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God of War: Ragnarok’s Touching Ending Explained

Here’s how Kratos and Atreus’ Ragnarok adventures come to an end. Be warned — significant God of War: Ragnarok spoilers inside (duh).

God of War: Ragnarok has been lauded for a lot, and many argue it’s the best game of the year. Of all the things it does well, its touching and thoughtful story is perhaps its greatest strength. «Touching» and «thoughtful» may be surprising descriptors for a game called «God of War,» but anyone who played Ragnarok’s 2018 predecessor likely would expect as much.

As the title suggests, God of War: Ragnarok is about a cataclysmic war known in Norse mythology as Ragnarok. At its core, however, it’s much more about the relationship between a father and his son. That father just happens to be an unstoppable killing machine. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Massive God of War: Ragnarok spoilers below.

Read more: God of War Ragnarok: Muspelheim Crucible Combat Trial Guide

The short version of God of War: Ragnarok’s ending

After spending much of God of War: Ragnarok fiercely rejecting the idea of war, Kratos is eventually pulled into participating in Ragnarok — the great war against Asgard. Before that happens, it’s revealed that Tyr, the Norse god of war who’s been staying at Kratos & Co’s headquarters, has actually been Odin all along. Odin used his godly powers to disguise himself as Tyr, and spent the whole game spying on Kratos, Atreus and Freya.

Odin makes his grand revelation by stabbing and killing Brok. That turns Sindri, normally gregarious and deferential, into an angry Dwarf, deeply resentful of Kratos, Atreus and their role in setting up Brok’s death. Sindri helps them out at Ragnarok, but only because he wants revenge on Odin. He uses a tool that gives the gang a way to penetrate through the wall that surrounds Asgard.

Inside, Kratos battles and defeats Thor. Just as Thor begins to repent for his sins and heed Kratos’ plea to be a better god, Odin appears and kills Thor. Kratos, Freya and Atreus then battle and defeat Odin. Atreus uses Giant magic to trap Odin’s spirit in a marble, then Sindri appears, snatches the marble and smashes it to bits with a hammer. Like I said, angry Dwarf.

The gang manages to escape Asgard thanks to Angrboda, a Giant who Atreus meets early in the game. After the battle, Angrboda tells Atreus she knows he’s had Giant visions, and that she needs to tell Kratos. He does so, informing his father that there are other Giants out there, and that he alone needs to find them. In the moment of Ragnarok, Kratos embraces his son and tells him he’s ready for his own adventure.

Atreus says goodbye, and Kratos sees on a shrine revealed to him by Agrboda that the Giants long ago prophesized him as the hero of Ragnarok.

Santa Monica Studio, God of War’s developer, has said Ragnarok is the end, and that God of War won’t be spun into another trilogy. But the way the game ended absolutely opens up the possibility of a follow-up that focuses on Atreus — possibly with Sindri as a villain. Dwarf magic is established as immensely powerful in God of War: Ragnarok, and Sindri’s obvious hatred of Kratos and Atreus is one of the conspicuous threads left untied by Ragnarok’s end.

That’s the short version of God of War: Ragnarok’s ending. Read on for a more comprehensive look at how God of War: Ragnarok played out.

The lead up to Ragnarok

To understand God of War: Ragnarok’s story trajectory, you need to understand a little about how its story is told. Unlike the 2018 God of War, in which Atreus is by Kratos’ side for almost all of the adventure, the two go their separate ways for a lot of Ragnarok’s story.

About halfway through the game, Atreus hatches a plan. Odin at the beginning of God of War: Ragnarok invites Atreus to Asgard. What if Atreus goes to Asgard, pretends to switch sides, buddies up with Odin and learns his Ragnarok plans?

Atreus gets into Asgard by having Odin’s ravens transport him there. After climbing the giant wall that surrounds Asgard’s city, Atreus learns that Odin is motivated by a tear into another dimension. «The rift, possibly the birthplace of reality,» he tells Atreus of the tear. «I looked inside and something was there looking back at me.»

Entering the tear, Odin says, will grant infinite knowledge. Odin knows he has to die at some point, but he needs to know what’s next before he does. The rift can grant that knowledge, but going in there without requisite protective gear means sure death: Odin tells Atreus that peeking into the tear is how he lost his eye. Odin has a fragment of a mask he reckons will protect his face enough. The mask fragment is inscribed with Giant script that Odin can’t read — which is why he needs Atreus.

Odin tasks Atreus with finding the other mask fragments. To do that, he needs to work with both Thor and Heimdall, who’s blessed with the ability to read people’s intentions. While Atreus does that, Kratos and Freya, who are now a team again after Kratos helped break Odin’s curse that trapped Freya in Midgard, are left to their own devices.

Much of the game’s plot revolves around destiny. The previous God of War ended with Kratos seeing a Giant’s prophecy that he would die at Ragnarok. Kratos scoffs at such predictions, and says that we make our own fate. Just to be sure, however, Kratos, Faye and Mimir visit the Norns, the masters of fate. The Norns agree with Kratos — that there is no such thing as fate — but the choices people make are so predictable so as to make prophesizing easy business. More importantly, they reveal that Heimdall intends to kill Atreus.

