Normally, a new God of War game would be cause for celebration, but the latest release has caused resentment to fester in players — not to mention the creator of the franchise.
Surprise-revealed and -released during last week’s State of Play showcase, God of War Sons of Sparta forges new ground for the series: It’s a 2D Metroidvania and a prequel, focusing on eventual God of War Kratos and his brother Deimos in their youth. Because the game didn’t have a traditional marketing cycle and wasn’t tested by reviewers ahead of release, players wanting to check it out after the showcase only had the short reveal trailer and its PlayStation Store description to go off of.
The PlayStation Store description noted that Sons of Sparta could be played by two players via a co-op mode, but once players began their journey as a young Kratos, they couldn’t find a two-player option in the game. Some pondered if the description was incorrect, and eventually the outpouring of confusion prompted a response from Santa Monica Studio, one of the developers of the game (along with Mega Cat Studios). Turns out, Sons of Sparta does have a co-op mode — you just have to beat the game first to unlock it.
“After completing Sons of Sparta’s main story, you will unlock a challenge mode that can be played solo or with local 2-player couch co-op,” Santa Monica Studio shared on X.
In a way, this just made players more upset about the game. “A whole part of wanting to play coop games like this is so you can share the experience with others. Why would I want to play the game fully by myself then play it again with someone else?” one user on Reddit commented.
“I don’t want to play it twice, I want to play it once with my wife. Trying to return now for the false advertising…” an X user said in reply to Santa Monica’s Tweet. Several more pondered if they could get refunds from Sony for the game as they had hoped for a co-op experience from the jump.
While withholding extreme difficulty levels until a player has beaten a game is standard practice, keeping a co-op mode behind bars until an individual player has already rolled credits is a peculiar choice. Since Sons of Sparta is about two brothers growing alongside one another, thematically, the game makes complete sense as a co-op experience. “We’re all starved for couch co-op content these days anyway so it seems really silly to lock this behind a first play through,” a Redditor noted.
Representatives for PlayStation did not immediately respond to Polygon’s request for comment about whether the game will be patched to include co-op in a first playthrough.
Co-op kerfuffle aside, most people playing Sons of Sparta are enjoying its early hours. A first impressions thread gained traction on Reddit over the weekend, with players enjoying it for what it is — not a groundbreaking Metroidvania, but a fun one with sharp combat that further builds out Kratos’ story. However, one person who’s certainly not vibing with Sons of Sparta is the creator of the series.
David Jaffe posted a review to YouTube on Friday. In it, he went to town on God of War Sons of Sparta, starting off by saying, “I don’t like it. I don’t recommend it. … What the fuck are they thinking?” While he admitted it’s “not a bad game,” he vocally wondered why it exists at all in the first place, even though he opened his review commenting that he, like many others, has been wanting a 2.5D God of War game for some time. Jaffe said he only played an hour of Sons of Sparta (“And I’ll never go back to it”), but it certainly sounds like he has his mind made up. (And he’s been known to criticize the direction of the franchise before.)
God of War Sons of Sparta is out now on PlayStation 5. If the lack of co-op up front is putting you off from checking it out, at least there’s more God of War on the way. Also announced during the State of Play stream was a remake of the original God of War trilogy, though that project is early in development and without a release window.