God of War Creator Prefers Gameplay Over Story

David Jaffe, who is the creator behind the very successful God of War, has said that when it comes to a debate between gameplay and story the first aspect of video game development will always be more important.

Speaking about the recently launched Uncharted 3 Jaffe said on his blog, “A lot of people ask me if I’d ever make another God of War and I always say the same thing: if it were God of War meets something like Zelda (formula wise), then yes. But if it were God of War using the current formula, I would not.”

He added, “For me – and this is just me personally – directing God of War made me realize that as a game designer and certainly as game director I want our games to serve the gods of gameplay first and foremost.”

The veteran developer then talked about a list of video games that sell a lot because of their gameplay, even if they do not offer too much in terms of story, listing such different titles as Angry Birds, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Farmville, Mario, the Madden NFL series, Wii Sports and Grand Theft Auto.

For God of War the team working on the game was always interested in making the narrative interesting enough to drive the player forward but the developers were always ready to cut something linked to the presentation or the story in order to make the gameplay shine even more.

The latest debate between gameplay and story was sparked by early reviews for Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, the game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony, which focuses on being cinematic.

Jaffe said that he admired the work done on the Uncharted series so far but that he generally favored gameplay because it was something unique to the world of video games, where story was also central to movies, theater and books.