God of War Was Very Nearly an Accidental Diablo Rip-Off

Kratos’ red body paint is about as iconic a wardrobe option as any character we’ve seen this console generation, but it an interesting reveal over the weekend, former God of War lead David Jaffe has told how this very nearly wasn’t the case.

The picture you see above was, according to Jaffe, what Kratos looked like “literally days before we announced the first game to the press”. It was only then, at the 11th hour, that a team member saw what Diablo II’s Barbarian class looked like, and raised the alarm.

Nobody on the team had spotted or been aware of the similarity between the characters until then, so things had to be changed “lickity fuckin’ split!”. For the better, too; as silly as Kratos can look dressed in nothing but paint and a permanent scowl, he would have looked even sillier doing a “Braveheart: The Strip Show” routine.

Kratos…as Smurf?!? [David Jaffe]

Originally written and published by Luke Plunkett at Kotaku. Click here to read the original story.