Playing with Identity: Racebending in the God of War Series

This paper examines racebending, the practice of reinterpreting characters commonly understood as white as belonging to other racial groups, using the God of War series and the player interpretation of Kratos as Black as its case study. Its central argument is that racebending functions as a form of play that fundamentally alters a game and challenges the centering of whiteness in AAA titles. The author frames these practices as strategies of resilience rather than resistance, emphasizing how marginalized players continue to engage with spaces not designed for them while also acknowledging that such practices can uphold certain norms.

The paper situates its argument within scholarship on representation in AAA games, noting that although diverse characters have become more common, these depictions often reproduce harmful stereotypes and remain shaped by dominant cultural structures. Drawing on work by Gardner and Tanenbaum, it observes that the default racial reading of characters depends heavily on the interpreter, suggesting more interpretive variability than is typically assumed. The author argues that because racebending occurs during play, its interpretations are intrinsic to the game rather than external to it, which complicates notions of who games are for and what constitutes the proper way to play.

The proposed research uses a mixed-methods design. It begins with a thematic analysis of Reddit discussions debating whether Kratos is Black, followed by an examination of two to three Twitch VOD recordings from Black streamers who play the series with this interpretation. The study's stated aim is to understand how the narrative changes when Kratos is read as Black and how this reading relates to the game's hegemonic structures. The paper is a research plan rather than a completed study, so its findings are anticipated rather than reported, and it acknowledges that such practices may still reinforce certain norms while excluding others.