Most of us know the original God of War series, and playing it as a teenager was a fun (and maybe not so healthy) way to channel a lot of angst.
The original games were simple: Kratos, hell bent on revenge, taking down every god in his way. For a really confused teenager that was perfect. All you do is get more weapons to kill more things until there are no more things to kill.
I still remember killing Zeus with my bare hands on my dad’s PS3, in his living room. Bloody, gruesome, and I remember thinking, this is amazing, why can’t I be this awesome. Why can’t I take what I want and make the world bow to me.
Shortly after doing the deed, the world around Kratos collapses, because there are no gods left to hold it up. Kratos just stands there, and the game ends.
“Well shit, I feel bad, but at least it ended.” Then I went to school the next day, still full of anger, still empowered by Kratos to fuck the world up.
So imagine my excitement when the 2018 one was announced. Another chance to put my (now adult) rage into a game. To once more pick up a controller and fuck the world up.
What I got instead was an incredibly balanced game, and an incredible story that came with it. Kratos has a son now, and the entire game is about carrying his wife’s ashes to the highest peak. It’s a hard journey, but it forces Kratos to bond with his son, and to choose between passing his rage on to him or teaching him better.
You see Kratos’ insecurities, the awkwardness as he tries to teach his son the very lesson he failed to learn himself. To show him that anger is not the way, while he still hasn’t fully learnt it.
Apart from the incredible game mechanics, it showed me that all the anger he once had no longer serves him. That it does more harm than good now, even though it is the more familiar and easier path.
God of War Ragnarok is part 2 of this game and it takes it a step further and again pushes Kratos to understand what he is coming up against and what he’ll impart onto his son.