Xbox Boss Praises God Of War: Ragnarok’s “Leadership”

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, praised God of War: Ragnarok director Cory Barlog for his "leadership" qualities.

It was highly unfortunate to see some fans direct their hate and abuse towards developer Santa Monica Studio for recently confirming a delay and cross-generation status for God of War: Ragnarok.

The incident caused director Cory Barlog to come in and defend his developers by noting that he alone is responsible for all decisions made and hence, angry God of War fans should be directing their anger at him instead of his hard-working developers.

Taking to Twitter earlier today, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, praised Barlog for his “leadership” qualities with a notion that an example has been set for others to follow. The example being that delaying a game will always be better than crunch, and that leaders need to look out for their staffers.

God of War: Ragnarok was originally slated by Sony Interactive Entertainment for a release in late 2021 on PlayStation 5. The sequel will now be releasing somewhere in 2022 and that too for both PS5 and PS4 as part of a cross-generation launch.

While Sony was reportedly considering a cross-generation release since the start, fans or at least some fans were not too keen to know about a PS4 release. The reason being that Santa Monica Studio might have to pull back on the PS5 version in order to ensure parity with the PS4 version.

Santa Monica Studio remains to confirm how the game will be different on both consoles and within the same vein, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has previously expressed that there should be nothing wrong in releasing PS5 games on both consoles.

Either way, the gaming community needs to understand that abusing developers should never be an option. They are free to voice their disappointment but within decent grounds. Toxicity only ends up making it worse.

Saqib is a managing editor at segmentnext.com who has halted regime changes, curbed demonic invasions, and averted at least one cosmic omnicide from the confines of his gaming chair. When not whipping his writers into ...