One of the Key Engineers Behind God of War’s Leviathan Axe Has Died


George Mawle, a former gameplay engineer at Sony Santa Monica described as one of the “fathers” of God of War‘s much-loved Leviathan Axe, sadly died on September 2.

Mawle worked at Sony Santa Monica as a programmer during the studio’s work on the 2018 PS4 exclusive, God of War. His work on the game’s signature Leviathan Axe, as well as a number of other gameplay features, will be remembered by fans and co-workers for years to come. Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlog described Mawle as “an amazingly funny, smart and warm human being. He was one of the fathers of the Leviathan feel. Without his curiosity and intellect those moments of pure joy recalling the axe would never have existed. “

Studio lead combat designer Mihir Sheth worked with Mawle during his time at Sony Santa Monica and was just one of many who paid tribute to the late engineer on social media.

In a thread on Twitter, Sheth explained, “If you’ve ever enjoyed throwing & recalling the Leviathan Axe, or twirling the chains of the Blades of Chaos in GOW’18, please take a moment to recognize that it was possible in large part to the engineering and energy of George Mawle.”

Sheth continued elsewhere in the thread, “At SMS, he worked on Kratos’ weaponry, navigation, RPG systems, a myriad of combat behaviours, improvements to the scripting system to empower designers, and SO much more. He was a veteran on the team who played a huge role in closing out the game and squashing bugs.”

Whilst God of War was the last published title that Mawle left his mark on, his career spanned a number of other games including but not limited to Prototype 2, Crash of the Titans, and Scarface: The World is Yours. According to Sheth, the programmer enjoyed taking up a number of side projects in his time away from the studio too. The lead combat designer went on to say that Mawle would proudly show others his own homemade cookbooks, carpentry projects, and homemade films.

In addition to Sheth, a number of other former co-workers and fans of Mawle’s work across social media also took to social media to pay tribute to the late programmer. You can read a collection of some of their comments about him below:

All of us at IGN offer our condolences to Mawle’s family and friends.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN.

IGN Video Games

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