Why Amazon Seems To Be Skipping ‘God Of War’ For ‘Ragnarok’ In Its New Show

It was just announced that Amazon’s God of War TV series has added another confirmed cast member: Boots’ actor Max Palmer is playing Heimdall. That’s after Teresa Palmer was recently revealed to be playing Lady Sif.

These are… both characters that are not in the first God of War, but only in its sequel, God of War Ragnarok. Now, players are starting to wonder what’s going on and if Amazon is simply “skipping” the first game, throwing new Kratos, Ryan Hurst, into the second game early.

Here’s what I think is happening: It’s not skipping it, but it is cutting it down, possibly by quite a bit.

There probably isn’t enough material in the original God of War to adapt into an entire season of television. I am not saying the game is not amazing, but it is generally a very slow, one-shot journey punctuated by violent combat. But it’s a story that uses very few characters. Mainly, of course, Kratos and Atreus, but past that, just Mimir (his head), Freya and her son Baldur, the bad guy. Plus Brock and Sindri, the gear upgrade dwarves. The entire game is effectively about four people.

My guess here is that Amazon’s plan is to dramatically slim down the first game into its bare essentials. I am wondering if they plan to include Mimir at all, as he serves mainly as a narrator for learning about the game world in a way that I’m not sure would translate well to a show. So, you cover the Freya and Baldur storyline, and that kicks off the real story once you piss off most of the other Norse gods, and bring in much larger characters like Thor and Odin, supported by other known mythological figures like Sif, Heimdall, Tyr and Angrboda.

What I think Amazon will do here is film the first game as about half of season 1, then move into the first third or so of Ragnarok. Then a second season would stretch to include all the rest of Ragnarok. Two and done, as this isn’t The Last of Us where they’re going to turn two games into four seasons. If anything, as I said, I think they’re going to slim the first game down dramatically.

There is, of course, potential for more God of War, given that the series started in ancient Greece, and there are seven God of War games set in that era, the mainline 1-3 and then Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta, Ascension and Betrayal. Many players were surprised that Amazon was going straight to the recent Norse storyline, given that Kratos’ past is a pretty key part of understanding his story and character now. But that door is open once this two-game series is finished, unless we get a third by the time that happens (which is not out of the question), which would reportedly move to an entirely new god pantheon (Egyptian, Celtic, etc).

So, a lot of questions here with these recent casting announcements. Obviously, the biggest role still to cast now that Kratos is done is Atreus, and I’m very curious to see who gets picked for that.

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