God of War creator David Jaffe has announced that he is working on a new single-player story-based game.
Jaffe revealed that he was working on a new game over Twitter. The tweet was part of a thread in response to Amy Hennig’s recent musings on the state of AAA storytelling at Reboot Develop Blue.
The new game I’m designing is single Player, story based, and designed (and BUDGETED) to be played/completed in 3-4 hours.
Is that the future? Or is that DOA? Dunno. But as a Player, man, that’s what I am DYING for these days! 🙂
— David Jaffe (@davidscottjaffe) April 17, 2019
In the Twitter thread, Jaffe agreed with Hennig on the state of single-player storytelling—the notion that video games are often too long or too time-consuming for most players to finish.”I’ve been complaining about long single player games for years,” Jaffe said. He goes on to say that he wants single player games that he can finish in one to three sittings.
Like Hennig, Jaffe made his name working on a number of classic Sony titles. After cutting his teeth on the Twisted Metal games, Jaffe went on to create God of War. He served as director for the first game. For God of War 2 he handed the reigns over to Corey Barlog, staying on as the creative director instead.
Jaffe most recently worked on Drawn to Death. Jaffe’s team at The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency set the multiplayer arena shooter in a teenager’s notebook, and featured graphics to match to theme. Drawn to Death reception failed to reach the same heights as his previous works, however. The servers for the game were eventually shut down this past March.
This latest game from Jaffe seems to be a far cry from his previous titles, especially with consideration to the shorter three- to four-hour play time. However, Jaffe did mention a number of games that were his “favorite games of the last few years – hands down.” That said, these titles—Inside, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Firewatch—could give us a hint at what Jaffe wants to do with his new game.
