God of War Ragnarok Is All About Breaking Cycles, But I Am Scratching My Head About What That Means for the Next One

Not only has that story already been told many times before at that, but Kratos and Atreus finally reconcile in a poignant moment in Ragnarok, so to reverse all of that would trivialize the capstone of its emotional narrative. Kratos also stepped into his new role as the God of Hope in God of War Ragnarok‘s Valhalla DLC, wrapping his own personal arc up in a redemptive bow and driving the cycle that once defined him even further underground.

Now, the franchise is at a crossroads. The themes that once held everything together have been resolved, the emotional conflicts have reached a natural resting point, and the characters who once lived inside an endless loop of violence now stand on entirely new ground. Whatever comes next for God of War, then, will need to either explore the possibility of a different thematic cycle or move in a direction that no longer depends on cycles at all. The next chapter has to reflect the characters as they are now, but that also makes the future of the series far more open than it has ever been before.

The Cycle That Defined the Old God of War Games

Before God of War‘s Norse saga ever shifted the series’ themes toward growth and introspection, the original God of War games built Kratos inside a world that never gave him a real choice. Everything in the Greek era revolved around a destructive pattern that had already been set long before he was born. The Olympian gods lived inside a system where fear was the foundation of every relationship, the lust for power made trust a rare thing, and betrayal was almost expected. Kratos stepped into that environment without realizing how much it had already chosen for him, and the result was a character molded by forces he never had the chance to question.

• Kratos’ entire identity was shaped by betrayal. Zeus feared him, manipulated him, and finally tried to kill him. That distrust between father and son echoes patterns already present among the Olympians.
• The Greek gods lived in a closed system of harm. Children overthrew parents. Gods punished mortals for their own failures. Violence was the only language they understood.
• Kratos inherited that environment. The man he became was a product of a world that taught him survival through rage rather than through connection or humility.
• The death of his family in the Greek era solidified the cycle. That loss drove him deeper into anger and erased any chance of breaking away from what Zeus had given him.
• Parenting barely existed in his life. There was no model for compassion or patience. The absence of healthy fatherhood is one of the main reasons Kratos begins the Norse saga so closed off and emotionally guarded.

Ultimately, it was this cycle of bad parenting that kept Kratos in a loop that he really couldn’t ever escape, no matter how many gods he killed. Every choice just pushed him deeper into the same pattern his forefathers before him had followed, long before he ever picked up the Blades of Chaos. That’s really why the shift in God of War‘s Norse games is such a massive one. When the Norse saga finally gives him space to change, he is able to breathe outside the history that was quite literally in his blood.

God of War’s 2018 Reboot Began Kratos’ Journey Toward Introspection and Renewal

When God of War was rebooted in 2018, it introduced themes that simply did not exist in the series’ Greek era, or at least were never fully explored. These themes kickstarted Kratos’ journey toward introspection and renewal, as he was forced to either give into or confront the cycles set in motion by his ancestors, having now become a father himself.

Whereas familial revenge had been the narrative engine of the Greek-era God of War games, the 2018 reboot rebuilt that engine to focus more on the emotional dynamics of parenting. Fatherhood was shown as something that requires maturity, honesty, and restraint, and loss as something you learn to grow through rather than resist. In hiding the truth about his son, Atreus’ godhood, Kratos repeated the very secrecy that had ruined him, and God of War‘s ending teased a future where the cycle could repeat if Kratos didn’t handle his son differently. But God of Ragnarok took the series into new territory, as the series’ tormented protagonist began looking inward, seemingly determined to set his son on a different path than the one his father had laid out for him.

The Cycles God of War Ragnarok Confronted and Broke

God of War Ragnarok thus took the themes introduced by its immediate predecessor and put the entire series’ cycles of control and bad parenting on trial. Kratos entered the game fully aware of the patterns that defined him in Greece, and the story continually asked whether he and Atreus were going to repeat those patterns or break them once and for all. A lot of this showed up in how God of War Ragnarok handled their relationship as father and son.

Kratos was depicted as the father who was still holding on too tightly, trying to control the situation, and reacting more from a place of fear than he was initially willing to admit. While those instincts mirror the same mistakes he once hated in Zeus, unlike the Greek-era games, God of War Ragnarok refused to let them go unchallenged. Atreus tested every boundary in front of him, and the tension between Kratos and Atreus ended up being the primary way the story cornered Kratos into growing.

