God Of War Ragnarök: Valhalla - Who Helios Is & Why Kratos Decapitated Him

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The free, roguelite DLC for ,, isn't just a tacked-on additional mode, but an epilogue to the base game's story which sees Kratos directly confronting his past as the Olympian god of war. Part of this new chapter has Kratos reconnecting with an apparition of Helios – or more accurately, Helios' decapitated head. In the midst of Valhalla's ever-shifting locales, Mimir's head is occasionally replaced by that of Helios, heckling his murderer as Kratos navigates amalgamations of his memories. While allusions are made to Helios' decapitation and Kratos' motivations for performing it, doesn't expressly delineate the event from and its context.

In ancient Greek mythology, Helios is the personification of the Sun, an Olympian god descended from the Titans Hyperion and Theia. Being god of the Sun affords Helios notably potent power and influence among the Olympians – as the Sun, he is all-seeing, much like 's villainous Odin. Though Helios only plays a major part in two of the original six games, he's frequently featured alongside Mount Olympus' most prominent deities, including Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Helios' death by Kratos' hands is pertinent not only to 's gameplay, but its story as well.

Although Helios' death comes during Kratos' rampage across Mount Olympus in, their acquaintance begins in . In the PlayStation Portable title, Helios is kidnapped by the Titan, Atlas, and taken to the Underworld, where Atlas hopes to use the Sun god's power to destroy the Pillar of the World, thus destroying Mount Olympus (and the rest of the world) and exacting revenge on the Olympians for damning him to eternal torture in Tartarus. Helios would ultimately be saved by Kratos, who chained Atlas to the Pillar of the World, condemning the