Everyone has a breaking point. Something that just causes us to snap, where we no longer care about others. And thankfully, that time is usually very brief. For Kratos, it's time spanning three videogames.
I suppose it takes being crossed by ancient Greek Gods to drive a Spartan warrior to such high level of cynicism that he doesn't mind slaying innocent Greeks. Taking place before his epic quest took the ghost of Sparta to the top of Mt. Olympus, God of War: Ascension sees a very different Kratos, one not nearly as destructive.
Speaking with Polygon Sony Santa Monica's lead designer Mark Simon gave an example of how Kratos is, ech...I don't even wanna say it...more human.
"For example, there's the guy who's against the wall, and there's a fire, and in order to get past him Kratos just kills him and moves on. I think what the Kratos in this game would do is, he would try to move around the guy," Simon explained.
Wow. That sounds absolutely nothing like the demigod Kratos most gamers have come to know and love.
"He wouldn't try to kill him to move on", Simon continued, "He's not going to go massively out of his way or anything like that, he is very driven to do what he does - the guy is a Spartan general, he's killed hundreds and hundreds of people.
So obviously he's not Mahatma Kratos, "But the civilians in this case," Simon added, "he doesn't kill any civilian, here. The ones that are killing the civilians are the beasts that he's fighting against, and we want to get back to that. Because it's important to know that, like, these guys are terrorizing the workers on this statue. Kratos is going to go in and fight those guys, so in a way he's more heroic for doing things like this. When the Juggernaut shows up, he kills three guys just like that, and Kratos runs in and fights this guy. That's the monster, in this game, not Kratos."
