In a depressingly predictable turn of events, the reveal God of War Laufey came under fire from certain corners of the Internet, as it centres around a female protagonist rather than mad lad turned sad dad Kratos.
Much of this negative reaction has centred around Laufey’s actor Deborah Ann Woll, who also played Laufey in the 2018 reboot. But Woll, who also plays Karen Page in Marvel’s Daredevil and its reboot Daredevil: Born Again, isn’t phased by the impotent rage of misogynistic online trolls:
Woll was asked about the backlash to the game’s reveal by TikTok influencer quinnphobic at Florida Supercon (via Eurogamer) who recorded the actor’s response for TikTok:
“Genuinely, I thought I was going to be much more affected by it, but one, I’m not on social media, so that helps, and two, I don’t know, I feel totally unbothered,” Woll replied. “Because I just know it’s great. It’s okay if it’s not your cup of tea, but in no universe is it bad.”
I’ll admit to being surprised by Sony Santa Monica’s direction for the next God of War, since Kratos has been at the centre of it since the very beginning. But having watched the lengthy reveal trailer/game demo, you can hardly say it isn’t in the spirit of the franchise. The idea of carving my way through the afterlife with a big wobbly cube companion seems rad, and if anything, Laufey is truer to the series’ original design philosophy than the more recent reboots, returning to a more traditional combat system
I felt like the Norse setting had run its course by the end of God of War: Ragnarök, and some new blood was needed for the series to continue. Besides, Sony Santa Monica has said that Kratos will return in future games anyway. So why be mad? Of course, we know why some people are mad, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the game.
What I will be mad at, however, is if God of War Laufey doesn’t come to PC. Both God of War and Ragnarök saw a delayed PC release after Sony discovered that launching its PlayStation exclusives on Steam et al is like printing money. But in May, Sony said it is retreating from the PC as a platform as it recommits to PlayStation exclusives being, well, exclusive.
This would suggest that Laufey will be stuck on PS5 (or possibly PS6 by the time it launches). Personally, though, I don’t see this decision lasting all that long. PC is just too big a platform to ignore nowadays, and games like Laufey are so expensive to make that they need as wide a distribution as possible to succeed.
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