In the early days of Kratos, the Spartan warrior turned scourge of the gods; he had a very empowering and intimidating look. He was a man on a mission. A mission of vengeance and neither the gods, titans, nor monsters could stop him from completing that mission. Sure enough, he finished it and moved on with his life. That’s where the PS4 version of Kratos emerged. While he was still intimidating, he also had a more “weathered” and “experienced” look through his fully-grown beard. That beard helped define the new chapter in Kratos’ life, so it’d be pretty odd now to see him without it in places like God of War Ragnarok.
Naturally, someone had that same thought and made a mod for God of War Ragnarok to do just that. As you’ll see in the video below, someone took away Kratos’ beard, giving him a “fresh” clean-shaven look that doesn’t “fit” the storyline he’s now in. The mod isn’t perfect, as the hair can sometimes pop up during the cutscenes Kratos is in, but it does show why Kratos does not have that clean-shaven face anymore.
As odd as it sounds, Kratos’s beard gives him a different aesthetic. It shows that he’s grown and isn’t the same man he was in his Greek God-killing days. Without the beard, it feels like he’s had no growth or evolution. Again, it’s odd to say, but seeing him clean-shaven and talking with the voice of Christopher Judge doesn’t “feel right” in context.
Speaking of Judge, he and the team at Santa Monica Studio talked about Kratos recently and delved into what makes the character so unique and why they had to go a certain way with developing him for the PS5 game.
For example, Judge talked about his personal input into the character, including how he made sure when doing motion capture to never do anything “without purpose.” In his mind, Kratos is someone who always does something with intent. He moves as precisely as possible and doesn’t “showboat” or “overexaggerate” who he is.
In contrast, some of the animation team talked about how in combat, Kratos will give flashes of who he was in the past when wielding weapons like the Blades of Chaos.
The emotionality of Kratos was also displayed in the video. It’s worth a full watch to see just how much Kratos has evolved as a character and as someone portrayed for a video game.
Source: YouTube
