Proper now, in 2026, we’re residing within the growth interval that many a gamer has dreamed of for many years: there are plentiful films and TV reveals primarily based on video video games being made, and fairly just a few of them are literally actually, actually good. It’s to the purpose now that an outright Double Dragon-level stinkbomb—trying immediately at you, Borderlands—appears like an outlier reasonably than the norm. That’s a superb factor total, however this additionally means the bar is not buried within the ground in the case of the issues that make taking management out of players’ arms worthwhile. And now, we’re one step nearer to having a God of Battle TV present, with the announcement that Ryan Hurst can be enjoying the Ghost of Sparta. Granted, many a fan—myself included—has spent so a few years fancasting WWE’s Triple H as Kratos that it’d be a bit bizarre seeing anybody else decide up a Leviathan Axe in stay motion. However we now understand it’ll be Ryan Hurst.
And now I’m a bit frightened.
God of Battle‘s Kratos has one of the vital fascinating and distinctive character arcs in Western media. When this sequence began in 2005, Kratos was a Spartan soldier with ashen pores and skin, a Scott Ian goatee, and twin blades chained to his arms who spent hours upon hours ripping satyrs aside together with his naked arms, yelling on the gods, blaming them for the demise of his household, and brooding after threesomes. The primary recreation begins and ends with Kratos deciding to plunge to his demise from the highest of Mt. Olympus as a result of revenge didn’t convey him peace. The one method that first recreation may very well be extra nu-metal was if Linkin Park performed over the tip credit, and consider me, I used to be on AMV.org sufficient within the early-to-mid-aughts to know loads of of us had that actual thought. By the tip of Kratos’ third Revenge Tour, his anger had led him to fully decimate all the Greek pantheon, leaving him immortal and empty.
Not like most issues that angsty from the early aughts, although, Kratos truly managed to develop up, with 2018’s God of Battle evolving the character into a considerate, pensive father with regrets, who has simply barely wrangled his failures as a person into a spot the place he doesn’t have to put his multitude of sins onto his son. The Valhalla DLC for the 2023 sequel, God of Battle: Ragnarok might’ve been an empty roguelike mode making an attempt to maintain up with the likes of Hades, and as an alternative, it’s an act of grace and self-reflection in contrast to something in gaming, particularly when outdated man Kratos bodily confronts his youthful, angrier self, and has to summon the ability to forgive him and surpass him.
These twenty years of luggage are an enormous a part of why Amazon’s upcoming God of Battle present has its work minimize out for it, however hey, there have been loads of of us who by no means knew Kratos earlier than 2018, and nonetheless liked the final two video games. Good writing can paper over any doubtful fealty to the video games. However in contrast to, say, The Final of Us, this sequence will lose one thing introducing Kratos to an viewers that has by no means picked up a controller, except the individuals in cost craft this model of the story very, very rigorously.
And that brings me to Ryan Hurst, who has simply been forged as Kratos in Amazon’s adaptation.
Let me state upfront that this isn’t actually going to be any shade on Ryan Hurst. I’ve appreciated him in a bunch of issues. As somebody who caught with Sons of Anarchy method longer than he fairly ought to’ve, Hurst’s presence in an episode was all the time a welcome one, and yeah, I used to be depressed for days after his character, Opie, bought whacked. His efficiency as Thor in God of Battle: Ragnarok is unbelievable; having a nigh-invincible god determine to go on an all-timer alcoholic deathmarch is a hell of a take, and Hurst conveying numbness and nihilism in the identical scenes as he has to convey unfathomable energy and menace isn’t any small feat. He’s a rattling effective actor beneath the appropriate circumstances. However that proper there’s a part of the problem. Not that he’s been on this specific universe earlier than, however that this can be a circumstance we haven’t seen him in. Kratos has specific wants as a personality that simply….haven’t been there with Hurst.
Normies being launched to God of Battle by the sequence will discover themselves watching the story of a heartbroken father who has to dad or mum for the primary time, happening a journey together with his son that brings them nearer collectively, and actually, of us who watch a hell of a number of streaming reveals have seen this story informed a number of instances over. What’s going to make this present stand out? The Norse angle? Vikings is correct there. The fantasy components? It’s happening a streaming platform that already hosts a really costly Lord of the Rings present. The daddy-son bonding? In all probability the simplest layup, and it’s not even going to be the one present primarily based on a online game that builds its basis on daddy points.
Hurst is an effective performer, however there’s a special weight to his presence than the one Kratos possesses within the video games. Take into consideration that scene through which Kratos ditches Atreus briefly so he can return house and get the Blades of Chaos out of storage. The slowness, the concern, but additionally, the sense {that a} change was flipped, that the strolling chainsaw Kratos was once has simply been activated. There’s not simply surliness and menace there, however a sure explosive bloodlust, and it’s barely constrained all the recreation. That’s a special vitality than Hurst has ever delivered to the desk. Kratos has been a monster for a really very long time. That man who used to let harmless troopers die screaming if it meant getting a maintain of a trinket to open a door, or the one keen to sacrifice virgins to spiked pits with out ever trying again? God of Battle 2018 could reintroduce him as a husband and father in mourning, however as Baldur is fast to remind him later, he’s nonetheless that man. Will we see Hurst embodying that volatility within the excessive? Probably not.
The opposite elephant within the room is minor, but it surely’s bought to be addressed: Kratos is a darkish olive-skinned Greek, and has historically been voiced by black males. That’s all the time launched a very particular texture to Kratos’ total arc, particularly as he’s wrestled extra with the person he was and is determined to maneuver past. I’ve identified a fair proportion of black males who acknowledged the depths there in each T.C. Carson’s and Christopher Choose’s performances, instantly clocking the innumerable black fathers who needed to abandon the boys they have been in order that they may very well be higher males. Once more, these are issues Hurst can possible pull off, however there’s a lot much less depth to be mined there when our hero is a surly white man audiences have simply met, one who by no means stands out from the individuals who ultimately come to hate and concern the Ghost of Sparta as he rampages by cities. Once we, presumably, see the glimpses of Kratos’ Spartan previous, the ashes of his murdered household grafted onto him as everlasting penance, it’s laborious to not assume it can imply much less watching already pale pores and skin go one or two notches down the pantone chart than if we have been beginning on the different aspect of the spectrum.
God of Battle has a shot at being an excellent present, particularly with Battlestar Galactica‘s Ronald Moore on the helm. Nevertheless it’s a present that’s already placing itself at an obstacle by incorporating fewer of the extra intangible components this story can carry with it. Ryan Hurst is straightforward casting. A giant surly man with a beard who can definitely be made to look like Kratos. Embodying him, nevertheless, calls for a hell of much more, and I hope they’ve already deliberate for that.
