Key Takeaways
- Bruce Straley apologized on X to the God of War Laufey team after his Edge magazine interview criticizing triple-A games went viral for naming their title.
- Straley told Edge that triple-A game experiences feel "boring" and that the industry lacks opportunity to inject fresh, innovative ideas, even while praising Laufey's visual craft.
- In his follow-up post, Straley blamed executives chasing games-as-a-service models like Overwatch, Fortnite and Roblox for a lack of leadership and risk-taking at the top.
- God of War Laufey, which follows Kratos's wife Faye through an afterlife called the Everywhen, was shown at a PlayStation State of Play in June and releases February 16, 2027.
Bruce Straley has issued a public apology to the developers of God of War Laufey after saying new AAA games are “boring.”
The Last of Us and Uncharted 2 director shared his apology on X after his comments to Edge magazine about AAA being uninteresting caused a stir in the gaming community.
"I want to apologize to the Laufey team for dragging you all into this uninvited & unnecessary negative attention," Straley wrote. "I was trying to illustrate an industry concern & my mistake of naming your game is being used out of context & for clickbait. You don't need this. I'm sorry."
The comments that set off the backlash came from an interview where Straley said the newest experiences in the AAA space are "boring” and reached for Santa Monica Studio's game as his example.
"God of War Laufey, I look at that game, and every pixel is mind-blowing. The amount of work and skill that's gone into every single frame... I've made those kinds of games, and I'm still blown away. But when I actually look at what you're doing in the game? I'm not excited," Straley said. "And that's nothing against the God of War team. Just, across the board in triple-A, it feels like there's no opportunity to inject fresh, innovative ideas."
In his follow-up post, Straley reframed his comment to be about the whole business rather than one studio's work.
"A journo asked me about the state of our industry. I mentioned a few concerns. One being the lack of innovation and risks taken in the AAA space," he wrote. "Though this isn't the team's fault! My fear is that our player base is getting tired of playing the same verbs for the last 20 years."
He pointed to Half-Life 2, Gears of War, BioShock, Uncharted 2, and The Last of Us as big-budget games that built something new and put the blame for the current stretch on "a lack of good leadership, clear direction & conviction from the ppl at the top, in charge of the money."
Executives chasing games-as-a-service models in the mold of Overwatch, Fortnite, and Roblox, he argued, have lost sight of what their own studios are for.
Straley joined Naughty Dog in 1999, directed Uncharted 2, and shared directing duties with Neil Druckmann on both The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 before leaving the studio in September 2017.
He now runs Wildflower Interactive, the remote studio he founded in 2021, where he is developing Coven of the Chicken Foot.
God of War Laufey, meanwhile, was unveiled with more than 20 minutes of gameplay at a PlayStation State of Play in June. It stars Faye, Kratos' Norse wife, who wakes from her own funeral and fights through an afterlife called the Everywhen.
