Although the game is based on Greek mythology, the development team gave themselves "lots of freedom" to modify the myths, and Jaffe said they took the "coolest aspects of the subject" and wrote a story using those elements. In an interview for "Eurogamer", he said while the idea for "God of War" was his own, the concept owed a debt to Capcom because he had played "Onimusha" and said "let's do that with Greek Mythology". He was inspired in part by the 1981 feature film, "Clash of the Titans", saying, "the real high concept for me was ... merging it with "Heavy Metal" magazine". He said he liked both "the kids stuff ... with Greek Mythology" and the idea of adding more adult themes such as sex and violence.