God of War is definitely one of PlayStation’s strongest IPs. Kratos has been able to cross almost unscathed all generations of the Sony console, appearing on all platforms. However, there is a decidedly curious background to this: the whole genesis of Kratos could have been very different, as stated by David Jaffe, the creator of the saga.
Jaffe, who after giving birth to God of War founded another development team and later embarked on a career as a journalist, explained how in reality Kratos’ adventures had to be firsthand in reality. For about three months I had seriously considered developing it myself, Jaffe said on his YouTube channel.
How is it possible that God of War was born in the first person? The explanation is provided by Jaffe. The idea came to the game designer while he was thinking about Maken X, an old game for Dreamcast. It wasn’t the best game in the world, but it was the only one that offered first-person melee combat. The idea was later discarded, as the first-person camera failed to convey those feelings of emotion, combat and character growth that the team and Jaffe hoped they could communicate to the player.
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Convinced that God of War needed the third person was when Jaffe spoke to the development team, who had seen a demo of Devil May Cry or ICO at the DICE conference in Las Vegas. At that moment the project changed completely but it is certainly interesting the idea that for a moment we could have guided Kratos through his adventures with a completely different perspective.
This sliding door into the gaming world has certainly paid off. And today we have several chapters of God of War, including one that is considered to be the best reboot in history but they are all in the third person. Perhaps, with a design change, Kratos would not have been able to enter the hearts of all the players in the world and probably the series would have stalled.