Early plans for God of War Ragnarok included a shocking death

God of War Ragnarok is a good game which tells a story about how people can change their destiny and take control of their own lives. However, in the very early days of its development, a possible storyline for the PlayStation-exclusive sequel was pitched that went in a different direction and involved death, loss, redemption and a grand old time warp.

And yes, there are spoilers for those from here on out new God of War. Consider this your final warning if you haven’t played the game and don’t want anything spoiled about the actual narrative.

In conversation with MinnMax, God of War RagnarokNarrative Director Matt Sophos and Story Lead Richard Gaubert explained that very early in the making of the sequel, they came up with the idea that Kratos could die in his first fight with Thor.

“And so, [Kratos] would die, and then it wasn’t a permanent death,” Sophos said. “What would happen – and I don’t care, we can say that because it doesn’t happen anymore, so it’s all fan fiction at this point – he would essentially get pulled out of Hell by that [his son] Atreus.”

However, the Atreus that would save Kratos from Hell wasn’t the same Atreus that we got in the last two games. Instead, he would have been much older, and Sophos stated that “20 years” had passed in the living world, calling it a “big time jump thing.”

Of course, when you’ve played Ragnarok or read about it, you probably know this didn’t happen. Not nearly. And that’s because, according to Sophos and Gaubert, when they brought this early draft to Eric Williams, the game’s director, he wasn’t a fan of killing and reviving Kratos all over again.

“[Director Eric Williams] was like, ‘I don’t want that, Kratos has died and come back from too many times,’ said Sophos. “And it’s also going to feel a little bit like, ‘Oh you said he was going to die, and oh you just killed him but he was right back!'”

Sophos added that all the emotions and the main hook of the story – to see if Kratos and his friends could overcome the prophecy revealed at the end 2018 God of War– was absent from this proposed story. And Sophos agreed with Williams’ decision to take a different tack with the sequel.

God of War RagnarokThe actual ending of , with Kratos surviving the prophecy that predicts his death, also worked better with what the writers ultimately wanted to do, which was to say that “destiny and prophecy” are all “bullshit”.

“Nothing is written that cannot be unwritten, as long as you are willing to make changes in your life you are not bound by fate,” Sophos said.

“And when we landed on it, when we knew this was the story we wanted to tell, we knew Kratos couldn’t die. Because then it would be like, ‘Well, shall we just say that Kratos couldn’t change?’ And then that would suck, you know?”