a whole life with the memories and experiences that entails prior. I guarantee you he didn't look at Atreus and think "Father!".

The Hel tidbit is a shitty route for the game to take. She's a Norse mythology character people wanted to see, with extremely significant ties to one of the leads. "Zeus is just a hierarchical position! That's why it's OK to remove him from the pantheon!" Especially since the character still exists in lore as Atreus' daughter with Angrboda. She just isn't born, which is fucking lame. She comes after the Norse pantheon is gone and Ragnorok is past. Truth is they were just hamstrung by the fact that Loki was a kid, so they removed all his children. It would have been better to make Atreus an original character so we could get the actual mythological Loki and Hel, along with the rest of Loki's kids. They would have even made great bosses (vs the 12 berserkers, 6 trolls, 10 water lizards, and whatever other trash bosses we fought; jesus, Kratos killed one god in the ENTIRE game), and Helheim wouldn't have felt so pointless.

I don't see how my take is "distorted" at all. It's based off clear characterizations of mythological characters created more than a millennia ago, and my take on Kratos is in line with the actual creator of the character and series. I'd say your perception is distorted by whoever directed GOWR.

This game missed the spirit of the entire series and replaced it with something that may as well not have been related.
 
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