Dominos Pizza UK has joined the gamer culture slapfight over God of War: Laufey, and I'd really like to just skip this part, please
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Not the way I wanted to round out my week.
Typically-speaking, we wouldn't be inclined to write about God of War Laufey—not because I don't want to play the next God of War game (I rather liked the 2018 reboot) but because Sony has doubled-down on console exclusives for the foreseeable, and we are PC Gamer. However, it's my job to report on gaming discourse.
Imagine me saying the following with a deep, bone-tired sigh: Dominos Pizza UK has entered an X feud with Santa Monica studio because the God of War game doesn't have Kratos in it. Or, at least, he's not the main character.
Some context, I guess—God of War Laufey will follow the journey of Kratos' wife, Faye, as she battles through the afterlife of the gods. I actually happen to think this set-up kinda rules, after all, Kratos has killed a lot of gods, and I think it's interesting for Faye to have to deal with the consequences of his warpath.
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But obviously, because God of War is historically associated with a cool rippled muscular Spartan dude yelling and butchering people, it's become another annoying subject of a culture war that nobody should care about.
Lemme just state my opinion up-front: Maybe Laufey will be a good game, maybe it will be a bad game. Neither option will have anything to do with the fact its protagonist happens to be a woman—and it is, in fact, a good thing that the franchise isn't focusing exclusively on Kratos.
It's boring and dull to tell the exact same story over and over again, especially since the 2018 reboot has already given him two several-dozen hour long titles. And he's had an anthology of games before that. And they'll be remaking the 2005 trilogy, anyway. Nobody should care.
Except for Dominos Pizza UK, who fed the wood-fired oven of this nonsense by writing "God of War game with no Kratos = Pepperoni Passion with no pepperoni", to which Santa Monica responded: "ok thanks for the feedback, dominos pizza corporate account".
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I have skimmed the comments to this thread so you do not have to, and it's mostly a bunch of griping about how a game shouldn't be called "God of War" if Kratos isn't in it, and a particularly nauseating AI-generated sexist video of Faye doing household labour. It's a radioactive waste pit of discussion. This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
Look. Can we just—skip this bit, please? Can we skip the inane knee-jerk 18th century takes and the rage-baiting and the "you just got mogged by a pizza company" and the inevitable conspiracy theories and the official statements and the YouTube reaction videos with gawking thumbnails? Can we be normal about a videogame that's just doing something mildly different—something that, by nature of its very pitch, might not even pass the Bechdel Test? For once?
I'm well aware the answer is 'no', but I will live in my delusional world where it is 'yes'. Unless, I suppose, another big brand decides to legitimise sexist weirdos on the internet again. Instead we should all be talking about how they did motion capture on a cube.
