A screenshot from God of War (2018), Santa Monica Studios

Rafe Judkins, the showrunner for Amazon MGM Studios’ Wheel of Time series, has reportedly exited Amazon and Sony’s in-development live-action God of War series due to Sony and Amazon wanting to “go in a different creative direction.”

A screenshot from God of War (2018), Santa Monica Studios

According to Joe Otterson at Variety, Judkins, who was slated to be the show’s showrunner, exited alongside his fellow executive producers Hawk Ostby and Merk Fergus. Their exit comes after they “had reportedly completed multiple scripts for the series.”

As for the reason for their exit, Otterson shared it was due to “Amazon and fellow studio Sony Pictures Television [deciding] to go in a different creative direction.”

A screenshot from God of War (2018), Santa Monica Studios

The series was initially announced back in December 2022 with Amazon revealing it would adapt the 2018 God of War game that saw Kratos live in Norway in the realm of the Norse gods rather than adapting the original games that saw him bring war to the Greek gods.

The company revealed a brief description, “The show follows Kratos, the God of War, who, after exiling himself from his blood-soaked past in ancient Greece, hangs up his weapons forever in the Norse realm of Midgard. When his beloved wife dies, Kratos sets off on a dangerous journey with his estranged son Atreus to spread her ashes from the highest peak — his wife’s final wish. Kratos soon realizes the journey is an epic quest in disguise, one which will test the bonds between father and son, and force Kratos to battle new gods and monsters for the fate of the world.”

A screenshot from God of War (2018), Santa Monica Studios

It’s unclear what kind of different creative direction Amazon and Sony want that Judkins and his team were not offering. Judkins work on Wheel of Time has been roundly panned by fans of Robert Jordan’s books.

YouTuber Nerd Cookies noted she quit the show after realizing how much of a departure it was from Jordan’s books. She said, “If they were willing to change something as fundamental as the known sex of the Dragon Reborn, what else would they change?”

She continued, “As I watched the rest of the first episode it became clear that the producers of the series were using the books as more of a rough draft as opposed to a definitive source of knowledge.

Next, she bluntly declared, “It’s been my observation that the best adaptations of fantasy properties have been produced with a supreme reverence of the source material and it’s apparent that this isn’t one of those cases.”

Of note, the sequel to the 2018 game, God of War Ragnarök did just release on Steam and its peak player count was less than half of the 2018 God of War game.

As reported by SteamDB, God of War Ragnarök hit a peak concurrent player count of 35,616 about a month ago just a few days after it became available to purchase on Steam.

God of War Ragnarök SteamDB peak concurrent player charts

The 2018 God of War game hit a peak concurrent player count of 73,529 when it released to Steam back in January 2022. The decline from the 2018 game to the 2022 game is over 51%.

God of War SteamDB peak concurrent player charts

What do you make of Judkins and his creative team exiting the God of War adaptation?