God of War Ragnarok trailer drops a massive clue about Atreus' future
The time is nigh.
God of War 2018 left a lot of lingering questions when the ending rolled around, leading to years of speculation leading up to God of War Ragnarok. Kratos’ son is still a massive enigma factor for the new God of War saga, especially since the first game revealed his true name is Loki. Now, with the latest release date trailer, we may have gotten a vital hint for where Atreus’ story is going, and a wild feature that may be included in God of War Ragnarok’s story.
The new “Father and Son” trailer is only 30 seconds long, but there’s a massive reveal that comes when Kratos and Atreus face down the giant wolf Fenrir. If you’re unfamiliar with Norse Mythology, Fenrir is a wolf-giant-god that’s fated to kill Odin during Ragnarok, a series of events that herald the end of the world.
What’s really interesting, however, is that Fenrir is the son of Loki, just like Jormungandr the World Serpent. This raises the question of how Fenrir could even be present during the events of the game, considering Loki is still a young child himself.
Some dialogue in the first God of War seems to suggest that Jormungandr has already experienced Ragnarok, and Freya even says the World Serpent showed up one day without warning. At one point Mimir also says, “it is said that when Jormungandr and Thor battle at Ragnarok, their clash so violently shakes the tree of life that it splinters, casting the serpent backward through time, even before his own birth.”
Sparks fly as a blade clashes against Kratos’s shield.
If Jormungandr was somehow sent back through time. it stands to reason that the same could happen to Fenrir. In Norse Mythology it’s prophesized that Jormundandr and Thor will kill each other during Ragnarok, and splinter the world tree Yggdrasil during their battle. It’s possible this is what sent Jormungandr back, and even further it’s possible it sent more inhabitants of the nine realms back in time. This could result in Ragnarok starting much earlier than it’s supposed to, which is why Kratos and Atreus find themselves face-to-face with Fenrir.
Past all this, the pair might have to travel through time themselves in order to fix things, and time travel is nothing new to the God of War series. In God of War 2, Kratos uses the Loom of Fate to travel back in time to the exact moment his father Zeus betrayed him.
Kratos finds himself surrounded in the latest Ragnarok cinematic trailer.
A YouTuber named Kaptain Kuba introduced a theory earlier this year that dives into Tyr’s Temple, a location visited in God of War 2018. In the temple, Kratos learns that Tyr travels to other lands and tries to trade objects in order to learn about other cultures. A tapestry in the temple shows Tyr giving some kind of mysterious object to the Greek people, but it’s unclear what the object is. Kaptain Kuba believes the object is something used to restore the world since the time period depicted in the tapestry is after the fall of Greece.
With that in mind, it makes sense that Kratos and Atreus might have to return to Greece in order to retrieve that item. However, the way to do that might involve using the world tree to travel back through time to when Tyr visited Greece. This would make sense as there are giant gaps of time and events that God of War still hasn’t explored, like how Kratos came to the Norse lands, or how he met his wife Laufey.
Time travel presents the perfect opportunity to explore more aspects of Kratos’ new story, and expand on the mythology and characters of the Norse setting. We still don’t know a lot about where the overall narrative of God of War Ragnarok is going, but with so many mysteries surrounding Atreus, the new game is bound to explore more of his story.
