Just my take on some of these issues

@cornfed40: Interesting, thanks for that. Some good points in there. I noticed a few of the things are set up for sequels, a lot like the first series. The more I think about it, the more I feel like that is my biggest issue with the game. I hate setup for the new game in my current game. Luckily, I feel like God of War did a good job telling a comprehensive story in this game, so it's only a minor annoyance.

@littlewask: Totally agree. It would heave been really disappointing in this game had the story depth of the very first God of War. I feel like they did the "first game in an obvious trilogy" just about as well as you could

Who knows what Odin really wants. Maybe he is content with spying on Kratos. For all we know Freya might be the the big villain in games to come, Kratos attempt to "end the cycle" might have started it all over again.

Thor showing up like an incognito cloaked wanderer is just perfect, its exactly the way he shows up in all good stories. They have made their norse homework.

Ive been desperate to talk to more people about this game haha. My theory about the ending/the murals in the giants temple: I don't think it absolutely has to refer to Atreus killing Kratos or being responsible for his death. To me, that final mural only Kratos sees looked a lot like the punishment of Loki that finally led to the start of Ragnarok. Due to his role in the killing of Baldur, Loki was chained to rocks underneath the earth (the chains were the entrails of his recently disemboweled son) while a poisonous snake dripped venom onto his face and eyes. His wife stayed by his side for years catching the venom in a bowl, but when the bowl filled she had to empty it, which let the poison hit Loki causing him tremendous pain (and causing earthquakes) in Midgard. When he escaped, he was full of so much rage he joined forces with the giants against the gods during Ragnarok.

The imagery of Kratos lying down with Atreus over him, along with rope and snake looking drawings seemed exactly like this story. Maybe its just wishful thinking on my part. But the game was pretty fast and loose with telling famous stories, but noticeably leaving out the part that Loki played in them. I look back to the "time travel? HA!" conversation between Kratos and Mimir, and I'm hoping that all comes into play, changing what we know about the actual stories

@cornfed40: Well according to Mimir Odin is trying to shape Ragnarok into something more favorable to himself since he cant stop it. Plan B if you will. Maybe Kratos fits right into this and aint opposing Odins plan at all. I get the impression Kratos is being tricked by the gods again which he is just gonna love.

Kratos is an experienced time traveller already so i wouldnt be surprised to see some more of it.

So, this has nothing to do with the story ending, but rather directly the post game-ish stuff:

Does anyone know if there is any value to the Anchor of Fog after you have cleared all of the rifts out in Ivaldi's Storeroom or whatever it's called? I had three, used them, cleared the rifts, and now I keep getting them when I do runs (I now have 4 more) and unless there's some use for them it makes me kind of not want to go to either "champion" room when I make Niflheim runs because I am just basically wasting time and run the risk of wasting a chest just getting one of those. Thanks in advance for the help!

Nnnope, they're only used for closing the tears, can't even sell 'em.

Well, that's a bummer, but at least I know now before I collected too many more. Thanks!

@sethmode: Nah they are not needed but if you are farming its really worth getting those rooms since the reward increases exponentially the more chests you open each run. You get almost 10000 mist echoes in one run if you clear all.

Not like there is anything you will need those echoes for but perhaps you like endless farming ;P

@rethla: Yeah, just a bit ago, I finally took down Sigrun, so now really all that's left for me to do is find the Ravens and the Artifacts (which I will never do anyway) and I don't think I need fully leveled Ivaldi armor for that particular endeavor haha.

Just wrapped it up after 50-60 hours (just a guess, there is no in-game time counter), definitely deserves all the praise it's getting. It's obvious the time and effort that went into this, so much of it is so well crafted and designed, it's really awe inspiring at times. I love what they did with Kratos as a character, he definitely gets more likeable as the game progresses. The kid they got to do Atreus did such a fantastic job, he sounds spot on for his age and really grounds the character in a way that couldn't be done without getting an actual child to do it. I did not expect to like Atreus nearly as much as I would, but he has some extremely badass moments and is really integral to the combat. I played on Give me a Challenge, and if you don't use him properly, you're gonna get smoked.

I love their take on Norse Mythology, as someone who knew about it beforehand. There are some unexpected takes on aspects of it that are really interesting, which is great because just doing a one to one interpretation would be boring. The most interesting concept of it all is all mythologies existing at once. Kratos, a Greek god, coming into a mythology he does not belong in and shaking things up in ways that aren't prophesied is a really cool concept. Having a son and creating a half Greek god half Norse giant hybrid is really cool. Also, Mimir is maybe one of my favourite side characters in a long, long time.

