We finally got our first look at God of War‘s TV adaptation today. And while we praised the casting choices before, which are, it appears the reveals are not sitting well with some fans. With fan criticisms like “AI slop,” the TV show is already catching label after label, and that’s only based on this one picture.
As covered by our Scott Duwe earlier, a first look at the God of War TV show was revealed today, with Kratos and Atreus front and center, hunting in the woods. The still seems to be trying to capture the spirit of the video games directly, attempting a one-to-one adaptation of the pair’s gaming counterparts. However, the way they stand and, well, the way they are dressed, has stirred the hornet’s nest.
In the shot, Kratos has a significantly smaller beard, is less rugged, less gritty, and overall carries less aura than would otherwise be expected of the literal god of war. His son is a kid, so he gets all the passes, and little Atreus does look just about as good as he can given his age. There’s an overall vibe to the image that simply doesn’t scream “high quality,” and fans on every social media platform tend to agree. Over on the PlayStation subreddit, reaction images shared under the thread also express concern, if not outright bewilderment, at how the show is shaping up, considering how good and accurate the casting choices were.
On the television sub, we get more of the same. “I thought it was a photoshopped image at first,” said one user. Others were quick to point out that parts of the image could very well be doctored, and since we’re talking about early production, that could be the case, though I couldn’t verify the claims. “It almost looks too uncanny to me,” wrote another.
Of course, since we live in the hellscape of the modern era, accusations of AI also cropped up. Some said the image looks like it was generated by an artificial intelligence model, experiencing great confusion once they’d learned that it was, in fact, a real shot from the show’s set.
“It feels like they just announced these castings. I’m wondering if this is just a costume test or something and not an image from actual shooting,” one user remarked, and I’m inclined to believe the same. It hasn’t even been a month since we last covered some of the first major casting choices, and it is entirely possible that what we were given was an early shot or a teaser of sorts rather than the actual thing.
Whatever the case, it has drawn a lot of criticism from fans of the God of War franchise. This is one of the biggest IPs in video game history, and with how popular the rebooted titles were (those set in the Norse mythology, i.e., those that are being adapted), expectations are certainly above average.
No matter how well they put it together, I feel someone somewhere will have something to complain about. So let’s hope this early first look is a far cry from the final product, which we are probably not going to see on our small screens for quite a long while.
