God of War Laufey might not have sad dad Kratos front and center in the spotlight, but it's still just as much of a God of War game as any God of War game before it, according to its director Ariel Lawrence.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ about the upcoming God of War Laufey - another third-person action spectacle, this time starring Kratos' beloved Faye in an afterlife realm for the gods - Lawrence explains she's simply glad that so many people are having strong reactions to its 20-minute reveal, positive or negative.
"We have to honor that everybody has their connection with a God of War story, and I think that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions, so some of them are hesitant, some of them are all in, and I think for me, I'm just happy that everybody cares about this," she says. "I think if we had put something out and people had been like, 'it's okay,' I think it would have been more disheartening. But if people have feelings, great, I hope to win over the skeptics in the future."
As for developer Sony Santa Monica, Laufey is considered "every bit as God of War as all of the things that we've done, and I think this is just taking a different person and seeing what they can do in this world."
To Lawrence, she describes the essence of the franchise as a series of intimate stories wrapped in a disproportionately grand wrapper. In her words, "the soul of a God of War story is a human story in an epic mythological world." She then points to how Kratos' violence and rage also stem from "a really human experience and the reasons that are driving him are very human."
Faye's journey in God of War Laufey is somewhat similar, she says. There might be explosions and epic set pieces and buff, scaley gods out for blood and a... err... bouncy cosmic cube, but "Faye's experience is a human experience in this really epic mythological world."
And for anyone missing the collected calm of our bald, muscly man, Sony Santa Monica said it will "always tell stories about Kratos." It's just that this upcoming game is a rare chance for the series stewards to surprise us.
