God of War actor uninterested in playing Young Kratos in future games: “Absolutely not”

Christopher Judge inherited the blades of chaos in the God of War reboot and its direct follow-up God of War: Ragnarok, but the actor claims he’s uninterested in voice-matching earlier renditions of the character, played by Terrence C. Carson. 

Modern Kratos’ actor said as much during a livestream event with Streamily, where he spoke on replicating Young Kratos and revealed that one studio actually asked him to voice match Carson. “I never watched any of the scenes from the earlier [God of Wars] because Carson’s so great,” says Judge, “I thought it would be a disservice to try to voice match him or anything, nor did they ask for it.” Judge continues to say that “it was about making it my own” right from the get-go.

Elsewhere in the stream, the actor reveals that one project asked him to “somewhat match the voice of that character” - referring to Young Kratos. Judge supposedly replied: “Absolutely not, I love this dude. That would be such a slight. We are not celebrated for what we, as individuals, bring to stuff. That’s across the board, no matter what you do. I just think it’s inherently wrong to try to commandeer something that someone else has already established.”

Later on, Judge clarified that series stewards Sony Santa Monica had not asked him to portray Young Kratos in either game. “The respect for what he did as Kratos goes from top to bottom,” he writes in a social media post. “It was another game that asked me to do a voice match.” Though he specifies that it also wasn’t his portrayal of Black Panther in Marvel’s Avengers. 

God of War Ragnarok recently received a roguelike post-game mode, called Valhalla, that sees our Kratos come face-to-face with an illusion of his younger counterpart. That role was mysteriously silent, perhaps because of Judge’s wishes, but should the rumored remasters/remakes ever come to fruition, it’s unlikely that Judge would return in the lead role. 

Either way, a God of War writer recently teased that the story is far from over in Valhalla. And here's how to unlock the Young Kratos skin the new mode.