Rant

The new God of War is out, and yet so is a new controversy. However this time around it is not that bad in the game of itself. As a matter of fact, that's the only reason why I imagine there is a defending side to one of its lesser (but common) industry sins. Its a really good game, people love it, its deserved praise and I can agree with that, however they want it to be free of criticism or to just eat up any flowery explanations for it and that's where I differ, even over the small details. Even small, bad details can still hurt the game, or confuse and make the conversation around it very strange. ...and if you're wondering what's up with this article's title, well to that I say... EXACTLY!

Today we're talking about titles, or more importantly, what not to do with them. Come on, we all know where this is going, its all down to stop naming them the same damn thing after a previous entry. Stop it. Your not clever, nor is it suddenly a better "reboot" for that, and its even more obvious of a bad decision when your game isn't even a reboot to begin with like... well, God of War. On a lesser note, this also applies to Doom, but that's far more abstract since the story and cannon order is hardly as relevant or obvious. God of War though... its in the dialogue, quite a lot really. References to the old, the main character you're playing as, even where he gets "god of war" from, is all alluding to the old game cannon. Its there constantly, and developer and press alike have had to dance and prance around the fine line of this maybe kinda but not really soft reboot of a game that couldn't be bothered to come up with a half-decent name for its own identity. I'm not even asking for God of War 4, which would be the simple and more obvious route, but it could even be God of War: Norse as an easy nod to the obvious theme change. Hell, even ditch the main franchise name itself and pull a concept-idea of Modern Warfare where you just change the name to something more suitable to the successor route, like just calling it Kratos, Norse, or Bow & Axe, whatever suits you. Anything but the exact same name that would get even the main review center to tell you its literally the exact same game as the PS2 one.

"Also on: PlayStation 2" wow, gotta go dust that thing off and see how well it runs on it...

As of the time of writing, that exact error is still on Metacritic. Yet people defend this. People defend this obvious confusion, bicker back at those like me bickering to the devs, saying its all really okay, or even the best justified position. There's just no other way to apparently present a change in tone or story, rather you must name it after the exact same thing you're changing from. Its "new" now by being the exact identity of the old. Its not confusing, because you should definitely know this is the first one, but not the other first one. It's not bad marketing, you just don't get it, and all of this arguing, confusion, and people unsure if the old story counts for anything or not, is all the only way it could perfectly market this brilliant new game by being the exact old title of one over a decade and two console gens ago. Still just don't get it though? Yeah, me neither.

Look, guys, there's multiple ways to go about naming your game. Yes that includes even this "reboot" name title by just pretending the old games never happened as an excuse to rename your title after the thing that never happened. However for the most part, that idea is bullshit, and gets a lot of flak in everything it touches, even if its slightly more accepted now because we just got tired of groaning about it every time. Its so bad that many don't even know there's a Mummy movie before the mummy movie of the 1999 one, and yet laughably some have used movies as an excuse that its okay to do this kind of bullshit. Its just bad though. Other routes include generic numerical titles. That's fine, and functional, if maybe just a tad bit boring. Still it works. You say God of War 4, and it works. People are still calling this (and Doom) by the number 4 just out of rebellion. You search either of them by the number 4, and you get results for their proper game. Far Cry 5? It works, and its selling like mad, even if they had to ignore Primal from the count that came before it. Hell you can even occasionally be clever and pull something like Battlefield One did. Its a fine and good system, and so natural consumer will use it even if you don't. Then there's subtitles. Naming it as I suggested earlier, God of War Norse. This stuff is good for when you do want a new theme, or new idea at the forefront. Give your title a punch and make it proud and visible. Assassins Creed Origins was about the origins of the Assassin guild. Perfect. Far Cry Primal was a spin-off taking it back to a primal setting. Perfect. God of War... is being a stubborn pretender, acting as the first of its kind, and its just embarrassing itself by not figuring out a better title. I'd actually love games like this and Doom to treat themselves with the sort of self-respect to actually have their own name, but instead... well devs pulled a page from Spongebob, and essentially threw out the name while the public eye just rolled their eyes about it and gave it their own by either the year of release or numerically.

However the biggest concern is just how many are easily starting to accept this and fight with other people over it, even drawing and pulling contexts and words back to butcher them even further in the process. I was suddenly not only discussing with somebody about "why is this not God of War 4?" but it quickly turned into arguing over what an actual reboot is, because people were dead-serious convinced this was a total reboot, defeating their defense of the latter as soon as they said that by showing how confused they were on what the fuck they were even discussing. But its okay if you shift the goal post and redefine the reboot to include continuing the story in a new enough setting... like nearly every fucking sequel ever. Hey Drake, exploring a new temple in the next Uncharted? Reboot! Hey COD man, you shooting up a new dude somewhere slightly different? That's a reboot to. Assassins Creed in Egypt to explain stuff that happens in the future? Obviously a reboot, I mean how stupid can you be to think Egypt and England were the same, never the less their time period!? Yeah, you see the issue here? I had a guy in the same sentence as defining a reboot that proved GOW wasn't a reboot (defining it as a restart, when the game in question carries exact cannon over into its conflict from even less than an hour starting), suggest it was with it and then say "lol, how is it bad marketing anyway". ....because we wouldn't be arguing over what it fucking was genius. Even the literal show Reboot's reboot wasn't this stupid, and gave itself an actual name, despite almost no effort elsewhere!


However I'll cave a little. Because definitions, words, and titles don't matter anymore, you've been reading Rant, and this is a blog reboot since I haven't done this topic before, and this was a new article, and a literal new digital page for me.