GOD OF WAR Series Will Embrace the Game’s Emotional Tone, Even If the Showrunner Has a Lack of Gaming Skills
Amazon’s God of War TV adaptation is currently is development with Ronald D. Moore at the helm, and while he’s not exactly slaying trolls on a PlayStation, he’s fully committed to honoring the emotional and mythic core of the franchise.
Moore, known for Battlestar Galactica, For All Mankind, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, recently opened up at San Diego Comic-Con about his approach to adapting the beloved PlayStation series, and how a lack of gaming skills won’t stop him from telling an authentic story. Moore told IGN:
"It was just when I started watching it, I started looking at the cutscenes together, and there's so much material there, and I really responded to the characters.
“I responded to the story of Kratos and his son, and then they set out on this epic journey in this world that was finely detailed and really interesting, and there's a lot of combat and interesting monsters along the way.
“But I kept coming back to this story of father and son, and it was just emotional and it was different, and I hadn't seen anything like that before."
Moore emphasized that the series will stick close to the source material, aiming to replicate the emotional weight and epic scale that made the Norse-era God of War games a standout.
"There's this epic journey, this heartfelt story of these two men setting out on this thing to honor the memory of his wife, Atreus’ mother. So it has this emotional heart, but there's this sense of history of who Kratos is, this mystery about his past, what he represents, the emotions that he's going through.
“So there's a weight to it, but not so much weight that there's not enjoyment along the way and there's spectacle and there's lots of things going on in this world."
Moore then admitted he approached the project with fresh eyes and no gamer bias. "I’m not a gamer," he confessed, adding:
"I knew the title, but I didn’t really know what the story was, so I didn’t really know what I was going to be looking at, and I was just taken with it. And so I said, yeah, I’d love to do it. I think it’s really interesting."
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried to get hands-on with the source material.
“I've tried to play it. I continue to try to play it, but I grew up in the arcade era, so I can bang away, just give me a Defender console or an Asteroids console, I'll kick your ass. But it's just a different thing.
“My family can do it. My wife can play video games. My wife plays Skyrim, but I lack the muscle memory of my thumbs. And so Kratos is fighting the troll, and I'm constantly like, okay, which one's the B button? No, I'm dead. It is that kind of thing. But I try.”
The live-action God of War series was first announced in 2022, the result of a collaboration between Amazon Studios, Sony Pictures Television, and PlayStation Productions.
The show will follow Kratos and Atreus through the events of the Norse saga, diving deep into their relationship and the mythological chaos they encounter. Two seasons have already been ordered, with production expected to begin in 2026. Casting has yet to be revealed.
For now, it’s clear that the emotional backbone of the series is in capable hands, even if those hands can’t quite remember where the B button is.