God of War Laufey was revealed at the recent PlayStation State of Play by Santa Monica Studios and Sony as a new God of War game, starring not Kratos, but Faye, the second wife of Kratos and the mother of Atreus. And as you would expect from this pairing, the game looks incredibly polished, and you can see its extensive budget in every pixel of the game. It looks pretty good in a general sense, but it doesn’t really look like a God of War game, which begs the question: what is God of War without Kratos? This is something the game is going to have to wrestle with, and ultimately it will have to prove the series is bigger than its iconic protagonist. Only time will tell if the team at the PlayStation studio will be able to achieve this, but in the meantime, there are a couple of red flags that nobody is talking about.
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It’s been confirmed that the narrative director on the game is Jimmie Myers and the lead writer on the game is Elize Morgan. Neither worked on the previous two God of War games, indicating this is a spin-off B-team of sorts working on the spin-off installment. Myers’ background includes Cinematics Director at Bungie from 2021 to 2024 and various similar roles at Infinity Ward before this. And before this, he was notably a Video Editor at Naughty Dog for a little bit. As for Morgan, before recently joining Santa Monica Studios, she was a writer on 2022’s Gotham Knights and did some work on Watch Dogs: Legion and Assassin’s Creed Origins as well. The narrative and writing in Gotham Knights were not very good, so this isn’t the most encouraging sign for God of War: Laufey. What’s more concerning, though, is the lack of experience with the series these two — the two narrative leads on the game — have.
God of War Laufey Red Flags
In a video titled “Introducing Faye,” — which is getting mass-disliked on YouTube — both Morgan and Myers reveal their first experience with the series was playing 2018’s God of War reboot. The problem with this is that there were seven God of War games before this. Myers and Morgan don’t clarify one way or another if they went back to any of these previous games in preparation for their roles. If they did, this would presumably be mentioned. Even if they did, cramming seven games in a year or so is not quite the same experience.
Of course, it’s not required to be a God of War mega fan to write for it. In fact, a writer and a narrative designer could come in and do an incredible job on a new God of War game with minimal knowledge of the series. Something being possible and probable are two very different things, though. And more than this, God of War Laufey looks like it’s going to expand the lore of the series in a meaningful way, and this is where you really want someone deeply familiar with said lore. And maybe the two have become God of War lore experts in their small window working on the series, but that seems unlikely. When you couple this with the fact that this is a new role for Myers and Morgan’s previous work on Gotham Knights, it starts to raise some red flags, especially when combined with the reveal trailer, where the tone seems off. Again, God of War Laufey doesn’t look bad, but it also doesn’t really look or sound like a God of War game, something its creator, David Jaffe, noted in his reaction to the game announcement.
All of this is to say, when God of War 2018 was revealed, it was immediately obvious PlayStation had a classic on their hands. And when God of War Ragnarok was revealed, it was immediately obvious Santa Monica Studios was picking up where it left off. With God of War Laufey, there are some question marks, and upon deeper examination, some red flags.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the video game conversations happening over on the ComicBook Forum.