When Kratos finally apologized to Atreus in God of War Ragnarok, the cycles began to shatter. Like a soda can that had been shaken relentlessly and finally opened, every bit of pressure that had built up over what felt like an eternity of bitterness, manipulation, control, and hatred was released—and at last, a ray of hope began to glimmer. Kratos began to take the road his father and grandfather never traveled: putting his own son first and fully admitting to his pride, his rage, his needless desire to control, and perhaps most of all, his fear.

The idea of prophecy played a similar role in God of War Ragnarok. The Greek games held Kratos to fate, giving him no choice but to attempt to force himself through, but Ragnarok presented it as more of a lens than a rule. The Norns called Kratos out for thinking he was different from every god who came before him, and the murals in Jotunheim showed a future that Kratos wanted to avoid rather than repeat. When he chose restraint in moments where the old Kratos would have doubled down on anger, God of War Ragnarok made it increasingly clear that it wasn’t headed toward another father-son implosion.

God of War Ragnarok proved that Kratos wasn’t the only one subject to those cycles either, as other characters in the game reinforced that direction. Freya began the game with every reason to remain obsessed with vengeance, yet her arc led her toward healing without ever pretending her pain didn’t matter. Thor’s story worked the same way in God of War Ragnarok. He was a product of generational abuse, and even though he never escaped it completely, the game showed him trying to imagine a different future for Thrud.

Everything built to Odin, who represented the culmination of the cycle more clearly than anyone else in the Norse world. He clung to control, manipulated his children, and was driven by fear in every decision. Beating him at the end of God of War Ragnarok ends the conflict with him, but it actually isn’t the thing that broke the cycle. What truly broke it is how Kratos and Atreus chose to respond afterward. Neither of them let anger decide the future, and neither of them repeated the same pattern from the Greek era.

Then, in God of War Ragnarok‘s Valhalla DLC, Kratos was finally forced to confront the parts of him he had always avoided. Thematically, Valhalla was about Kratos confronting his past directly if he wanted to change, with him eventually realizing that he couldn’t move forward until he stopped seeing himself as the man that he was in Greece. By Valhalla’s end, Kratos no longer carried the legacy of Zeus, no longer feared what Atreus might become, and no longer tied his identity to the damage he caused. He had become the God of Hope, with his history as the God of War becoming little more than a bedtime story.

Where Can God of War Go Now?

Now, we’re two years past God of War Ragnarok‘s epic conclusion in its Valhalla DLC, and as I look forward to whatever is next for the series, I’m intrigued. What has happened to Kratos cannot be undone, and again, to revive the same cycles that once fueled the saga would be overkill. But what this ultimately means is that God of War now has more space to work with than it ever has before, whether it’s Kratos who continues to lead or Atreus who dons his father’s mantle.

If Kratos remains the lead protagonist in the next God of War, its mythological world would do well to test his new identity as the God of Hope rather than tempt him back into old habits. But if Atreus takes the lead, with his story not being built on loss or the violent legacy that trapped his father, it could be one more driven by discovery and self-definition rather than anger.

The theme of cycles wouldn’t necessarily need to end either. Kratos’ new role as the God of Hope doesn’t inherently mean there will be less conflict. A world that has quite literally been built around the cycles that were finally broken in God of War Ragnarok may now need to adjust to hope entering the picture. Hope can be resisted, misunderstood, or even feared, especially by cultures that are unfamiliar with it. A future pantheon might not treat him with the same hostility he faced in Greece or the same suspicion he dealt with in the Norse realms, but a new cycle could begin which sees those who desire power and control awakened by Kratos’ newfound role, proving that even something as life-giving as hope can still grant opportunities for death.

Wherever the series goes, with God of War Ragnarok having closed the book on the cycles that fueled the franchise for so long, the future feels more wide open than it has ever been. The next game doesn’t even need to depend on who Kratos is supposed to fight or what prophecy he has to break. Instead, it could focus on something unexpected, like how characters move forward once they are free from their past. Reinvention seems to be on the table for the God of War series, and that sets the stage for a story even its most die-hard fans might never have expected.

Systems

Released

November 9, 2022

ESRB

M For Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language