This was almost the name of Sony's original God of War protagonist. If you love pizza, this may have confused you. God of War creator David Jaffe envisioned the character with the name 'Dominus', as a way of highlighting the brutality. But that was to prove a non-starter.
David Jaffe's original protagonist name was scrapped due to fast food brand conflicts
The reason is that marketing started to play Domino's Pizza gags with the name, and it was off the table. The curious naming story reveals the perils of an innocuous brand name connection to a creative decision on a huge scale.
Sony Interactive Entertainment was the studio that created the original game that birthed the iconic God of War series. The team had to come up with a moniker that carried a sense of strength, and yet not be prone to invoking fast food links in a negative way. They went through various options before settling on one. The interesting back-and-forth illustrates the constraints of a game developer in creating a brand.
Some of the names discussed were Julius and Maximus, among others. Finally, a studio marketer offered up the name Kratos. And this became the final name.
And so the God of War story got renamed from Dominus to Kratos. What that effectively meant was that the character's public identity was set. That the persona would retain the desired level of potency, minus the comic aspects.
We've talked about the last God of War update. And seen how the franchise is developing further. Interesting God of War naming trivia this, that details the early days of the series.
Reinforces how the God of War we now know got saved from the near rebranding. It's an interesting bit of gaming development history.
Source: IXBT
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