T w e n t y S i d e d

I used to like David Jaffe’s games. The Twisted Metal games were a mainstay with my friends when I was young and I really enjoyed the original God of War games. He made power fantasies to make angry punks like me feel strong and cool. Both of those franchises were quite good at doing that job. Then after he made those games, what has he done? His last attempt at a game was Drawn to Death on the PS4. A game so bad that when Sony gave it away as part of the Playstation Plus program it was still impossible to find a lobby. I tried it. The game sucked. The style was awful, the controls sucked, and the weapons felt like Nerf toys.

Now as you may be able to tell, I was VERY ready to go in on Jaffe. He’s said some incredibly stupid stuff in the past and I can’t say I like him much. But I have to say, the chuds online have taken a bad take from a guy who is related to a product they claim to like and have really run away with it. Jaffe’s assertion was that nobody wanted to play a God of War game where the protagonist isn’t a power fantasy icon. He said that Laufey looks too normal, implying that she’s ugly. He said that he doesn’t find Deborah Ann Woll unattractive, but finds the character model in the trailer was ugly. Feels like a bit of a stretch to me, but fine. And he also essentially said that Laufey isn’t a protagonist that people want to play as. This is the same stuff people were saying about playing as Atreus in Ragnarök, but with a grosser bend to it because he’s commenting on a woman’s likeness not being attractive.

Now as far as the losers parroting Jaffe without understanding what he was saying:

Sure, Jan.

I’m convinced none of these guys have ever actually played video games past the ol’ standards of COD, Madden, and the current month’s trending battle royale. Maybe I’m doing the reverse equivalent of quizzing every girl wearing a Nevermind T-shirt about Nirvana trivia, but I don’t care. You need to have some perspective and a basis of knowledge if you want to raise your voice and claim to speak for anyone other than yourself. Female protagonists are as old as games having protagonists. And even if you exclude 2D games and games without much narrative support, you have Tomb Raider on the PS One and hundreds of games after that.

Jaffe’s take is incredibly dumb and weird. I think it’s bizarre and gross, but forgivable for those that like him. The chud masses truly just took what they wanted to hear and echoed it to each other until it became loud enough for other people to hear. I’m fairly sure I’m preaching to the choir here, but I do want to at least throw in my two cents. In my eyes, Jaffe’s a prick and what he said was stupid and wrong, but he wasn’t trying to start a movement. He was just bitching about a trailer. In the end, the game will sell amazingly no matter what. Hopefully it’ll be great. Hopefully I’ll be justified in having some faith in the same company that took a bland, badass, angry man and turned him into a contemplative character with deep complexities. I don’t typically allow myself to get hyped about games before release, but I have a lot of love for the God of War series, so I’m fighting myself a little harder than I otherwise might.

Freya is a badass. Angrboða is super cool. Laufey seems incredibly interesting. I want to see more and I am excited for the future where the noise dies down and we can focus on what matters again.

Ethan Rodgers