With his son’s life at risk, Kratos makes his decision. Heimdall must die — even if that kicks off war with Asgard.

The big twist

To protect his son, Kratos has to kill Heimdall. Heimdall can read people’s intentions, so attacking him is hard. Kratos asks Sindri and Brok if they could forge a new weapon to help him beat the Aesir god, and the two Dwarfs come up with the Draupnir Spear. To create it, Brok escorts Kratos to Svartalfheim, where they gather materials and get a weird Mermaid creature to craft the Spear. It’s a whole thing.

Kratos gets his chance to use the weapon when Heimdall confronts him in Vanaheim. It’s a success! Heimdall can read people’s intentions, so can catch the spear every time Kratos throws it at him. But the spear can implode and regenerate, which allows Kratos to harm and ultimately kill Heimdall. (Yes, if Heimdall could truly read intentions he would know Kratos intends to implode the spear, and so he’d avoid it rather than catch it. Don’t think too hard about it.) He tries unsuccessfully to walk away from the defeated Heimdall, but Heimdall won’t relent. Kratos has no choice but to strangle him to death.

After collecting one of the two missing mask fragments, Atreus tells Odin he wants to go home. Odin allows it. But with Heimdall dead, Atreus decides he should return to Asgard. Odin will soon figure out that Kratos killed Heimdall, and that will surely lead to war. In the brief period of time before that happens, Atreus wants to head to Asgard to help Odin complete the mask. That can both distract Odin and allow Atreus to learn more of his plans — and possibly steal the mask, too.

On his return to Asgard, Odin gets Atreus and a superdrunk Thor to travel through Niflheim. Atreus locates the final fragment. At that moment, Odin appears and asks for the mask. The next moment, Thor’s wife Sif appears and reveals that Kratos killed Heimdall. Thor goes into a rage, trying to attack Atreus. Atreus uses a gadget given to him by Sindri to escape at the very last second.

Back at Sindri’s house, Atreus, Kratos, Tyr and Freya devise a plan. If they can go to Asgard, they can lure Odin out with the mask and kill him. That way they won’t have to initiate Ragnarok, and war can be avoided. Tyr, keen to avoid war at all costs, says this is a fabulous idea. And in fact, he has just the thing: a secret path to Asgard.

Everyone is hyped except for Brok. Brok wonders why Tyr never mentioned this path to Asgard before, and why Tyr is calling Atreus «Loki.» Tyr says he’ll show them the path after he collects his «things,» but Brok points out that he has no things — what a burn — and slaps the mask out of Tyr’s hands. As everyone surrounds Brok, treating him like a crazy Dwarf, Tyr fatally stabs Brok and reveals that he’s not actually Tyr — Odin has been pretending to be Tyr the whole time.

After a standoff, Odin takes the mask and goes back to Asgard. Ragnarok it is.

Ragnarok cometh

It’s prophesized that Surtr, the fire demon of Muspelheim, kicks off Ragnarok with an attack on Asgard. Kratos and Atreus travel to Muspelheim and, after some wrangling, convince Surtr to mount his attack. After that, it’s officially on.

Kratos is named general of the army attacking Asgard: It’s comprised of Freya, her brother Freyr, the Valkeries, the dark and light elves of Alfheim, the World Serpent Jormungandr, Angrboda, the Hel-Walkers from Helheim, and Surtr. Using Gjallarhorn, a horn which Kratos took off Heimdall after killing him, Kratos is able to open a portal to Asgard in Tyr’s Temple.

Sindri has been understandably morose after the death of Brok. «You don’t know what sorry means,» Sindri snaps at Atreus when the latter tries to apologize for Brok’s death. «I gave you everything: my skills, my friendship, my home, my secrets, my treasures, and you just kept taking. And now what have I got? Not even my family.» Still, Sindri said he’d enlist the help of the Dwarfs. When he arrives in Asgard, though, he’s on his lonesome. His people have shed enough blood for others, he says. Luckily, Sindri didn’t come empty-handed, as he has a that reveals a flaw in the giant wall that surrounds Asgard. Atreus is able to exploit the flaw and enter Asgard, where Kratos almost immediately gets in a fight with Thor.

Kratos wins, but spares Thor. «No more,» Kratos says, putting his Leviathan Ax away. «For the sake of our children, we must be better.» Before Thor can say anything though, Odin appears and berates him for talking. «You don’t talk, you don’t think! I think, you kill,» Odin says. Thor drops his hammer and says he won’t be Odin’s killing machine anymore — which prompts Odin to fatally impale Thor, his son, with a spear.

That kicks off the final battle against Odin, a two-part boss fight in which Kratos, Atreus and Freya are victorious. Atreus beseeches Odin to be better — like father, like son — but Odin refuses. «I have to know what’s next. I will not stop,» Odin says. «Why’d you have to say that?» Atreus replies regretfully.

