Examining the masculinity of the newest God of War

Note: The author originally wrote this feature for Pixel Jizz; a gaming culture publication for California’s Bay Area Queer community, and has been given permission to publish it on to Press Pause Radio as well. You can obtain the latest issue from Comikake this upcoming September.

nder the creative direction of Cory Balrog, Santa Monica Studio was able to deliver a radical reimagining for the God of War series that not only changed some of the most fundamental gameplay dynamics of the series, but it also managed to re-characterize its protagonist into something more than a bland cipher for juvenile aggression. While there’s no denying the quality of the franchise and what it did for the character-action genre of video games, the heart of the property was ultimately nothing more than a navel-gazing male power-fantasy that embellished upon all the token signs of toxic masculinity to an obnoxiously troubling degree. There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the newest God of War title, but my favorite reason has to be the fact that it finally redeemed its hero with something far more meaningful than revenge porn, and I couldn’t be happier with the effect it’ll have on male culture as a whole.

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