Last week, after a long period of silence following the release of the final piece of DLC for God of War Ragnarok, during Sony's first State of Play of 2026, we finally got a small update as to what Sony Santa Monica has been working on. Along with a remake of the original trilogy, we learned that the studio had teamed up with Mega Cat Studios to deliver a 2.5D game featuring Kratos titled God of War: Sons of Sparta.
There have been a lot of rumours circulating for years about an upcoming 2.5D God of War game, so its arrival was both surprising and not; surprising because after hearing nothing but rumours for a while, it was fair to wonder if it was even going to come out at all, and also not because we'd heard so much about it for so long.
Now that it was confirmed and shadow-dropped at the same time, we're starting to see plenty of reactions to the new 2.5D action game, one of which comes from David Jaffe, best known as one of the original creators behind the God of War franchise. To say that he's not fond of this new game would be an understatement.
"This is not God of War," an exasperated Jaffe says in his first of three videos he's now made on the game, the first of which you can see above. "What were they [Sony Santa Monica] thinking, like what the f*** are they thinking?" he continues, as he explains that he doesn't believe the game to be bad overall, calling it "fine," but adds that what he finds offensive in it is how generic the game is, and how he believes this is not the game that God of War fans would have wanted if you were to pitch them the idea of playing a 2.5D Metroidvania-style game in Sony's long-running franchise.
Jaffe adds that he doesn't believe anyone wants to play as "kids" in a God of War video game. "Nobody wants to kids! We don't want to play as Atreus; we don't want a spin-off as Atreus. Why do you guys keep making games about 15-year-old boys? Leave me alone! Go to Epstein's Island or something, whatever the f*** it is, I don't know what they're doing, but leave me the f*** alone! I want to be Kratos motherf*****!"
Though his first video can be described as an emotional rant fueled by only playing one hour of the game, in subsequent videos after playing a little more of Sons of Sparta, he digs further into his problems with it, citing issues of "visual noise" and an overall lack of polish, because while some people might call the probelms he's pointing out to be "minor," for him, not including even these 'minor' issues in the first place is "what it means to make a first-party game."
Ultimately, Jaffe believes players wanted something closer to Blasphemous, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. A smooth, ultra-violent, 2.5D action game where players don't play as a younger, prequel-era Kratos, but as the Ghost of Sparta he was before he became the Kratos we know from the Norse-era games. He adds that if you were to "pull God of War," as in remove the well-known IP from the game and present it as a 2.5D action game about a young Spartan, people would not be interested in playing it.
He's also butting up against the studio's shift in priorities to be more driven by storytelling, instead of the action gameplay that drove the original trilogy.
"It [Sons of Sparta] reminds me of a conversation I had with someone that is no longer at Sony Santa Monica, when we were talking about the sequence in God of War Ragnarok that a lot of people complain about, which is where Atreus is going on that long sled, walk, whatever, with that girl he likes and it just goes on and on and on. And I said to this person, 'Why didn't they recognize, didn't focus tests tell them that this was boring and they should maybe cut that or truncate it?'"
"And they said to me - and this is one person's opinion, but they would know, they were certainly in the know. They said, 'Sony Santa Monica these days is driven mostly, or primarily, by story.' And I'm like, 'Oh my god.'"
Jaffe also claims that anyone who says he is "salty" is wrong and that his only motive for talking about his displeasure with Sons of Sparta begins and ends with him just not liking the game. A statement that is difficult to take on its face, since Jaffe is primarily a content creator now, and all of these videos about his displeasure with the game are fueling what appears to be his main source of income.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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