Ronald D. Moore, the showrunner of God of War’s television adaptation for Amazon, recently confessed that he was not a player.
He never finished one of the games (which you also find on Amazon), never lived directly – Pad in hand – the battles of Kratos, the silences of Atreus, the contained fury of the Spartan god.
He limited himself to watching the cutscene on YouTube and to try, without great success, a game here and there. Yet he will guide one of the most delicate and expected projects in the new wave of videogame adaptations for TV.
The news bounced like a stone in the internet pond: “I am not a gamer,” said Moore, adding, however, that he was fascinated by the narration of the 2018 game, so much so that he wants to replicate his depth in the Amazon series.
An affirmation that generated contrasting reactions: on the one hand the cautious applause of those who appreciate the attempt to enter the world of game even from outsider; On the other hand, the palpable frustration of those who see yet another signal in this admission that, in Hollywood, the original material always and only a trampoline – not a foundation.
Are we still at this point? After the success of The Last of Us, Arcane’s serial revolution and Fallout’s corrosive satire, are we still willing to accept that whoever adapts a video game so full of pathos, technique and recreational sense has never really played?
Can we trust his narrative sensitivity if the heart of the game – his combat system, the rhythm marked by gestures, pauses, clashes – does not belong to him from direct experience?
Moore is not a unwary. He signed some of the most interesting pages of contemporary serial science fiction with Battlestar Galactica and has shown that he can tell complex worlds. But God of War is not a Sci-Fi series, and Kratos is not a character to be observed at a distance, he is a creature to be internalized with the muscles and patience.
If the adaptation wants to avoid the fate of being yet another “play for those who do not play”, he will have to do something more than copying the cutscene in a beautiful copy. 
In an era when video games have shown that they are ripe, deep, capable of telling how and better than cinema, choosing a showrunner that does not play is a strategic contradiction.
Maybe Moore will do an excellent job. But until he manages to defeat that troll that has already killed him several times, the feeling will always be that of a story told by those who have only looked at it through a glass.