God of War Ragnarok will end Kratos' Norse story for a very practical reason

God of War Ragnarok will end the Norse chapter of Kratos' mythos-crossing tale, and the reasons behind keeping the story to two parts are both practical and narrative.

After the initial God of War series, Halo, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and any number of other examples, we just tend to expect big sci-fi/fantasy media franchises to play out in trilogies. That made the initial reveal that Ragnarok would truly be the end surprising. However, a third entry would have meant an even longer wait for a proper payoff, God of War director Cory Barlog explained in an interview with YouTuber Kaptain Kuba.

"So there are several reasons. I think one of the most important reasons is, the first game took five years. The second game, I don't know how long it's gonna take, but I'm just gonna throw out that it's gonna take close to a similar time, right, to do this. And then if you think, 'wow, a third one in that same [length of time],' we're talking a span of 15 years of a single story. And I feel like that's just too stretched out," Barlog said in the interview.

He went on to say that the core of the story between Kratos and Atreus could support a third entry, but he questioned whether that would also be "spreading it too far apart" in the narrative sense. Instead, he compared it to just sitting down with the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and experiencing the complete story some 13 and a half hours later.

"But beyond that, also as we started to talk about what the story could be, about where [God of War director Eric Williams] really wanted to go, the things that were interesting and exciting for him, I was like, 'Yeah, I really do think we can do this.' Because it is centralizing itself always around these characters, and then giving everybody the time that they need. So those were important things, and after that you really want to make a big splash with something. Not sure what it is, but I think it'll be great."

God of War Ragnarok is easily one of our most-anticipated upcoming PS5 games, though now we want to hear more about what Barlog's next big splash will be…

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.