God of War Ragnarök's opening Thor fight originally would've killed Kratos

radiotimes.com:

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."

Sign up for our gaming newsletter to receive the latest insights, reviews and expert recommendations

By entering your details, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and privacy policy. You can unsubscribe at any time.

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