God of War Ragnarok writers Matt Sophos (Narrative Director) and Richard Gaubert (Story Lead) were featured in an interview with the YouTube channel MinnMaxx, revealing some juicy story details. According to Sophos, an earlier draft of the script saw Kratos dying at the beginning of God of War Ragnarok, only to be 'resurrected' by his son Atreus.

　　Matt Sophos: There was the earliest draft of an outline that we had come up with that we took to Eric [Williams, Game Director on God of War Ragnarok] 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. What was going to happen (and I don't care, we can tell this because it doesn't happen anymore so this is all fan fiction at this point), is 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.

　　Eric was like, 'I don't want to do that to Kratos, he just died and come back from it too many times' and it'll feel a little bit too 'Oh, you said he was gonna die' and 'Oh, you just killed him but he came right back'. It's not going to feel...You know, the hook, the emotion isn't really there.

　　And he was absolutely right, so that's why it didn't last very long in the God of War Ragnarok story script.

　　It is a startling revelation, to be sure, but given the incredible success of the final version of the game, it's obvious they made the right choice in cutting that part out of the story.

　　God of War Ragnarok became the fastest-selling first-party exclusive in PlayStation history and it is widely considered to be the best game released in 2022 alongside Elden Ring. Sony Santa Monica's game received a perfect score in Wccftech's review and more recently brought home the Best Action Game prize at the Wccftech Awards '22, with staff and community agreeing in their respective polls.