God of War: Ragnarök pays tribute to dev who passed away during production

Jake Snipes, developer at Santa Monica Studio, passed away during the production of God of War: Ragnarok. His teammates decided to immortalize it with a detail that they added to the recent game and that tells part of the developer’s story.

The tribute is in a secondary mission that introduces us to the love story between 2 characters and tasks us with gathering ingredients for a recipe. In addition, it is linked to the various hearts painted throughout the world. Actually, these elements are not there by chance, as they tell the story of Snipes and his partner Sam Handrick in a certain way.

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God of War: Ragnarok tells the story of a dev who passed away

Snipes and Handrick met in Santa Monica in 2019 and have spent most of their time together ever since. However, everything changed during 2020, as Snipes died due to the epilepsy he suffered from. This happened in the middle of the development of the game.

The couple had dreamed of making their mark on God of War: Ragnarok, because it was the project that allowed them to meet and be together. After Snipes passed away, Handrick told the rest of the team their idea: to put a heart with his initials written in Norse runes, as a token of his love.

The development team decided to honor his fallen teammate and give Handrick a way to remember the good times they had together. So they not only placed the hearts, but also designed a whole side quest based on their story.

“I told Eric [Williams, director de Ragnarök] and to the team on Jake’s suggestion that we engrave our initials in a heart. And he and the team came back with that and something even more special. A story of 2 men who find themselves in an often cruel world, and who find a place to simply belong to each other.

“I wanted this story to be one that many queer people know: traveling through a world that doesn’t always understand you to find a place that truly feels like home. And sometimes that place is just a person. And something as simple as a recipe can be a link to that home.”

It’s not a spoiler for the main story, but it is a side-quest ‘Favor’ you can discover, so feel free to seek it out yourself first. You may have noticed the first sign of it in these hearts scattered across the realms.

The story of them goes back to a man I love more than anything. pic.twitter.com/mcO9tYZ5bZ

—Sam Handrick (@MDSVeritas) November 18, 2022

Jake died in 2020, due to his epilepsy.

I was heartbroken. I am still. I will always be.

I spent months hardly wanting to be alive.

But when I returned to Ragnarok I wanted it to be everything he deserved. And I hoped I could leave some piece of him within it. pic.twitter.com/6K6TDBGdIQ

—Sam Handrick (@MDSVeritas) November 18, 2022

I wanted this story to be one many queer people know: traveling through a world that doesn’t always understand you to find a place that truly feels like home.

And sometimes that place is simply a person.

And something as simple as a recipe can be a link back to that home. pic.twitter.com/ZlfDLMUQEi

—Sam Handrick (@MDSVeritas) November 18, 2022

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God of War: Ragnarok is now available for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. Find more news about the game at this link.

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