'This is Not God of War' — Franchise Creator David Jaffe Trashes Side-Scrolling Spinoff Sons of Sparta

God of War creator David Jaffe has slammed the series' caller side-scrolling spinoff Sons of Sparta for being "boring" and "an insult" some to fans of the bid and its archetypal originative team.

God of War Sons of Sparta was announced and past shadow-dropped connected PlayStation 5 past week astatine the extremity of Sony's large State of Play broadcast. A Metroidvania-inspired enactment platformer from indie retro developer Mega Cat Studios, Sons of Sparta is designed arsenic a prequel to the archetypal God of War trilogy, featuring a young mentation of Kratos and his member arsenic they bid together.

In an archetypal YouTube video posted aft playing an hr of the game, Jaffe made his frustrations with the project's conception clear: essentially, that it was excessively antithetic successful code from the archetypal trilogy, contempt his archetypal excitment to spot a side-scrolling instrumentality connected the series.

"This is the benignant of crippled I've ever wanted successful presumption of 2.5D God of War, ace into it — but this, to me, is not what I was talking about. I bought this game, it's a $30 game, I don't similar it, I don't urge it," Jaffe began, earlier turning his attraction to the executives astatine Sony who decided to greenlight the project.

"I wanted to marque a video much astir what are they thinking, similar what the f*** were they thinking? It's not a atrocious crippled by immoderate means, it's fine, it controls decently... but to maine the much fascinating portion of this is, wherefore is this successful existence? I don't understand."

After an hour's worthy of play, Jaffe said helium couldn't proceed with the crippled arsenic its characters kept "stopping implicit and implicit [to] speech and talk." He added: "This is not God of War."

"Let's conscionable marque him immoderate generic f***ing kid, similar we're watching a Kids WB TV amusement oregon something," Jaffe continued on. "It's astir apt immoderate bulls*** writer going, 'Oh radical privation to cognize why, however did radical go this way?' No 1 cares. It's a dumb idea... [Fans] wanted thing similar Blasphemous, successful presumption of it's violent, it's bloody, it's serious, it has the code of the aboriginal God of the War games.

"If you pulled God of War retired of it, and you conscionable said, 'hey, we're making a crippled astir this kid,' astir radical would accidental 'that doesn't dependable similar a precise compelling thought for a video crippled character,' due to the fact that it's not."

David Jaffe. Image credit: David Jaffe.

"Maybe it gets better, I'm definite it does," helium further continued. "There's thing violative astir it. The lone happening violative astir it is its genericism. The lone happening violative astir it is its inability to bespeak the license, the brand. It's similar you get the John Wick licence and you marque a movie wherever he's conscionable sitting successful a java store talking. Now that mightiness enactment erstwhile you person Keanu Reeves arsenic he's truthful compelling, and the character's interesting."

Jaffe said helium had been keen to spot a 2.5D God of War crippled much akin to titles specified arsenic Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, Neon Inferno, oregon Shinobi. "Why would you adjacent enactment this out? All it does is permission a atrocious sensation successful God of War fans' mouths, successful my assumption," helium concluded.

"Every clip you marque a caller game, you don't person to go, 'You cognize what? Let's not spell backmost to the large quality that radical emotion that built this franchise. Let's spot him arsenic a small kid, immoderate generic boring small f***ing kid.' It's conscionable insulting to the fans. It's insulting to radical who worked connected the games that they would deliberation this quality close present is what radical want. It's crap. It's dumb. It's stupid. I would accidental debar this f***ing thing."

While Jaffe had said helium wouldn't instrumentality to Sons of Sparta, helium past went backmost and played a further 3 hours, astatine which constituent helium posted an adjacent much in-depth video that critiques the crippled connected a much granular level for much than 30 minutes.

Specifically, Jaffe addressed points astir "confusing ocular sound during combat," "gameplay breaking ocular inconsistencies," a "buggy and confusing idiosyncratic interface," the proposition that "level plan and quality question feels off," and "kiddie level dialog and mediocre dependable histrion performances." Ultimately, helium branded the crippled arsenic "not acceptable for release."

Late connected Friday past week, God of War franchise developer Sony Santa Monica was forced to clarify God of War Sons of Sparta's two-player offering pursuing wide instrumentality confusion. After galore fans assumed the game's "1-2 player" listing connected the PlayStation Store referred to afloat co-op, the institution clarified that multiplayer functionality was constricted to a situation mode unlocked aft completing the game.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social