The new God of War series seems to focus on Kratos’ reckoning with his violent past and how that past influences his current identity as a father. We got a good resolution to that story with Ragnarok. With Laufey on the horizon, it seems like the next turn in the tale is to go beyond Kratos to examine the lives (or afterlife in Faye’s case) of the people around him. But in order for that story to hit the way I think it can, the way I’ve seen Santa Monica Studio tell incredible God of War stories, Kratos shouldn’t be involved. I want Faye’s journey to exist completely outside of the influence—as benign and sweet as it seems to be—of her husband.
There’s also one more thing I want—let the wives meet, please. Something that’s typically missing from bad guy redemption stories is the victims’ perspective—usually because they’re almost always conveniently dead. God of War has always had a built-in narrative device that allows characters to reach across what is normally the impenetrable veil of death, but we’ve never really seen Kratos meaningfully interact with his first family. Yes, there have been moments in which he’s had to hug or not hug them, but nobody’s having a real conversation in the midst of a quick-time event. Laufey represents my best chance to see a quick debrief between Kratos’ two wives. I imagine the things they would say to each other would make for a damn good conversation.