One of gaming’s most popular icons, Kratos, is finally getting the live action treatment in a Prime Video series soon, and it feels realer than ever now that the role has been cast.
Amazon has announced that actor Ryan Hurst will play Kratos in its Prime Video adaptation. If the name sounds familiar to fans of the God of War games, it may be because you know him from his performance in God of War Ragnarök, but he wasn’t the angry god-slayer in the most recent game in the franchise.
In the 2022 action game for the PS5, Hurst played the God of Thunder himself, Thor, while Kratos was portrayed by Christopher Judge for the second straight game. Hurst did a pretty stellar job as the husky, Mjolnir-wielding Norse deity, but his resume is way longer than that.
Hurst is most-known for roles such as Gerry Bertier in the classic sports film Remember The Titans, Sgt. Ernie Savage in war-time movie We Were Soldiers, and Beta in The Walking Dead TV series. For me, I remember him most as Opie in AMC’s biker gang drama Sons of Anarchy. If you’ve seen the show, you remember him well and know what I mean.
This is all to say that Hurst has a solid repertoire of roles in both film and TV over the past couple of decades, and I’m hopeful that he’ll bring Kratos to life well. He’s definitely got the beard, and I think he’s got the acting chops to go along with it.
My main concern with the God of War series on Prime Video is that it seems to be jumping right into the Norse age of Kratos’s story, which takes place a long time after his days as a Spartan general that slayed the gods of Olympus in ancient Greece, building upon his rage as a warrior betrayed by the gods and launched into a bloody quest for vengeance. How will bypassing all of that work in the series? Maybe it could be told through flashbacks or, but ignoring it altogether seems a bit weird, so I’m skeptical.
With Hurst on board, it seems like the next big casting decision will be that of Atreus, Kratos’s son, if they’re really sticking with the ancient Norse age of the saga. Or, it could be something different entirely. Either way, I’ll be glued to the screen when it goes live, especially if they can capture some of the magic that Prime Video has accomplished with its Fallout series.