There's really not a whole lot I actively disliked, honestly. The RPG mechanics are poorly done in some ways, like the Luck stat for example, or just that they don't really explain enough about what the stats actually do, percentage wise. There are no damage numbers, so it can be hard to tell what the increases are even doing. The way the main weapons are upgraded is kinda lame, being story gated means that you can run around doing side quests for hours and hours and know that you won't find a direct upgrade to your weapons. The way the runes work however, is properly the coolest aspect of the whole system. It always gives you something to look forward to, and pretty much all of them are fun to use and useful in a variety of ways. I breezed through combat encounters that were kicking my ass, by just changing up some gems and runes, and that felt really rewarding.

The game looks absolutely gorgeous, definitely the best looking game on the system, and I've seen Horizon. I don't have a 4k HDTV with HDR, or a PS4 Pro, just a really nice IPS monitor. Despite that, I had to stop so many times to just look at the stuff in this game. Such a great sense of scale to things, it's a wonder to look at. The art design is impeccable.

This post is going on too long, I could shower this game with praise all goddamn day and still not say as much as I'd want to about it. One last thing I'll say, is that I did not expect there to be another weapon besides the axe. The axe has enough depth to last the duration of the game, so I never imagined there was another weapon. When I got to that part where Kratos says he has to dig up a part of his past, and strokes his arms, I almost couldn't believe it. Getting the blades and using all the old moves and finding out that they are a fully fleshed out weapon was fuckin' mind blowing. So glad I didn't get spoiled on that, and props to the developers for hiding it from press releases and trailers and such. Best moment or sequence this year for me, gonna be hard to top that.

That first Nerg kill, doe.

@littlewask: As satisfying as that was, his hitboxes can suck a fat one.

(From the perspective of a completely new oncomer to the series), I don't think they took enough risks with Kratos over the span of the game. That being said, I did appreciate and remember the times he did expressed emotion other than rage and grump. I'm happy they decided on risking on the combats complexity, just needed a steady ramp.

Also once I finished the game where they leave jotunhiem, I felt like there was a cutscenes missing but once I went back to the house in the woods, I felt great joy and satisfaction.

No one seemed to notice but at the end you see all the dead giants. They look like they been slaughtered, there is blood where they lay they look freshly killed too. But who did it. Did Thor or Odin just whoosh through the portal while Baldaur and Kratos fought? I think Odin got what he wanted, when the temple to the giants showed up not one hint of Odin or Thor popping up. You kill a most 99% of the Giant race to find out how to get to the realm of giants. The temple shows up and you wait 3 years to show your face nah something is not right.

Just finished this last night. In terms of the story, if you focus on the journey of father and son then it was a good, but not great game. Watch Kratos grow as a father and a person and - more importantly - Atreus move through how he felt about Kratos and their relationship were both good arcs, but both were a little contrived at times. I realize Atreus is a kid, but his insanely wild mood swings at certain points were fairly unbelievable. Once you tell him he's a god, the next hour where he completely goes off the deep end and inverts the entire character they had built to that point was a little ridiculous. They pull it back around in the end, but it was a very off note. But the ending scenes and walk back from the mountain and Jotunheim still hit pretty hard, even if there were some ups and downs. The one major issue I have with what they did with Kratos - they spend the entire game with him trying to reconcile his previous desire for revenge and violence against the gods and his father, but they never once address that his rage caused him to get tricked into killing his own family. In terms of "hard truths to confess to your son" that seems like a pretty big one. Maybe they think he already reached catharsis with that tragedy in the original trilogy, but it felt really weird to not touch on his prior family that he murdered.

On the other hand, if you just focus on the lore and invocation of Norse mythology, then I think this game is a lot of tease and not a lot of substance. You spend the entire game hearing about how Thor is an evil, giant-killing badass with Mjolnir and Odin is a controlling, all-seeing, monster that cast out his wife and destroyed the giants. But you never once see them in the god-flesh, nor do they even impact the story tangentially. You spend the entire game with Baldur as the antagonist as part of a counter-weight Mother/Son story that doesn't even fully reveal itself till very late game. They built an interesting world, but they did almost nothing with it. There are some amazing setpieces, some great locales, and some memorable moments, but there are also ton of little things they build up that have almost no payoff. It's very much the beginning of a new series, in both good and bad ways. Brok and Sindri were awesome at least.

