What do we want from God Of War: Ragnarök?
just one more question… the team debate this month’s burning issue
LET’S BOY! AND SEE PIT AN HIM OLDER AGAINST KRATOS IN A POETIC REVERSAL OF THE GOD OF WAR NARRATIVE. LET’S FACE IT: SHE’S MORE THAN EARNED HER WINGS. SO IT’S TIME TO SEE MORE OF FREYA. THIS GOD OF WAR SEQUEL COULD NAIL A NEW WEAPON. SEND KRATOS BACK IN TIME TO UNDO THE MESS HE CAUSED, AND SCATTER SOME MCFLY MAGIC ON THE NORSE REALM.
Cory Barlog has often jested with Neil Druckmann about how his God Of War riffs on ideas laid down by The Last Of Us, so why not this sequel? Let’s have a fan-baiting switcheroo that allows us to play as Atreus, or [spoilers!] rather Loki, as we now know him from the first game’s ending. He’s destined to kill his own father, Kratos, which is poetic justice given videogames’ angriest man killed his own Greek family. Better still, make the lad a teenager and let him really play havoc with Kratos’ Nordic life. Will a call of “Oh, maaaaan!” be as meme-friendly?
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you know you’re entering the spoiler zone. That said, what I want to see is probably a given for the sequel: more Freya. For starters, she has several bones to pick with Kratos and Atreus. Jötunn-sized bones at that. As Mimir put it, “The cycle of vengeance is not so easily broken.” What’s more, she may well have found her valkyrie wings by the time Ragnarök rolls around. One’s things for sure, we’re likely to see a very different side of Freya in the sequel, though I still don’t know if I’ll be able to handle the emotional fallout of this inevitable showdown.
It wasn’t just the Norse setting that made the last of God Of War stand apart from its Greekpantheon-led predecessors. It was the Leviathan Axe too, which replaced the iconic Blades Of Chaos, giving Kratos a new fighting style which included being able to summon his thrown axe back to his hand. We’ve since seen another game do something similar – namely, Marvel’s
Avengers (combat designer Vince Napoli worked on both), with Thor’s Mjölnir hammer. But… a Thor is likely to make an appearance in God Of War: Ragnarök. My eyes are set on that hammer. I want a new toy, and I want it to be smashy. Give us the hammer.
I can foresee this sequel playing with time travel in an interesting way. We were already told in God Of War that Thor hit Jörmungandr the World Serpent so hard he was sent back in time. Technically in Norse myth Jörmungandr is Loki/ Atreus’ son (the mind boggles), and Kratos’ actions have caused Fimbulwinter to start 100 years early. Keep up! It’s established Thor can affect time, and Kratos’ has changed the timeline, so why not send the God Of War back in time to undo the mess he’s created? He could even fight himself. Michael J Fox would be optional.