God of War director has defiant message for anyone who doesn’t want Atreus to be gay: ‘You’re just homophobic’
God of War creator responds to Twitter users who suggested Atreus being gay would be wrong (Sony Entertainment Interactive)
After God of War fans took to Twitter to speculate whether protagonist Kratos was gay, director of the franchise David Jaffe shared his thoughts, even suggesting it doesn’t bother him if Atreus – the son of Kratos – was gay.
Gaming fans caused quite the stir when discussing the future sexuality of iconic character Kratos from the God of War franchise.
The action-adventure game, which sees the Spartan warrior fight armies and mythical creatures in Ancient Greece, has become a legendary feature of the gaming world.
After being tagged in a thread of tweets, the franchise’s director David Jaffe, the original God of War series creator, took to YouTube to not only discuss discussion around Kratos’ sexuality, but to also call out the homophobic fans of the game who expressed that making such an iconic character gay would ruin the franchise.
“There’s nothing in the canon that says that he can’t be gay. A lot of the times people say, ‘We don’t have a problem with the gay folks, we just have a problem if you retcon a character, that feels forced and wrong.’ OK, I kinda see that point of view, but in this case what’s the problem? If Atreus is gay, why would it ruin the franchise? The God damn truth is that under the surface they are homophobic.”
— Sam Handrick (@MDSVeritas) February 17, 2021
https://twitter.com/ghazinaeem5/status/1362189024912433152
The franchise is in Cory's hands so that's all him. As for me,I think we need more LGBT characters represented in games. While I would not want to retcon Kratos (who-if you really wanna know-PROBABLY fucked anything w/a hole), it'd be very cool of Atreus grew up to be gay.— David Jaffe (@davidscottjaffe) February 18, 2021
Responding to a comment that said nobody wants to see Atreus and another dude in a sex scene in a new God of War he says: “Well first off, I’m not sure if that’s true. I like to see the ladies in the sex scenes. I have a gay brother, I’m sure he’d be happy when Atreus is a grown-up and he’s a good-looking dude and all that, to see Atreus in a sex scene with some dudes, right? Second off why would it ruin the game?
“If you don’t wanna look, don’t look. If you don’t wanna actually do the mini-game don’t do it. My question to you is if Atreus ended up being a gay fella when he grows up, would it ruin the franchise? Because I don’t really understand what would create a destructive force in a franchise because one character who’s a dude happens to like other dudes… it doesn’t make no sense to me.”
In the last year, there’s been a rise in queer representation in gaming with titles like The Last of Us Part II and CyberPunk 2077. Just last month it was reported that Mass Effect 2 made the decision to remove a possible gay romance between a male Shepard and Jacob due to the fear of backlash from its fans and the gaming community.
With the rumour of the next God of War most likely to feature a grown-up Atreus, could this be an ideal way for the creators to introduce representation into the franchise and explore queer representation? Guess fans will have to wait and see.
God of War is available on PS4 at game.co.uk.
