God of War Ragnarok‘s Kratos story was originally set to be much darker, as revealed by narrative director Matt Sophos in a new interview. An early concept featured the Greek God of War’s death in the game’s first Thor fight, with Atreus pulling Kratos out of Helheim two decades later and resurrecting him.

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Four-and-a-half years after the release of God of War 2018, God of War Ragnarok continued the series’ Norse saga to massive fanfare and critical acclaim. Without going into spoiler territory, Ragnarok tells a moving, positive story of compassion and redemption, but apparently that was not always the direction planned for the game.

Discussing the writing process of God of War Ragnarok and its complex themes, narrative director Matt Sophos revealed that an early concept revolved around Kratos’ death early on in the game, in line with the mural seen at the end of God of War 2018:

There was the earliest, earlier draft of an outline that we did come up with, that we took to Eric (Williams). We had Kratos die in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game. It wasn’t a permanent death: what was gonna happen was [that] he would get pulled out of Hel[heim], essentially, by Atreus, but [at this point] 20 years have passed. There was gonna be a big time jump-type thing. […] It didn’t ultimately feel right. Eric was like, “I don’t wanna do that. Kratos has died and come back from it too many times […] The hook, the emotion isn’t really there.” And he was absolutely right; that’s why [that concept] didn’t last very long.

Sophos then explained the heartwarming reason why Kratos did get a happy ending in the game:

As we were developing the story, we knew that we wanted the story to be one about letting go and changing. […] Norse mythology is all about fate and prophecy and everything, and we wanted to say that that’s bullsh*t. Nothing is written that can’t be unwritten. As long as you’re willing to change [and] make changes in your life, you’re not bound to fate. When we landed on that, when we knew that that was the story we wanted to tell, we knew that Kratos couldn’t die. Because then it would be like, “Woah, are we gonna just say that Kratos couldn’t change?” And then that would suck. It became pretty clear to us early that [Kratos] can’t die if we want to tell the story we want to tell.

And so, the beloved father-son duo of Kratos and Atreus embarked on a challenging yet ultimately positive journey in God of War Ragnarok. Would you have liked to see the darker story idea materialize instead? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: MinnMax