Many stories go through multiple iterations before the final product – God of War Ragnarok is another example of this.

One somewhat crazy change is from early drafts of God of War Ragnarok, where originally Kratos was set to die at the start of the game. Though unlike the death of other beloved characters in video game sequels, his death was not going to be permanent.

“There was the earliest draft of an outline that we had come up…” narrative director Matt Sophos said (via MinnMax). “Where we had Kratos…This is deep inside stuff. Kratos died in the Thor fight at the very beginning of the game. He was going to die and then it wasn’t a permanent death.”

As it turned out originally, he would’ve been revived by Atreus, but with one major change in the word.

“He would get pulled out of Hel essentially by Atreus but it’s now been like 20 years have passed. That was a version of it and it just didn’t ultimately feel right,” Sophos said.

You can check out the full interview with writers Matt Sophos and Richard Gaubert here:

On the bright side, it seemed their decisions to create the story that ultimately would be released has been a resounding success. As the game has managed to sell over 11 million copies.

God of War Ragnarok is available now on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.