God of War Ragnarök was going to start with Kratos’ death

KRATOS, the protagonist of the God of War series, was originally going to die at the beginning of the game.

Narrative director Matt Sophos explained in an interview that the original plan for the beginning of God of War Ragnarök was very different from the final game.

In 2018’s God of War, Kratos sees a mural depicting his death, which was believed to be a prophecy of things to come.

This was the original plan, but the team changed their mind in order to give the story more emotional impact.

In an interview with MinnMax, (as transcribed by VGC) Sophos explained how Kratos’ death was the original plan for the story.

He says: “Kratos died in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game.

“This was the earliest, earliest draft of an outline that we had come up with, that we took to [director Eric Williams],”

However, this wouldn’t be Kratos’ first death. In every game of the original series Kratos dies and then comes back by crawling out of hell.

At this point Kratos’ death is a cliché in the series, and this is why the team ultimately decided against it.

Sophos continues: “And so, he was gonna die, and then it wasn’t a permanent death. 

“What was going to happen, he would get pulled out of Hell, essentially, by Atreus.

“Eric was like, ‘I don’t want to do that, Kratos has died and come back from it too many times, and it’ll feel a little bit too ‘oh, you said he was gonna die and oh, you just killed him, but he came right back.

“The hook, the emotion, wasn’t really going to be there, and he was absolutely right, and so that’s why it didn’t last very long.”

While the original series was based on Greek mythology, which has plenty of death, the new series is based on Norse mythology.

This is more about fate and prophecy, and the team wanted to emphasise that Kratos wasn’t going to be defined by his past actions.

Sophos explains: “Nothing is written that can’t be unwritten, as long as you’re willing to make changes in your life then you’re not bound to fate. 

“And so when we landed on that, when we knew that was the story we wanted to tell, we knew that Kratos couldn’t die.

“Because then it would be like, ‘well, are we just going to say that Kratos couldn’t change?’ And that would suck.”

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.