Fate had other plans for Kratos in an earlier draft of War of Ragnarok

To say that Kratos, the calm and reasonable God of War, defied fate during his journey would be an understatement of divine proportions. He did this repeatedly in many myths, and neither the Narns nor fate itself could better Sparta’s ghost. But another god almost did, at least, they did in an earlier draft of God of War Ragnarok. Spoilers for God of War and God of War Ragnarok are below!

Talking to MinnMax, narrative director Matt Sophos and Santa Monica Studio head of story Richard Gaubert discuss the daunting task of writing an epic like Ragnarok. The entire interview is worth watching, but in particular Sophos’ description of an earlier version of the script in which “Kratos died in the battle with Thor at the beginning of the game.”

Obviously, it doesn’t, but if it did, things would have gone in a completely different direction,” and so, he was going to die, and then it wasn’t a permanent death. What was going to happen—and I don’t care. Do, we can tell, because it doesn’t happen anymore, so it’s all fan fiction – he gets pulled out of Hell, essentially, by Atreus. But it’s been 20 years now. . passed — it was going to be a big-time jumping thing. So it was a version of that.”

Game director Eric Williams wasn’t too keen on the idea, and Sophos is glad the story went in the direction it eventually did, “Eric was like, ‘I don’t want to do this, Kratos is dead. And is back. That’s a lot of times, and it’s going to feel a little bit like, ‘Oh, you said he was going to die and oh, you just killed him but he came back. The hook, the feeling, really there. It wasn’t going to happen, and he was absolutely right, and so it didn’t last very long.”

What do you think, are you glad Ragnarok did it this way? Or, do you want to venture into the underworld again for the 13th time in the series? Defy Fate in the comments section below.