{"id":594212,"date":"2026-02-16T14:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/594212\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:50:15","slug":"its-a-terrible-first-party-game-god-of-war-creator-expands-on-ps5-side-scroller-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/594212\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s a Terrible First-Party Game’: God of War Creator Expands on PS5 Side-Scroller Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'It's<\/a><\/p>\n

After his outburst over the weekend<\/a>, God of War<\/a> creator David Jaffe has returned with a more measured critique of Sons of Sparta<\/a>, the new Metroidvania side-scroller from Mega Cat Studios<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To his credit, while this is still an expletives-laden tirade, he does dig into his impressions a little deeper, and brings actual examples of what he likes and doesn\u2019t like about the title.<\/p>\n

He also points out that he\u2019s played several hours more than the initial hour he reported on, although he notes that his largely negative opinion hasn\u2019t really changed within that timeframe.<\/p>\n

Once again, Jaffe is not particularly impressed with the decision to base the game on a younger Kratos \u2013 \u201cGo to Epstein\u2019s island,\u201d he rants \u2013 but he later goes on to break down the game design, which is genuinely interesting considering his background in the industry.<\/p>\n

Jaffe gives developer Mega Cat Studios a little more leeway, and seems to pin his anger on the decision makers at both Santa Monica Studio and publisher Sony.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase, he basically suggests the publisher should have provided stronger feedback on the title, and points to design issues like visual language, readability, UI, and more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s difficult to argue against the criticisms he raises, they do seem a bit nit-picky, although he admits that individually they\u2019re not a big deal and they simply stack up. Some of these could be patched in the future, to be fair.<\/p>\n

Throughout the video, Jaffe seems to target Santa Monica Studio\u2019s new boss, Mary Olson, who replaced veteran Yumi Yang last year. He vents that, in his opinion, she\u2019s someone \u201cwho is more about getting the pat on the head from executives rather than fighting the good fight\u201d.<\/p>\n

And while he concedes eventually that Sons of Sparta is a competent game on its own merits, he concludes: \u201cBut it\u2019s a terrible God of War game. It\u2019s a terrible first-party game. And it\u2019s an embarrassment that Santa Monica Studio allowed this to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair, we do think his criticisms carry a bit more weight in this video, as he\u2019s able to better articulate some of the problems he had with the game.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s an undertone of agitation throughout the entire video which suggests to us Jaffe is just no longer a fan of the type of games Sony wants to make.<\/p>\n

As one of the original creators of God of War, we can certainly appreciate his stance, but he also needs to concede that he hasn\u2019t been a part of the creative decision making for decades \u2013 and like it or loathe it, the franchise is more popular right now than it\u2019s ever been.<\/p>\n

[source youtube.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\n
Related Games<\/dt>\n
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See Also<\/dt>\n
\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After his outburst over the weekend, God of War creator David Jaffe has returned with a more measured…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":594213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[256579,165698,15610,19061,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-594212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-david-jaffe","9":"tag-god-of-war","10":"tag-ps5","11":"tag-sony","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116080872067473929","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}