Proper now, in 2026, we’re residing within the increase interval that many a gamer has dreamed of for many years: there are plentiful motion pictures and TV reveals based mostly on video video games being made, and fairly a number of of them are literally actually, actually good. It’s to the purpose now that an outright Double Dragon-level stinkbomb—wanting straight at you, Borderlands—appears like an outlier reasonably than the norm. That’s a superb factor total, however this additionally means the bar is now not buried within the ground in terms of the issues that make taking management out of avid gamers’ arms worthwhile. And now, we’re one step nearer to having a God of Warfare TV present, with the announcement that Ryan Hurst might 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 just a little bizarre seeing anybody else choose up a Leviathan Axe in reside motion. However we now know it’ll be Ryan Hurst.
And now I’m just a little anxious.
God of Warfare‘s Kratos has one of the most fascinating and unique character arcs in Western media. When this series started in 2005, Kratos was a Spartan soldier with ashen skin, a Scott Ian goatee, and twin blades chained to his arms who spent hours upon hours ripping satyrs apart with his bare hands, yelling at the gods, blaming them for the death of his family, and brooding after threesomes. The first game starts and ends with Kratos deciding to plunge to his death from the top of Mt. Olympus because revenge didn’t convey him peace. The one approach that first sport could possibly 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 people had that precise concept. By the tip of Kratos’ third Revenge Tour, his anger had led him to fully decimate the whole 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 Warfare 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 Warfare: Ragnarok may’ve been an empty roguelike mode attempting to maintain up with the likes of Hades, and as an alternative, it’s an act of grace and self-reflection not like something in gaming, particularly when previous man Kratos bodily confronts his youthful, angrier self, and has to summon the ability to forgive him and surpass him.
These 20 years of bags are an enormous a part of why Amazon’s upcoming God of Warfare present has its work minimize out for it, however hey, there have been loads of people who by no means knew Kratos earlier than 2018, and nonetheless beloved the final two video games. Good writing can paper over any doubtful fealty to the video games. However not like, say, The Final of Us, this collection will lose one thing introducing Kratos to an viewers that has by no means picked up a controller, except the folks in cost craft this model of the story very, very fastidiously.
And that brings me to Ryan Hurst, who has simply been solid 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 favored him in a bunch of issues. As somebody who caught with Sons of Anarchy approach longer than he moderately 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, obtained whacked. His efficiency as Thor in God of Warfare: 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 is not any small feat. He’s a rattling advantageous actor below the suitable circumstances. However that proper there’s a part of the problem. Not that he’s been on this specific universe earlier than, however that it is 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 Warfare via the collection will discover themselves watching the story of a heartbroken father who has to father or mother for the primary time, happening a journey together with his son that brings them nearer collectively, and actually, people who watch a hell of quite a lot of streaming reveals have seen this story advised a number of instances over. What’s going to make this present stand out? The Norse angle? Vikings is correct there. The fantasy parts? It’s happening a streaming platform that already hosts a really costly Lord of the Rings present. The daddy-son bonding? Most likely the simplest layup, and it’s not even going to be the one present based mostly on a online game that builds its basis on daddy points.
Hurst is an efficient performer, however there’s a special weight to his presence than the one Kratos possesses within the video games. Take into consideration that scene wherein Kratos ditches Atreus briefly so he can return house and get the Blades of Chaos out of storage. The slowness, the concern, but in addition, 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 the whole sport. That’s a special vitality than Hurst has ever dropped at 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 wanting again? God of Warfare 2018 might 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, nevertheless it’s obtained 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’ complete arc, particularly as he’s wrestled extra with the person he was and is determined to maneuver past. I’ve recognized 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 could possibly be higher males. Once more, these are issues Hurst can seemingly 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 finally come to hate and concern the Ghost of Sparta as he rampages via 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 onerous to not assume it’s going to 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 Warfare has a shot at being an excellent present, particularly with Battlestar Galactica‘s Ronald Moore at the helm. But it’s a present that’s already placing itself at an obstacle by incorporating fewer of the extra intangible parts 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.
