Alanah Pearce, who was a writer at Sony Santa Monica for several years and worked on God of War Ragnarök, has shed more light on the sex minigames which cropped up in the series’ earlier entries.
Ever since Sony announced the original God of War trilogy was getting the remake treatment, there has been one question being asked louder than others – will the remakes include the originals’ sex mini games? The original games along with PSP’s God of War: Chains of Olympus featured some version of a sex mini-game, with players simply pressing a button to initiate things, before the camera would pan away from the action.
Players would then perform some quick time events and if they did well, the ladies having sex with Kratos would moan louder. At the end, players would push buttons to match the climax, and many had assumed these games were created by male developers. However, it turns out that they were actually designed by women.
“I worked with one of them,” Pearce said during a recent stream, adding God of War’s various sex minigames were “largely worked on by women” on the development team. “In fact, when you walk into, I think it’s Aphrodite’s chamber, this was designed – again, including a group of women – to look like a labia. Like, it’s literally designed to be evocative of a vagina. And the women were the ones who did that.
“When you look at it, it makes sense, but I feel like a lot of people didn’t notice that. I worked with one of the women who worked on these, and she was, like, very proud of it, and it was really fucking cool.”
Pearce went on to mention a Play, Watch, Listen video she made which focused on sex in video games, and why they are often so awkward about what is a perfectly natural thing. “[Sex is] a part of life,” she continued. “With video games specifically, the awkwardness comes from people in a room being afraid to pitch it as a mechanic, because they feel awkward about the fact that animators are going to have to animate it, actors are going to have to act it… multiple people are going to have to work on making this interactive sex scene.”
Ultimately, Pearce believes the God of War sex games should still be included in the upcoming remakes. “I’m pro sex minigame; I recognise that in God of War it’s a little silly the way it was in those games, but again, I think it should still be in those remakes. I think it belongs there.” She added she doesn’t think the minigames were “disrespectful to women”, and they are “quite critical of who Kratos is as a person and the rage is clearly not fulfilling to him”. These games, she said, actually “serves the journey [Kratos] ends up going on” in the Santa Monica reboots, which kicked off in 2018’s God of War.
You can see some behind the scenes footage showing the making of God of War 3‘s scene between Aphrodite and Kratos below (you do briefly see in-game nipples, here, so just a quick NSFW warning).
As for when the God of War remakes will arrive, it will still likely be some time, as the project is still in the early days of development. “As we look to the future, we also want to invest in the past and tend to the series’ roots that got us to where we are today,” Sony said, announcing the remakes.
“We know that remaking the Greek saga has been a frequent request – the genuine, passionate interest from fans to see the original games return is something we’re very thankful for and can’t wait to share more when the time comes!”
