God of War Laufey would be better off without Kratos

PlayStation's State of Play this week closed with a 20-minute God of War Laufey gameplay showcase — and while the game looks promising, Kotaku's Ash Parrish says Kratos' brief cameo in that presentation worried her more than it excited her.

Laufey stars Faye, Kratos' wife who has existed in the Norse saga only as a dead character motivating everyone else's grief. In the gameplay trailer, Kratos appeared as an occasional voice from above, and that's exactly what Parrish wants gone. The new God of War arc has always been about Kratos reckoning with his violent past and his identity as a father — Ragnarok wrapped that up well. Laufey looks like the series' chance to move beyond Kratos and examine the lives of the people around him. Keeping him around, even as a benign background presence, would undermine Faye's story before it gets going.

The franchise has a poor track record with female characters — the important women in Kratos' life have almost always existed to die, often by his own hands. Freya, Angrboda, and Thrúd were steps toward fixing that, but Faye, a character with a wealth of consequential history that's never been explored, feels like the natural next move. Parrish wants Faye's journey to stand entirely on its own, free from her husband's influence however well-intentioned it might be.

Parrish also floats one more wish: let the wives meet. God of War has always had a built-in narrative device for reaching across death, but Kratos has never had a real conversation with his first family — just quick-time-event hugs, not actual dialogue. Laufey, she argues, is the best shot the series has ever had at showing the victims' perspective and staging a genuine debrief between Kratos' two wives — a conversation that could be one of the most compelling moments in the franchise's history.