God of War Ragnarök's opening Thor fight originally would've killed Kratos
In an early version of the game, things turned out a little differently.
It's always interesting to hear about an earlier version of a now-established story. Writers often kill off characters in early drafts, only to have a change of heart later on (or maybe the reverse if they're having a bad day). J R R Tolkien was going to kill off Éowyn, for example, but thankfully let her live happily ever after.
The same often happens in video games. Such information has been revealed in an interview with Matt Sophos and Richard Gaubert, narrative director and story lead respectively, for last year's God of War Ragnarök. As well as a lot of things, the interview revealed that a certain fight in the game was going to end very differently.
In an interview with MinnMax, they discussed their involvement with the game, as well as offering a few details on how the plot and themes of the game changed over time. Their reasons for making such changes are pretty interesting, and give an insight into how such narrative jobs work.
Sophos said: "[In] the earliest, earliest draft of an outline that we had come up with... Kratos died in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game... he would get pulled out of Hel essentially, by Atreus, but now 20 years have passed. There was going to be a big time jump."
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The idea of killing off your leading man is always a bold one, even though the rules of this universe stipulate that you could always bring him back. Just the suggestion of killing Kratos, at the start of this much-anticipated sequel, draws to mind a very controversial opening to another big PlayStation game, which we won't get into here, of course.
While this Kratos-killing could have been pretty cool, Sophos explained in the interview why that idea didn't stick. Not only had games already explored the idea of Kratos escaping from the underworld in previous titles (the Greek underworld), but they wanted our badass protagonist to escape his fate and beat the prophecy that says he would die.
We think that the end result was a better idea, and we're glad that's what they went with. Still, it's always cool to hear about the writing process, and how discussions and edits lead to the final product. You can check out the whole interview in the video below:
Read more on God of War:
- God of War Ragnarok review - our final verdict
- God of War Ragnarok cast - all voice actors
- God of War Ragnarok New Game Plus - when could it come?
- God of War Ragnarok chapters - are you near the end?
- God of War Ragnarok trophy guide - get the platinum
- God of War Ragnarok ending explained - is there a secret scene?
- God of War Ragnarok PS4 - how good is the last-gen version?
- God of War Ragnarok play time - how many hours?
- How tall is Thor in God of War Ragnarok?
- How old is Kratos in God of War Ragnarok?
- When will God of War Ragnarok come to PC?
- God of War PC review - is it worth playing?
- God of War PC requirements - all the specs you need
- God of War PC controls - full list of key bindings
- God of War games in order - play them all
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Authors
Ben Huxley is a freelance contributor to Radio Times, with bylines also in TechRadar, WhatCulture, GAMINGbible, and Live Science. A writer of fiction, too, he has a few short stories published and a novel on the way. He has a BA in English Literature, and an MA in creative writing.
