Kratos' son in God of War is named after (or actually is) a brother-killing king of Greece

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Kratos will keep his Greek heritage close with his son named Atreus in the new God of War. Game director Cory Barlog confirmed the detail via Twitter, after a fan spotted the name in the mp3 metadata for the dramatic overture that played at the game's E3 reveal.

That name may sound familiar if you're interested in Greek mythology. Atreus was the son of Pelops, who was himself the grandson of Zeus (not far off from from our Kratos, who turned out to be one of Zeus' many illegitimate children). Atreus was banished from his homeland after murdering one of his brothers in an ill-conceived power play, and through his wanderings eventually became king of Mycenae. Family intrigue and drama followed, involving about as much murder, betrayal, and incest as you'd expect from a Greek myth.

We don't know whether this Atreus is meant to embody the same character from the myths or if Kratos just liked the name, though I lean toward the latter since they seem to be a long way from Mycenae. The God of War series plays it pretty fast and loose with mythological names and interpretations, as you may have realized from the part in God of War 3 where Kratos rips off Helios' head and uses it as a flashlight.

Whoever the son turns out to be, we still haven't heard much about his presumably deceased mother. I hope she gets a more interesting story than "oh she died I guess" but we'll have to wait and see.

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Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

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.