Aside from the story, pretty much every other part of the game was amazing. The set-up of the world in terms of exploration and side content was incredibly well done. The combat and the way it unfolded was great from start to finish. The characters actually worked. The loot system, even if a bit clunky in parts in terms of crafting materials, still worked well in terms of customization and ways to rework your playstyle. Looking forward to finishing up the side realms and Valkyries.

Well, I just 100% finished the game and got the Platinum (my first since Horizon). Phew!

I think over the past two weeks since launch I've had an almost perfect experience with this game. Firstly it released at just the right time for me as I didn't have tons of work piled up so had the time to play it. Secondly, due to my standard "media blackout" before launch, I was not spoiled for any of the surprises and feel I got the full impact of the reveals.

I did my usual "go anywhere except the main objective" method of exploration so was happily soaking up a lot of the background lore in the side-quests and ambient conversations while gaining the many collectibles and also levelling up and experimenting with my kit and moves. I really liked the way the progression was happening. Finding that after a number of hours they only then decided to hand out the compass made me realise, "OK, this is a big long game!"

Before I knew it though, I found I was so close to getting everything that I made the decision to try and collect everything after all. A notion that hours earlier I had completely dismissed as "definitely not happening". It turns out that finding it all was not as bad as I thought it might be due to the map showing you exactly how many of each thing you still needed.

Having completed all the collectibles and getting to the end of the main story, I had left the most infuriating and frustrating parts to last.
Muspelheim's "Impossible Trials" (that actually turned out to be almost easier than the Normal ones thanks to the weapon/armour upgrades and my now familiarity with the moves), Nifelheim's Rift Tears (that were mostly just pretty time consuming in all the collecting of the currency to unlock them) and the last Valkyrie.
Damn, that bloody Valykrie was super-difficult, as the huge pain in my left thumb after more than 5 hours of trying over 2 days will attest! That one enemy very nearly soured me on the entire game that I had been enjoying intensely for so many hours previously. [ I was even having flashbacks to my most frustrating gaming moment ever. Namely Killzone 2 and that last room on the hardest difficulty! ] But finally beating the Valkyrie, seeing the 100% complete and the Platinum pop was a huge buzz.

After all that I thought it would be fitting to go back home to finish off the journey and found that yes it was a hugely rewarding experience. Bravo game, bravo.

I look forward to the DLC and sequel.

I find this post interesting to read. I finished this game's main story Monday evening (April 30th) after having completed all the favors and done basically everything I could (including the Dwarven armor.) I just got to Arena 4: Hard mode in Muspelheim, and almost have the completed Niflheim gear. I'm really not attempting to brag here, but playing on Hard difficulty (Give me a challenge) for the entire game made the Muspelheim/Niflheim really not that hard to me. For the mists, you really just need to go in and get a few to make the key, come back out, and then that room you unlock has enough materials for you to make at least one piece of the armor. After that I found myself returning with 3000+ mists per visit. (Also, use the Niflheim-specific enchantments you get! They help a metric tonne!) I'm currently running a stat build of 198/125/189/80/77/40 with only a level 5 axe and level 4 blades. For people who were complaining about the Dark Elf fight in Muspelheim, I honestly just recommend getting the Sharpshooter Garb for Atreus(Loki) and spamming his attacks, followed by lots of charge-attacks with the axe.
For all fights, in general, I find myself using my blades more often, however, and I run Rampage of the Furies and Fire of Aries on the runic attacks (both maxed out), and when I need to wave clear I use the axe's maxed-out Glaive Storm.

As far as the actual ending, I rather enjoyed it. I found the Thor scene after returning to your house to be awesome, as well as an amazing way to build up my hype for the next one they release. That being said, however, both my best friend and I felt it to be too short, and I found myself immediately Googling whether or not they were planning on releasing any DLCs or X-Pacs, but upon finding they weren't, I wasn't upset. I'd rather they took the time to make another (arguably) amazing game, despite difficulty.

My next challenge after 100%'ing the game is to try and go through the whole thing in God of War mode. Wish me luck!

