God of War Ascension: A kinder, gentler Kratos? Are we ready for that?

What is

All the gods are dead (well most)…Kratos is presumed dead…where do we go from here?

I loooooove the God of War series one of my favorite franchises even, after watching the new “God of War Ascension” trailer it seems  everything points to a prequel judging by the Gaia led narration — ”But there was a time before Kratos became the monster known as the ‘Ghost of Sparta’”.  So if it’s indeed a prequel that would mean most likely he will not be  an angry man and a blood-killing machine that we know him for, are we ready for that?

One of the biggest complaints I hear throughout the GOW series is that Kratos is “one dimensional” and a “jerk” which I always refuted, not necessarily because it’s not true but more because it should be okay for a developer to make a one dimensional character and have him play the role of the jerk, why not?!! Movies do it all the time!

In Kratos’ case he was playing a specific role for a specific time (nothing wrong with that) and as we know with any triology it’s one long story. I think gamers sometimes confuse real-world, real-time — with game-world, game-time. Just because we waited 6-7 years to end this  story of revenge doesn’t necessarily mean he was angry for 6-7 years (which would’ve still been okay). Yeah Kratos is  fueled by rage, he was blind to the needs of others , needs of his country, needs of the world, shoot, he was blind to even his own needs but instead of that being  a negative, I think it’s actually a positive, the fact that his rage was sooo consistent and that he “blacked out” to all humanity made his story even more believable in my book.

What could be

Now can we envision a new Kratos? One that shows his other side — no longer angry?  Kissing babies, dancing in the village streets, being an outstanding and law abiding citizen, as well as a great husband and father a family’s man, family man and dare I say (shut your mouth) helping others! (“you need help lifting that water from the well maam?”).

I won’t lie and say I’m not concerned, well concerned might not be the correct word, more anxious if anything to see where Sony Santa Monica is going with this — hopefully some clarity at E3? The only thing that relieves this, is that Kratos did lead a Spartan army and they could choose to showcase him as a warrior way before the rage consumed him.

I’m actually not entirely against going in that direction, however I believe it would severely change the gameplay we’ve all come to know and love. No blades (agh the blades), no magic, and his original skin color! wow! That means he won’t be fighting as often as he did in previous God of Wars. Maybe they’ll have him doing tasks in Sparta and then occasionally being sent out to war when challenged by another empire. They could also use it as a platform, (in what we would be sweet and somewhat fairly obvious) to show the events that led up to him first receiving the “Blades of Chaos” and pledging his allegiance to Ares — kind of like how Star Wars went prequel and showed you the events that led up to Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader. That way all the gods could return and we’ll get a fill to a story that not only shows another side to Kratos but also bridges the stories gap.

Before the anger

So are we ready for a personality switch from Mr. Kratos? CCU wants to hear from you.