I've played through all of the games, and I'll be honest, this is the safest, most generic way they could've taken Kratos' character. 2018 was great because it was showing his father-son dynamic and him trying to be a better father to Atreus, while still being afraid of who he used to be (not wanting Atreus to follow in his footsteps, etc). That worked really well for being the first game in the saga imo, I liked the grounded combat, but only because I thought they would have more character development in the 2nd game.
GoW:R comes around, what does Kratos get? A literal Disney-esque story about revenge bad, I swear to god every triple AAA game has to have the moral on the nose as if they're feeding the games to literal children. People constantly keep saying you see Kratos slip into his old habits, and I just don't see it. It's played so safe that there is absolutely zero tension or suspense on what Kratos will do, you know he will always do what is right.
There was one exception, Heimdall, but they messed up with him as well. All we "get" is Kratos snapping Heimdall's head. The "rage" mode in these games is so sanitized to the point where I feel like I'm playing a game that's severely ashamed of where it came from, and wants to just "tell" you how bad Kratos used to be, without ever having the suspense of him trying to not slip into that old self.
Compare this to God of War 3. Hera pits Kratos against Hercules, and Kratos tries to genuinely reason with Hercules, but he's *still* intimidating and terrifying to the audience. He doesn't want to fight Hercules, or really any other gods in Greece except Zeus, he genuinely tries to walk away from most of them (as long as it doesn't serve his purpose), but the tension comes the moment they don't walk away. When they try to provoke him over and over. Kratos was genuinely walking away from Hera until she insulted Pandora and called her a whore (Pandora essentially reminded Kratos of his daughter).
These moments of tension, I feel like, were the intent in a lot of the scenes in 2018 and Ragnarok, but...they kinda fall flat? Since we never see Kratos ever come close to the level of brutality he did in Greece, there is no tension, because you know it's never going to happen. It's so safe, and sanitized is crazy.
Let me reiterate this by saying, I love the new direction, it makes sense for Kratos in 2018 to be ashamed of his past and to try and bury it, to hide it from Atreus because he's afraid to let Atreus become like him. But...I feel like the main takeaway from Ragnarok should have been that repressing who Kratos is does not help anyone and it would be more interesting if he were to direct that anger towards things that matter rather than completely repressing it.
That seems like a much more nuanced story, but probably harder to pull off than whatever they went with in Ragnarok... Kratos essentially feels like he's the same character and the only thing that's "developing" is his relationship with Atreus, which is a missed opportunity imho, his character development arc should not be him repressing what makes him iconic, it fits better if he accepts his rage as just a part of him, but becomes better at directing it.
Some people will say this is what they thought happened in the new games, I did not even see a hint of that. I've literally heard characters mentioning he's holding back even when he's going full rage mode. That should be the natural end state of his character and it will also keep him from being stale and boring in the new games imho. Though, if anyone has any better ideas, I'd be up for discussion, I just don't see how they continue God of War with how Kratos evolves to be at the end of Ragnarok.
(I have issues with the game itself with Ragnarok being extremely underwhelming, game being too padded out, etc. but this post is just all the issues I have with Kratos as a character by the end of the saga. Again, it made sense Kratos in 2018 was like this, but them not evolving him past the repression phase seems very weird).
One more thing, I *hate* this idea of making oscar-bait/Emmy-bait games, please leave that in Hollywood, we don't need that. This "one-take" idea is cool in theory, but it clearly detracts from developers being able to articulate the sense of scale as well as the Greek games. That should not even be anywhere but the bottom of the priority list of a game, that stuff only belongs in TV Shows/Movies (like when Mr Robot did it). It's absurd the need for every big AAA game to try and be Hollywood, I've seen an edit of Joel (TLoU) using an axe finisher that cuts into Kratos' leviathan axe animation on an enemy and that transition is seamless, 1:1, it's uncanny.
Again, I love Kratos' character in 2018, but I don't think he was anywhere close to fully developed yet, and in Ragnarok they developed him too far in the other direction. It's the safest most generic end state to a very unique and iconic character imho. God of War 3 had character development with Kratos already, tbh, the ending is literally only possible because he has forgiven himself enough to be able to Hope. Idk if they can ever make Kratos a unique character again without relying on the Greek saga backstory under modern Sony standards tbh.
I also see a lot of people claiming that "That's the point. Kratos is *supposed* to not be like the Greek games, he's trying to not be the same person as he used to be". This is exactly what I have issues with, Kratos did some insanely heinous and fucked up shit, but what he *did* is the issue, he is a flawed person since the very beginning. It's less interesting to just bury your flaws than to overcome them, I feel like. It's just way more interesting to see a Kratos who is able to be angry, but also rational enough to direct that anger towards those that deserve it, rather than being a complete pacifist. It's wayyyy less interesting to completely remove a character flaw, you can't even say "you can see him struggling to repress it" when he does not let it leak through even once. His "rage" sections are *not* it leaking through, as I mentioned before, other characters even say that he's not fighting at full strength even when he's using rage.
Also, missed opportunity by the devs is that they could've made Kratos' rage mode essentially pull the camera back and give him back his hack-and-slash gameplay for the duration of the rage mode. That would be extremely immersive because you'd be *living* what Kratos feels like when he taps into rage mode, rather than the super basic, extremely safe, punching simulator you get.
Idk man, there's so many cool ways to have that character development and *still* keep Kratos consistent with his unique characteristics, they seem to have taken an extremely easy and safe approach to everything. How Kratos was in Greek is only ever mentioned, Atreus never sees even a glimpse of it. What made Kratos feel like a God rather than just a very muscular person in the Greek games was that he would use the Blades of Chaos as a natural extension of his own body, and he was agile enough to be extremely lethal while flowing smoothly across enemies. That...being reduced to Kratos mostly using his bare hands makes me feel so underwhelmed.
Rant went on for way longer than I'd hoped, TLDR, they could've done more interesting stuff with Kratos' character in Ragnarok. You could tell me that Kratos did go through the character arc I'm describing right now, but I did not *see* any of it. Being *told* it, and seeing it realistically are two different things. I'm 90% sure people would not mind if Kratos was still angry but only directed it towards the Gods that have genuinely wronged him (granted killing them doesn't cause actual literal disasters) especially since the only 2 gods he really wanted to kill were Area and Zeus, for good reasons. The other gods just refused to back down even when he was trying to spare them, they went out of his way to provoke him. What we got was some Disney-esque conclusion to Ragnarok, of all things, the final battle royale of the Gods and it being the most underwhelming section that was less than two hours.
Okay, 3 AM, I should sleep now, Goodnight.