Kratos died in an early draft of 'God of War: Ragnarok'.

The ninth game in the popular action-adventure series - which was released in November 2022 - was nearly a different game entirely with Sony Santa Monica's narrative director, Matt Sophos, claiming they were going to kill off the protagonist at the start of the game in a battle with Thor.

Speaking to MinnMax, Matt Sophos revealed: “There was the earliest, earliest draft of an outline that we had come up with, that we took to [director Eric Williams where] Kratos died in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game.

“He was gonna die [but] it wasn’t a permanent death. What was going to happen [was that] he would get pulled out of Hell, essentially, by Atreus."

However, the game's director, Eric Williams, rejected the idea.

Matt continued: ​​“Eric was like, ‘I don’t want to do that, Kratos has died and come back from it too many times.'

“The hook, the emotion, wasn’t really going to be there, and he was absolutely right, and so that’s why it didn’t last very long.”

They went in the opposite direction, making it all about The God of War's fight for survival.

He explained: “As we were developing the story, we knew we wanted it to be about letting go and changing. Knowing that Norse mythology is all about fate and prophecy and everything, we wanted to say ‘that’s bulls***.'

“Nothing is written that can’t be unwritten. As long as you’re willing to make changes in your life, then you’re not bound to fate. When we knew that was the story we wanted to tell, we knew that Kratos couldn’t die.”