In 2018, the Greek mythology inspired God of War series was completely reinvented with Norse mythology. The Sony Interactive Studio’s most recent installment opens the door to future games incorporating different folklore.
Celtic and Egyptian mythology seem like prime candidates. Both mythologies are rich with crazy stories, monsters, and Gods that can serve a potential threat to our protagonist.
Celtic mythology would be an easy choice simply because it is geographically the closest to Nordic Europe. Many Vikings from Nordic Europe would invade and even colonize areas such as Ireland making a good crossover opportunity.
Celtic mythology has many different Gods, Goddesses, and creatures to tell stories with. These tales include a Goddess of War in the form of The Morrígan or “The Phantom Queen”. This War Goddess transforms into a crow and encourages Viking warriors to do battle. She can serve as Kratos’s Celtic counterpart.
The Dagda is considered the leading deity of Celtic folklore. He is often portrayed as a large old man that walks around with a hammer. Both Zeus and Odin from the games are depicted as evil and calculating. The Dagda is supposed to be more a comical character who is also skilled in battle. It would be fun for him to play a major role in a game given his depiction in folklore.
Another potential arc comes from the story of Cú Chulainn, who has been nicknamed the Irish Hulk for the crazy war like transformation he goes through. He could serve as an interesting rival to Kratos as both are skilled warriors with anger management problems.
These tales include monsters and creatures of its own that are constantly referenced and found in pop culture, such as the famous Leprechaun and the Banshee. Celtic folklore also has its own version of the Headless Horsman, demon kings, fairies, and damned souls that hunt the living.
There will be a couple challenges in creating a game in Celtic mythology. Much of Celtic lore has been lost to time thanks to the Romans who really weren’t much for individuality.
Celtic mythology is missing important concepts such as a creation story. Although they are unique from one another, Celtic is aesthetically like Norse. Both are in northern Europe, both have feuding factions, and both have Viking warriors. Celtic mythology can still make a great setting for a God of War game.
Egyptian mythology seems like an incredibly likely setting to me. During the development of the most recent game, the God of War team was split between Norse and Egyptian. They settled for Norse, but the game has a bunch of references to Egypt.
“Egyptian mythology is about the Pharaohs as embodiments of the Gods on Earth and there's a lot more about civilization. It's less isolated, less barren. I think at this time, we really wanted to focus on Kratos. Having too much around distracts from that central theme of a stranger in a strange land," said Cory Barlog, God of War’s Creative Director during a Eurogamer interview.
Egyptian mythology has a ton of deities that are all responsible for aspects of life. Ra who is the leading God of the religion controls a boat in the sky that projects the sun to the world. The guy also goes crazy when he gets old and sends a lion faced War Goddess known as Sekhmet to punish humanity.
The fact that you could have this senile old man watching over you during the day could make for some pretty interesting storytelling. The player will always be paranoid of the sun. Ra will always be watching.
There are many other characters that can play role in this story such as Set, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Hathor, Anubis, and more. Set is a God of War and Kratos’s main counterpart in Egypt. Set personifies chaos and sandstorms which would make traveling the scorching deserts of Egypt quite difficult.
Osirisis the Egyptian God of the dead and the ruler of the Egyptian afterlife known as Duat. Kratos died and traveled to Hades in Greek mythology and he explored Norse Hel in the most recent game. It seems perfectly natural for Kratos to visit Osiris in an Egyptian adventure.
One challenge with Egyptian mythology is that humanity plays a big part in it. The Pharaoh is considered a God, so this would need to be incorporated in the game unless they give Horus that role since the Pharaoh is a personification of Horus.
Egypt has one of the most popular mythologies in the world. It rivals both Greek and Norse folklore. It would not be surprising if it eventually became the setting for a God of Wargame.
The next installment of the God of War series will have Kratos and Atreus continue their fight with the Norse Gods on PS5. The iconic PlayStaion franchise will need a new setting after this.
Comments