A god of pain. A god of rage. A god of war. For many years, Kratos, the protagonist of the God of War franchise, had a legacy only of intergenerational trauma, vengeance and male ego. Yet the soft reboot series which started in 2018 was different. Exploring from a new angle a theme integral to the franchise, fate, God of War: Ragnarok (GoWR) captured my unwavering attention not just through its wonderful mechanical and audio-visual richness, but through it’s unwavering commitment to a narrative that tells us fate, and redemption, can come to even the most lost, should they truly choose to “be better”.
Set three years after its predecessor, GoWR shows Kratos and his son Atreus grappling with the events they set in motion in the Norse pantheon, particularly the beginning of Ragnarok. I hacked, slashed, grappled and grunted through gruelling trials, drawn in by the depth of combat, the detailed exploration, the pithy dialogue, but most of all, by the burning need to see what unfolded next in the story. Kratos wrestles at the start of GoWR with his own prophesied death, training Atreus hard to be ready for the world without him.
This struck a particular nerve for me. Having lost my own father the same year GoWR came out, I steeled myself for the loss of a character I had come to love, and whose journey with fatherhood was reminiscent of my dad. My writer’s brain whispered to me that Kratos’ redemption had to come through giving his life selflessly, to compensate for all those he had taken selfishly. Yet I held out hope that I was wrong. Hints, repeated dialogue, and events from previous games through into question the finality of fate, though in moments of vulnerability and fear from Kratos only I as the player got to see, the narrative left me questioning whether this was true. I was kept emotionally on my toes, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, and was pulled through the game with intense focus because I wished most of all to see if this was the end of the God of War. In a way, I was right. I could not have prepared for how hard the end would hit me, not because of its tragedy, but because of its message of hope. In the end, Kratos lives, his fate changed; because instead of relying on his godly might, his mechanical and characteristic rage, he relearns from his son very human empathy, kindness and mercy. “I was wrong, Atreus”, Kratos whispers in the pivotal scene for the game, and perhaps the entire God of War series, as he echoes and inverts his own words of guidance uttered in the preceding game: “I was wrong. Open your heart to them. Open your heart to their suffering”.
GoWR’s approach to character-driven tale-telling, also seen similarly in The Last of Us II and Undertale, invites player immersion through making us invested in the lives and journeys of distinct, often highly flawed characters. The huge risk these games take, and what makes them for me highly recommendable experiences, is their commitment to radical empathy in the face of reckless hate. Whether through sparing the monster who tries to kill us, learning implausibly to love the murderer of a beloved character, or witnessing a God of War learn to broker peace, in their writing and what they ask of the player, I find these games’ greatest strength is their promise that it is never too late to change. It is never too late to be better.