Back when God of War first landed on the PS2, the game catapulted into the pop culture zeitgeist. And it took nearly five years to conclude Kratos' initial arc in his Greek setting, concluding with God of War III in 2010 on the PS3. Keep in mind, in the midst of the main trilogy, there were also two smaller PSP games that took place between the main games along with a mobile game. And Kratos' move to the Norse setting, which saw 2018's acclaimed God of War as a result, took nearly five years to make. That's right, it took five years (the same length to tell Kratos' original trilogy) to make that one new game. It's for this reason that Cory Barlog, the developer of the newer games who has been with the series since he was a lead animator on the original 2005 game, has said that the upcoming game God of War: Ragnarok will conclude Kratos' time in Norse mythology. Barlog added his other reasons for doing so, as opposed to developing a third installment in the Norse cycle of the long-running game franchise:
"I feel like we’re asking too much, to say the actual completion of that story taking that long just feels too long, and given sort of where the team was at and where Eric was at with what he wanted to do, I was like look, I think we can actually do this in the second story."
Barlog is of course referring to Eric Williams who took over as director for Ragnarok. But essentially, Barlog narrowed it down to the fact that, given both the 2018 and Ragnarok both took so long to develop, he didn't want fans to have to wait "close to 15 years [for] a single story and I feel like that’s just too stretched out." And while Kratos' journey will seemingly head to another area of the world, it's probably nice to know fans will get conclusion for this time of his story sooner rather than later. Stay tuned!