God of War Ragnarok writers Matt Sophos (Narrative Director) and Richard Gaubert (Story Lead) were featured in an interview with the YouTube channel MinnMaxx, revealing some juicy story details. According to Sophos, an earlier draft of the script saw Kratos dying at the beginning of God of War Ragnarok, only to be 'resurrected' by his son Atreus.
Matt Sophos: There was the earliest draft of an outline that we had come up with that we took to Eric [Williams, Game Director on God of War Ragnarok] where we had Kratos...This is deep inside stuff. Kratos died in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game. He was going to die and then it wasn't a permanent death. What was going to happen (and I don't care, we can tell this because it doesn't happen anymore so this is all fan fiction at this point), is he would get pulled out of Hel essentially by Atreus but it's now been like 20 years have passed. That was a version of it and it just didn't ultimately feel right.
Eric was like, 'I don't want to do that to Kratos, he just 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'. It's not going to feel...You know, the hook, the emotion isn't really there.
And he was absolutely right, so that's why it didn't last very long in the God of War Ragnarok story script.
It is a startling revelation, to be sure, but given the incredible success of the final version of the game, it's obvious they made the right choice in cutting that part out of the story.
God of War Ragnarok became the fastest-selling first-party exclusive in PlayStation history and it is widely considered to be the best game released in 2022 alongside Elden Ring. Sony Santa Monica's game received a perfect score in Wccftech's review and more recently brought home the Best Action Game prize at the Wccftech Awards '22, with staff and community agreeing in their respective polls.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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