This is a very good game that does a great job of recontextualizing the previous games/kratos' role in them. With that said, I have no idea how it got such a high metacritic score. It feels like the epitome of "this is the first game in a trilogy where the second game will be vastly superior". Something about it doesn't quite feel fleshed out, and the story definitely is not "standalone" like some are saying it is (not even sure where that's coming from). I almost feel let down, because it really didn't end up feeling like a complete experience to me, especially storywise. Definitely didn't completely live up to the pre-release hype.

@rongalaxy: I dunno why it would be a standalone story. Its ties in with the previous games are the best part.

@deathpooky: About the Atreus mood switch post-God reveal I similarly was really put off by the abruptness of it. That whole section really felt like the writing team took a week off and let the interns wrap things up or something. Even though he is a child the hard 180 was really jarring, especially since they build him up to be such a positive and well meaning individual - which is also why the Loki reveal felt kind of shoehorned in. Why would you make Atreus the Trickster god, one of the more fiendish and ruthless of the norse Gods, when the entire game is about how pure of heart he really is. If the only point of building him up is to strike him down in the sequel then thats kind of lame.

Overall I feel as if the entire game lacks substance in terms of the narrative. For such a long campaign Kratos does a remarkably small amount of growing while Atreus is just all over the place. I was a little shocked that literally until the very end of the game Kratos is grunting away all questions. I understand that it's supposed to be the culmination of a journey, but they stretch it out a little too much. That said, the final fight against Baldur was really satisfying how both father and son work in tandem with one another.

Really good game, although I'm surprised that a lot of people are giving it all this credit for taking a long running franchise and reinventing it for the better, when Tomb Raider did exactly this, and in many ways I think it actually did it better.

I have the nagging feeling that Freya will become the main antagonist of the next games and Odin and Thor will appear and become some sort of grey area comrades/villians based on what they need/want

@vdortizo: Really? I hope not but I also got the impression that Thor and Odin have been pitched as being too big of assholes to be remotely redeemable at this point. I personally think Mimir saying "Give her time, she'll chill out" (basically) is indicative that you will set up a further strained alliance with her in the future. Otherwise, I think they'd be doing a great disservice to the character that they have established (I find it hard to believe, despite her grief, that she would go full Shakespeare for an entire game on Kratos).

After beating Sigrun, Mimir mentions that he heard Freya was looking into getting her Valkyrie wings back or something to that effect, so... yeah.

re: Atreus turning out to be the trickster villain god, I got the sense that the "canon" story of Loki that we know (a trickster who murders Baldr and sets off Ragnarok) is maybe supposed to have been a result of Freya running a mythological smear campaign on Atreaus and Kratos after they killed her son. So Atreaus turning out to be Loki didn't feel like as much of a swerve as some others took it as.

Also, since I saw it brought up but not corrected, Loki is not Odin's son in Norse mythology. I don't even think he's an adopted son. I'm pretty sure all of that is Marvel canon. Loki is the son of Fárbauti ("cruel striker") and Laufey (aka Faye).

Can't wait for Dad of War 3 where Atreaus gives birth to a beautiful six legged horse.

@beforet said:

This kind of blew my mind while listening to Gaiman's Norse Mythology. If only because I didn't realize how much Marvel lore had permeated my brain, I guess. I always just sort of assumed that this was the case. I definitely prefer the Mythological Loki to the Marvel one, in retrospect.

@sethmode: My view is that making Thor and Odin the main antagonists would be too much of a cliche, it would just make these games GoW 1 to 3 all over again by making those characters completely one dimensional; but killing Baldur actually gives Freya a true motive to hate Kratos, and the character arc she has, from doting friend to Atreus and Kratos to mother in search of revenge could be exploited in a very cool way if they get their narrative right in the future.

@vdortizo: I definitely see what you mean as far as Odin and Thor being too formulaic, but I just have a hard time seeing Freya being that extreme. We'll see though! I hate that the wait is going to be so long!

I also kinda doubt that Thor and Odin will not be bad guys considering the way they bent over backwards and changed the mythology to make Odin and the Aesir pure evil instead of grey and the Jotun pure good instead of evil. I do actually hope there is a twist though because the Jesus vs Hitler conflict they have set up so far is a bit boring.

Also it seems like a lot of people think that the fact that Atreus is Loki means he is going to become evil, but considering they have almost completely turned the tables on who the good and bad guys are in the Aesir vs Jotun conflict I think it`s very likely that Loki is going to turn out to be a good guy here too.

