God of War: Ragnarok dev claims they weren't credited for audio work

A composer who previously worked as an intern at Santa Monica Studio claims they haven't been credited for their work on God of War: Ragnarok.

In a thread posted on social media, music producer and composer Jessica Mao said they helped edit, arrange, and implement the music in some of Ragnarok's set pieces including a chase scene featuring Freya and a boss fight centred around Thor.

Mao posted clips from the title explaining how she overcame certain technical challenges, such as how she toned down some of the music heard in the Thor boss fight by making new stems be reworking some of the title's original stems, which she says were "too fully orchestrated."

"The stem i'm proudest of is one where i removed all instruments and left just the percussion and vocals," said Mao, posting a clip of the boss fight so people could hear her work in action.

At the end of her thread, however, Mao said that her name doesn't appear in the Ragnarok credits because her contribution to the title didn't hit the "minimum criteria." She also claims to have been told that her name cannot be added in a patch.

"This was incredibly disappointing and discouraging for me to learn, and i'd hate for anyone else to go through it," wrote Mao. "Game devs, please credit everyone who participates in the development of a game. It only makes sense."

This isn't the first time credits (or a lack thereof) have caused controversy. In October last year, a number of developers called out Metroid Dread developer MercurySteam for refusing to credit them for their work on the title.

At the time, the studio said it had a policy of not crediting developers who worked on games for "less than 25 percent" of development. Based on Mao's comments about not hitting some "minimum criteria," it sounds like Sony might have implemented a similar policy.

Game Developer has reached out to Sony for comment and will update this story when we hear back.