God of War 4 Almost Featured an Overweight Kratos

Before its release, the God of War reboot was already under heavy scrutiny for giving us a very different looking Kratos as well as a change in lore. What's interesting is, Kratos could have looked a lot more different—in a sense that he almost got a dad-bod.

Talking during a panel at SDCC 2018 (via ScreenRant), game director Cory Barlog explained:

"In the beginning we were talking about, you know, 'What is Kratos going to look like?' And I kind of wanted to go extreme, I was like, 'He should have really let himself go, right?'... Yeah, Dad bod, right? David Harbour as Kratos. And I thought it could be really cool."

Then we started describing it as an athlete in the off-season. Then we just very slowly moved away from that - without my knowledge. So they just kept changing it a little, like, 'It looks different today,' and they're like, 'Don't worry about it, it's cool. Same as yesterday. Same thing as yesterday.' Then eventually he just got really ripped again. And then it was really the beard and Chris's [Judge] voice that aged him."

Of course, the Kratos we still got is very different from the one in the original games. Besides his older face, he's now sporting a full beard. He also has a completely different voice actor as well. Probably one big difference is also the fact that Kratos no longer wielded the Blades of Athena in the game, instead opting for the Leviathan Axe.

Upon release, God of War was actually pretty well received, and this no doubt opens doors to sequels. It has been said that future games will explore mythologies from different countries, with the sequel set after this game is going to explore Egyptian mythology.

At least, that's the rumor anyway.

God of War is now available for the PS4.

See Also: God of War Netflix Series Rumor Debunked...For Now Anyway