I mean, to some degree I suppose they have the wiggle room of basically Mimir being the only real evidence that Odin and Thor are "bad". But, yeah, I still can't imagine a scenario where they aren't the antagonists in some capacity, especially after the stinger ending. And I 100% agree with you regarding Loki: there is nothing to suggest he would need to be evil (other than Atreus' little dalliance with being a douche canoe for a bit there randomly after finding out he's a demigod). Even listening and reading Norse Mythology has me feeling like the take in that book is pretty sympathetic, despite him doing some real shitbag stuff. There is no reason why the game can't just make him a full-on hero.

hummm... I haven't beat the game yet but I thought this would be explained. He turns into a compeltely different character at that point and then like an hour later he is back to his normal self.

Right before that he touched some ruin/stone thing that lit his body up and I assumed that effected him in some way. And later when you are with him in hell he says something like "it wasn't me" it regards to the way he spoke about not caring about his mother anymore.

So they never actually explain that? I, too, was off-put by the sudden change in personality.

@handlas: They explain it in the way you mention - he turns into an insufferable child that thinks because he's a god he no longer has to care about any consequences to his actions. Later he sees visions of himself doing really horrible things and that is meant to be this sobering moment that snaps him back from that terrible spoiled god-child persona.

Thats how it's supposed to be, but the character switch from good to awful to good again is so rapid in this game that has the narrative pacing of a tortoise that it doesn't really work all that well. It takes Kratos the entirety of the game to spark a single neuron of compassion in that thick head of his, yet Atreus swings wildly from chapter to chapter after being a golden child capable of no wrong for the past 10 hours.

It's just really awkward.

@humanity: I dunno that sounds pretty similar to how I was as a kid. I would be an insufferable shit and then my dad would have a serious talk about it and I'd have to face how I was. A lot of acting up, being yelled at for not thinking or being a dick, and sobering car rides home. It resonated with me a lot more since it was more relatable, so I guess that's why I didn't have a problem with Atreus getting his act together (and judging from Dan's stories as a kid, probably why he was okay with it also). Plus he also got a stern talking to from his dad that fought an invincible god on the back of a dragon to save him only to end up in literal Hel, so he probably had a lot of self-reflection on how he was acting up.

Plus, gameplay-wise at that point he was literally not listening to Kratos. There's only so long they can let that go on before the player complains about the lack of fun.

I didn't have a problem with Dick-treus, but I can see how it would be whiplashy for some. I was into it though, especially when he wasn't listening for a fight. Felt like a good integration of plot and game.

I expect there to be more to it than just "oh he was being a shit". Like, he shit talked his mom. That is out of character to an extent that I expect something to be built up on it.

@burncoat: I don’t have much experience in either the child or parent position but from a story perspective it felt rough to me.

That said different elements will resonate with different people. I went over to Waypoint to see what Patrick and Austin thought of the game and somewhat unsurprisingly the conversation instantly centered around misogyny and gender representation above all other elements of the story. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not mocking or dismissing those guys but rather wanna highlight that yah those doods have always first and foremost cared about those issues and that’s what stuck out to them in this game, much like Vinny really related to the father son moments and Dan cared about smashing heads.

I similarly just couldn’t relate to obnoxious Atreus at all.

It's interesting to notice that in this game we are experiencing history from the side that lost the war, that's the main reason why the Aesir are painted as assholes (but maybe they are)

This has been my explanation for why the characterization has been so different from established Norse lore.

So...am I locked out of some of the Thamur's Corpse content I didn't finish during the main story? There's a marker for a fight with an ancient but I stand right over it and nothing happens, meanwhile there was a side area with a chest and likely a collectible that had nagged at me from the early moments of the game because I gave up trying to get to it in favor of the story and now it seems like Thamur's fist blocks you off from the rest of the level. If so, that's a real shame in a game that otherwise seems very intelligently designed for retreading old ground.

Nothing required for 100% completion is missable, though some items like enchantments are. The Ancient should be relocated next to the door near the dock, it's kinda hard to notice, looks like a pile of rocks, just throw your axe at it.

Can't tell if its my eyes playing tricks on me of if the endgame snow makes everything look a little blue/washed out. Anyone else think this? The game is gorgeous, but I wish i could turn off this snowfall.

You can't turn off Ragnarok...

Well I beat it just now... and I'm kind of disappointed. Where were the bosses? There was like two bosses (Baldr and Thor's sons). It felt so anti-climatic. I hope the follow-up has more characters to fight.

