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The original God of War trilogy is both a great set of video games and a perfect example of the M-rated excess the industry often aspired to in the post-GTA 3 glow of the '00s. The sex minigames alone are pretty grotesque reminders of the series' devotion to male power fantasies, so they'll surely be cut from the upcoming trilogy remake, right? Not so fast with those assumptions, says one former Sony Santa Monica writer – those sex scenes were, after all, largely designed by women.
"Fun fact: the God of War sex mini-games were designed by women," according to Alanah Pearce, who was a writer at Sony Santa Monica for several years, speaking in a recent stream. "In fact, I worked with one of them. They were largely worked on by women on that dev 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. 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 very proud of it, and it was really fucking cool."
Pearce later identifies the woman she worked with as Ariel Lawrence, who served in production roles across the original God of War trilogy and Ascension. There's a bit of making of footage (I'll give you an obvious NSFW warning here) showcasing the motion capture process for the Aphrodite sex minigame, which takes place in God of War 3, and Lawrence speaks quite unashamedly of it there.
In that scene, you, as Kratos, walk into Aphrodite's chambers, where she's making a vaguely depicted form of love with two handmaidens – all three women are, naturally, topless – on top of a bed with very yonic curtains. She sends the handmaidens away as she propositions you. If you accept, the camera swings over to the two still-topless handmaidens, as you press buttons and swing the analog stick around while the women react to Kratos' stunning demonstration of male virility. At the end, the handmaidens are so overcome by lust at watching this display that they leap on each other with the enthusiasm of horny teenagers.
"I recognize that in God of War, like, it's a little silly the way it was in those games," Pearce admits. "But again, I think it should still be in those remakes. I think it belongs there. I don't think it was disrespectful to women. I think that, if anything, those games are quite critical of who Kratos is as a person. The rage is clearly not fulfilling to him. It almost serves the journey that he ends up going on in 2018 and Ragnarok better if you have that version of him to begin with. I don't think it should be changed personally. I definitely think they should be there."
It's worth noting that the sex scene with Aphrodite is immediately preceded by a sequence where Kratos 'rescues' a half-nude female prisoner, angrily shoves her around for a bit, and ends up wedging her into the gear works of a massive door so that he can calmly stride through. Is that a depiction of a man holding a tragic amount of rage in his heart? Sure, but the woman is also presented in a titillating enough way that the line between "story about a misogynistic act" and "pure misogynistic fantasy" gets pretty blurry.
Either way, the sex scenes in the first two God of War games are substantially tamer, and probably less of a concern for whoever has to make a decision about whether to include them in the trilogy remake. The real question is what form that remake will take. We don't yet know whether it'll be an all-new game telling the same story as we see in the first three God of War titles, or a simpler visual upgrade that keeps the original gameplay and pacing intact. Personally? I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the remake continues to show a few nipples besides those belonging to Kratos.
God of War ranks pretty highly on our list of the best PS2 games.
