God of War dev reveals that Kratos' axe grows bigger when it's in his hand

An animator on 2018's God of War has revealed a curious - intimate, even - little detail about everyone's favorite tatted deity and his favorite tool: Kratos' axe gets about 20% bigger when it's in his hand, and we are all full-grown adults who find nothing funny about that at all.

Seriously though, now that I've satisfied my need to make stupid jokes at even the weakest opportunity, this is a cool insight into how game developers tweak the rules of their worlds to be more appealing to the eye. PlayStation Studios animator Robert Morrison took to Twitter to share what he almost certainly never expected to be twisted for our perverted amusement.

Fun lil dev fact. Kratos’ axe is a different scale when it’s in his hand than when it’s on his back. 🤓 https://t.co/5jm3T5eRnlAugust 20, 2021

In a private message, Morrison explained to me that developers use tricks like these "usually to give the best visual presentation for any given camera view or scenario. Helps to 'frame the shot' if you will." It's possible that other assets in the game were tweaked in a similar way for perspective, like Kratos' blades for example, but Morrison isn't 100% sure.

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Hopefully, Morrison and other devs continue sharing similar secrets, but I'm afraid we might've squandered the privilege after this little stunt.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Morrison doesn't "recall any scaling (changing of size)" of Mimir's head. We regret the error.