Hot take that I'm sure no one has said before... God of War 2 and 3 are better!

The Valkyrie fights were by far the most fun I think.

So, according to this interview the whole Loki thing had no more meaning than being a final shocking reveal.

@ares42: I don't know why anyone would be surprised or even act like this means it means they have no plans for the future? Your implication that they have no plans seems unfair.

@sethmode: Well, I'm not saying they have no plans. Although, if you listen to the whole interview it seems their prospects go beyond Norse mythology. It's already hinted at in the game, and him talking about already having figured out what order to do the different mythologies points more and more away from a trilogy focused around Kratos and Loki. Unless he's already got like seven God of War games in mind that is.

@ares42: I did. I just, I don't think it really says anything about what they did plan or do plan or whatever. Who knows. I'd guess he's got lots of ideas and those ideas will become lots of different things just like this God of War game took on an interesting concept and/or concepts throughout it's gestation. Games are a weird medium like that. I certainly hope to see the Norse stuff that they started play out to a natural conclusion, but I don't know what that could be or should be at this point, honestly.

I was expecting that Atreus temporary heel-turn to be a result of him being possessed by an evil entity or something because he's constantly hearing voices in his head. But yeah, they don't really explore it that well. I suppose the growing pains of being a god includes turning you into a huge asshole with incredible hubris. Maybe it's natural for a child to have volatile mood swings, but I don't buy for a second that he would ever shit talk his dead mother like he did. There was something else at play there that I thought they would explain.

I think the story was fine overall. It felt like a better Marvel/Disney movie to me, which means that it's a 3/5 story (the game itself was a 5/5 to me, by the way). It was fine, but ultimately I'm going to remember the gameplay and the set-piece moments and not the story itself. The only part I really took umbrage with was how they handled Freeya. She made the choice to die and Kratos didn't allow it. He took away her right to choose, which carries with it extra weight given the male/female dynamic from my own lens (it gets more complicated when you consider the era and mythology they are supposed to be representing). At the time, it felt as if it was couched as the right thing to do, even if the end result was negative. But to me it was wholly wrong. The only thing that would make that moment better for me is if they play with the ambiguity of that decision in the following games.

Sindri just happening to have mistletoe arrows for Atreus seems like a giant coincidence at first, but given it's implied that Faye knew prophecies about this entire trip and was a friend of Sindri, I could see it handwaved by her convincing Sindri to use mistletoe arrows years ago just to set this up.

I could explain away Thor waiting to confront Kratos for years by Odin being a paranoid, manipulative b**tard. Given that Kratos killed the entire Greek pantheon and Baldur, and with Ragnarok fast approaching, Odin would probably keep Thor busy until everything was in place to assure Kratos & Atreus would not be walking away from that fight.

Atreus being Loki doesn't (yet) imply he'll actually turn evil like in the myths. It's heavily suggested Freya manipulates the myths and stories to turn Kratos and Loki into the bad guys; the actual truth is up in the air, which is a good setup for telling a story about Ragnarok without having every story beat spoiled millenia ago.

@jasonr86: In retrospect, I view that part as a sadistic choice Kratos had to intervene in. He knows from previous experience that killing any god has devastating consequences on the surrounding landscape, and while she may have been fine with dying, letting a major goddess of love die would probably end badly for a lot of people. And since there was no guarantee they wouldn't have to put Baldur down afterwards, it was also a choice between letting 1 god die or potentially letting 2 gods die. Given how many opportunities Kratos gave him to just walk away, his continued insistence on murdering his mother just confirmed he was too far gone and had to be put down.

Also technically, Kratos didn't take away Freya's choice to die; I doubt he would've forcibly intervened if she tried to commit suicide. He took away Baldur's choice to murder her. Important distinction. Freya only wanted to die because Baldur wanted to kill her. From Kratos' experience, he knew getting revenge wouldn't satisfy Baldur. (And if he was satisfied by it, it would just mean he is a complete monster.) So he intervened. On the plus side, it looks like this tangled relationship of being hated by someone you were fond of will carry through the next few games.

As a closing note, I heard some rumors there were hints throughout the game that Kratos will actually be sent back in time and become Tyr. The "big one" is that some images of Tyr look like Kratos without his tattoos, but you could argue how quickly he grasps the fundamentals of realm travel and differences in the flow of time imply he's pretty smart when he's not raging about things. I hope this is true because I find the thought of Kratos turning peacemaker and trader hilarious.