I Had Zero Interest in God of War, Until Laufey Came Along

For the longest time, God of War was one of those game franchises that I had known about, yet never truly played — I had watched others play both the original Greek and the modern Norse trilogies, learning Kratos's story and admiring his character development. That being said, I was more than content without ever playing it, without ever really being the target audience.

Then the trailer for God of War Laufey dropped, and everything changed overnight.

Suddenly, God of War went from a series of games completely disconnected from me to being one I actively want to dive into myself, to learn whatever I didn't while simply watching. Suddenly, I want to play these games, and I'm excited for them — and it's all because of a single trailer for Laufey.

I know it's not just me, and if anything, it's a testament to the power of the female gamer and how something as simple as a new protagonist can bring in an entirely new audience.

God of War Didn't Seem Like My Cup of Tea

The original God of War trilogy is a hack-and-slash classic — and it's well established by now that I'm more of a survival horror fan. Of course, I'm not exclusive to the genre, but games outside my comfort zone tend to need a little more oomph to catch and capture my attention. There are countless, non-horror games that I played, enjoyed, and still love to this day (Devil May Cry is one hack-and-slash example), but for some reason, God of War never made it to that list.

And when 2018's Dad of Boi was brought into the mix, I was more fascinated with the story. Kratos went from being a one-dimensional rage machine to being a father with genuine growth, and I loved watching him evolve. Yet, that was about the extent of that interest.

So when I heard a new God of War trailer dropped at State of Play this year, I was fully expecting to tuck this game in with the rest of the trilogy, but boy, was I wrong. I was instead met with God of War Laufey, featuring Kratos's wife, Laufey (also called Faye), as the protagonist of this story. Plus, she's going to be played by Deborah Ann Woll, known for her role as Karen Page in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where she's already shown her immense talent as an actress.

For the first time in the series, we aren't playing as Kratos, and I was buzzing with excitement because of it. I finally get to see a new perspective in a world that interests me, and it's a perspective that will easily guide me into this very world.

Kratos has been actively hyping up Faye and her abilities throughout both 2018's God of War and God of War Ragnarok, talking about how she bested him in his prime and then reminding him of the warmth of a steady home life. In this trailer, we finally see just a snippet of the power that she had used against Kratos, and it's just sick — it's clear that she's easily going to live up to Kratos's hype. He talks about her as if she were a legend, and her game looks like nothing short of one.

God of War Laufey is now on my radar, and I'm actively waiting for release day as if I had been following the series since its PlayStation 2 days, eager to learn her story and where she fits in with the world, especially since we see it's a world of dead gods. Just how many dead gods will be there due to Kratos's hands?

It's an entirely new angle to the pre-existing story that we don't get to see, but we'll finally get to not just learn about it, but experience it first-hand through Faye's eyes. The only way Kratos would end up in this situation is if he were dead, and that would make a lot more fans angrier than it should. Narratively, it makes sense to see this side of the world with Laufey, and I'm genuinely so fascinated to see what it will all entail.

I'm not even going to lie, playing as a woman is likely a major reason for that.

The Power of a Female Protagonist

Nothing against the God of War games, but Kratos was not a character that I honestly resonated with, at least on the surface-level witnessing I had done. We all know that watching a game is completely different from playing one, but I was content with the gaps in my knowledge. I was content with the broad strokes — and it led to me not fully appreciating what I was looking at.

This could simply be because Kratos is a man, especially in the modern games that appeal to the Single Father demographic, but I've played all kinds of video games with a male protagonist and was still able to relate to them. Of course, though, that doesn't change how women are more likely to relate to another woman rather than with a man, just as men tend to relate more to other men than with a woman. Of course, there are outliers, but we're not talking about them. There's an overarching pattern, and gaming doesn't seem to be excluded from that.

In the same vein, this isn't even exclusive to God of War: other games that introduced a female protagonist (after playing as a male protagonist in every game up to this point) sparked my interest in ways that make me want to dive in for myself. The Witcher is another excellent example of this — nothing against Geralt, but I am ten times more interested in playing these games for once after The Witcher IV revealed Ciri as the protagonist.

Simply put: it's the power of relatability, of another feminine voice that we can connect with, that draws in newcomers to these communities.

The thing is: we can't keep living in some delusion that male gamers are the majority, not in the Big Year 2026, when half of all gamers are women (the exact statistic is 48 percent in 2025, with signs of increase). Heck, the same study found that in some countries, such as Brazil and South Africa, there are more female gamers than males, reinforcing the need for different perspectives.

Not a want for different perspectives, a need for them.

This additional lens to look through will also be beneficial to current, veteran fans who aren't used to alternative ways of seeing the world and thinking about it. This would give them new angles to appreciate stories that they already love, especially if it exposes them to something new and exciting.

A personal example comes to mind: my fiancé was showing me The Terminator (a movie I had only seen in snippets on TV prior to that); in the beginning, Kyle Reese is trying to find and protect Sarah Connor by acting aggressively toward others around him and trying to follow her regardless of how it appears.

Of course, viewers know that he's not used to the social situations of the modern world, and he's genuinely just trying to protect her from the incoming T-1000, but my first thought, as a woman, was "how terrifying from her perspective." Through her eyes, he was stalking her and outright after her.

My fiancé had never made this connection, and was stunned by it — amazed at how the new perspective got him to appreciate the movie even more.

Something tells me that this will happen with God of War and other games, too. As women come into the gaming sphere with their perspectives and experiences, they will find new details that directly connect with those perspectives and experiences, and it's going to make players discover more and more to love.

Girl Gamers are Eating Good

We were given the trailer, and then immediately blessed with the news that Laufey is going to be coming out earlier than we'd expect — and considering the quality of the trailer, my hypothesis is that it'll be before the end of the year or at the very start of next year. And I cannot wait for the day it comes.

In the meantime, those of us who are genuinely excited for this game just need to build the hype — the best way to do that would be to play through the God of War games leading up to this one (which is meant to be running concurrently with the 2018 God of War). We need to make room on our preferred console, refresh ourselves on the lore, and just eagerly wait for release day so we can take in new perspectives in the form of feminine voices.

Most importantly, we need to ignore those who keep trying to silence those voices.

We need to understand that the people who are angry about God of War Laufey are, more often than not, people who have never played a God of War game at all, much less the fact that they're a loud minority. Every single proper God of War fan I've spoken to has been absolutely vibrating with excitement for this game, and I'm giddy alongside them.

It's going to be a story that's as refreshing as it is familiarly comforting, and true God of War fans are excited to see what it's all going to entail in order to complete the Norse Trilogy. They're excited to finally meet Faye for themselves, to finally see the world through her eyes, and to come back to the hack-and-slash gameplay that veteran fans know and love. For a game that's been in the works for almost a decade, we're going to see first-hand the fruits of that labour, and they already look yummy to taste.

In the meantime, I'm just going to wait in anticipation for that delicious-looking fruit and remain more hype than ever for a God of War game for the first time in my life.