PETA Speaks Against God of War: Ragnarök Because of Animal Cruelty

While we are often concerned about potential issues with robot and AI rights as they might one day be recognized as sentient entities, digital animals also have their protectors. PETA, often raising its voice against cruelty towards animals, spoke about animal violence in God of War: Ragnarök, a game which was initially supposed to be brutal.
 
Everyone familiar with the God of War series knows that it’s not the case of “no animal was harmed”, even when it comes to digital ones. The scene of the first game where Kratos teaches Atreus to hunt deer, with graphic killing of the animal, was impressive enough, but it was just the beginning. During the two games, the players will have to do a lot of hunting. And despite the hunted animals being mostly mythological creatures, it doesn’t, according to PETA, justify the cruelty shown.
 
One could say that the issue could be solved by not playing God of War at all if you’re frustrated by animal cruelty. Anyway, the setting is brutal anyway, and animals are by far not the only ones harmed; what would you expect from the game named God of War? In real-life wars, as we can witness, animals are hurt as well as humans; the Russian invasion in Ukraine killed thousands of Black Sea dolphins as well.
 
But PETA has reasons. The author once unintentionally allowed his seven-year-old niece to watch him play God of War, and this could have been traumatizing, if not for distracting her with a Crash Bandicoot mobile game instead. Well, at least the organization does not propose to ban the game completely. Instead, it recommends introducing a special PETA mode, in which no animal would be harmed. When it comes to killing villains, at least, it can be explained.
 
What do you think about this PETA initiative? Maybe it won’t harm the game to replace realistic animals with some mythological undead creatures? Share your opinion with us in the comments!