No matter whether you’re struggling to beat Skyrim’s Alduin for the first time, attempting to beat one of Elden Ring’s numerous big bads one-handed, or grappling with Ned Flanders in God of War, fighting bosses is one of the fundamental realities of most gaming experiences.
If, perchance, you’re not running the infamous Simpsons mod for it, the latter of these series can feel like the most epic and grandiose of all, tasking you with duffing up literal gods as Kratos.
While most of these deities have been of the ancient variety thus far, some players are wondering whether the inspiration for a religion that’s still very relevant today might be a good candidate to step into the ring with everyone’s favourite deeply-voiced bottom-kicker.
Would you be open to going one-on-one with Bethlehem’s toughest messiah in a God of War game?
This theory is the subject of a recent ResetEra thread, which began with a post from user CaptainKashup, who cited the references to Christianity in the existing games in the series and a 2020 tweet from director Cory Barlog confirming that the religion exists in God of War’s world, before suggesting that fighting Jesus could feasibly be an option at some point.
Many of their fellow players seemed very certain that this will never happen, with user Soap saying: “There is no way that God of War is going to tackle any modern day religion.” and Yappa adding: “The devs would be harassed to no end.”
That said, a few did suggest ways that Jesus could be integrated into a game in ways that might be less controversial, with user PianoBlack wondering whether portraying Jesus as an ally of Kratos could be an interesting move and FunMouse saying: “At best you'll get a silhouette of Jesus as an after credit.”
Others suggested that such an escalation in the storyline of the series wouldn’t fit very well with what was established in its most recent entry, with user Veelk saying: “The entire point of God of War (2018) is that he's no longer that guy. Like, he's over that, and he's gone out of his way to try and not start a fight with the Norse Gods throughout the entire game, even when they attack him.”
User ASleepingMonkey suggested that a change in protagonist might not make a tangle with Christ any more likely either, musing that Atreus didn’t seem a likely candidate to seek out that kind of battle.
Meanwhile, user vivftp decided to try and construct a slightly more feasible endgame for the series, recommending that it start integrating religions from Star Trek, arguing: “I keep saying, Kratos is gonna find himself in Klingon mythos and tear his way through their pantheon to kill Khaless himself.”
Regardless of whether you’d be up for seeing Kratos fight alongside Captain Kirk, make sure to follow us for more coverage of God of War: Ragnarok as its release nears.