Atreus uses Giant magic to remove Odin’s spirit and forge it into a marble. Kratos, Freya and Atreus go back and forth on what to do with it. Kratos lets Freya decide, but Freya puts the decision on Atreus’ young shoulders. Before the lad can decide, however, Sindri appears out of nowhere, puts the marble on a table and smashes it with his hammer. «That’s what comes next,» he says before vanashing on the spot.

The bad guy is beaten, but unfortunately Surtr, now a giant and uncontrollable fire demon, is still wrecking Asgard. They all need a way out. Agrboda is the gang’s ticket outta there: She arrives with Garm and opens a rift into another realm. (When Kratos asks how, she simply replies: «Giant stuff.») Everyone makes it out except Freyr, who sacrificed himself holding off Surtr so the rest could make it out.

God of Peace

After the cataclysm ends, Atreus wakes up in Midgard. He walks along a spiral path, passing by all the friends he met in God of War: Ragnarok, until he gets to the top, where Angrboda is waiting. She tells him she knows he’s been seeing Giant visions, and that he needs to tell his father.

«Every part of me is telling me this is what I have to do, I just don’t know how to say it,» Atreus says.

Kratos walks in at that inopportune moment, but before Atreus can speak, Angrboda says she wants to show them both something. It’s a shrine that reveals that Faye long ago destroyed Atreus’ shrine in Jotunheim, allowing the pair to forge their own path. This is a little confusing, because Faye didn’t destroy Atreus’ shrine — it was there, clear to see for both Atreus and Kratos at the end of God of War, but that’s fine.

Atreus has a heart-to-heart with his dad. «There are other Giants out there, and I’ve got to find them,» Atreus says to Kratos, giving Sony the option to follow up with a Loki game. «I think I know where to look, but they’re my responsibility. I need to do this alone.»

Atreus says he’s frightened by the idea of a solo adventure, but Kratos says that’s why he must do it. Kratos says they only survived Ragnarok because of Atreus’ decisions, and that he’s ready to fend for himself. They embrace. It’s deeply emotional.

Atreus scampers off with Agrboda before bidding his father Adieu. Left on his own, Kratos closes the shrine, only to find a second side on the back. There the Giants show Kratos to be the hero of Ragnarok — more god of peace than god of war. Kratos is overwhelmed, even letting out a few tears and whimpers at the vision of him as a savior instead of an instrument of death and destruction, as he was in Greece.

«What did you see in there brother?» Mimir asks Kratos. «A path,» Kratos replies. «One I had never imagined.»

Epilogue

Credits roll after Atreus leaves you, but the story isn’t over quite yet. Remnants of Odin’s forces have landed aross the realms, and finishing the main quest unlocks the side quest of clearing out this riffraff. If you travel to Niflheim, where Odin’s Ravens chill, you’ll see a new area can be accessed.

If you follow the new path, it’ll take you to a secret prison. Get to the main cell at the bottom and you’ll discover none other than Tyr, the real Tyr. Tyr doesn’t say much. Mimir gives him the TL;DR of God of War: Ragnarok — that Odin is dead thanks to Kratos — and Tyr responds by saying he needs space to process this information. If you visit the other realms, you’ll sometimes bump into Tyr. I found him doing some Tai Chi stuff in Vanaheim and Helheim.

The other sidequest that opens up after the main story ends is a funeral for Brok. This is quick and easy. You go to Svartalfheim, to Durlin’s office, and then you’re directed to a beach area, where Brok gets a final send-off into Valhalla. Kratos places Brok into a little raft. Before Brok is pushed off, Sindri materializes, cries over his brother’s body and says he loves him.

Sindri holds a flaming torch for Freya, who lights an arrow and shoots it into the now floating boat, lighting it aflame. Kratos puts his hand on Sindri’s shoulder and tries to offer consoling words, but Sindri peels Kratos’ hand off and gives him a look of scorn. He says nothing, walks a few steps and then vanishes.

Earlier in the game, Brok had given Mimir a riddle. What gets bigger the more you take away? It bedevilled Mimir for a long time, but finally Mimir gets the answer. «A hole.» The screen fades to black as the credits roll again.

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Apple, I’m (Sky) Blue About Your iPhone 17 Air Color

Commentary: The rumored new hue of the iPhone 17 Air is more sky blah than sky blue.

I can’t help but feel blue about the latest rumor that Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 17 Air will take flight in a subtle, light-hued color called sky blue.

Sky blue isn’t a new color for Apple. It’s the featured shade of the current M4 MacBook Air, a shimmer of cerulean so subtle as to almost be missed. It’s silver left too close to an aquarium; silver that secretly likes to think it’s blue but doesn’t want everyone else to notice.

Do Apple employees get to go outside and see a real blue sky? It’s actually vivid, you can check for yourself. Perhaps the muted sky blue color reflects a Bay Area late winter/early spring frequent layer of clouds like we typically see here in Seattle.

«Who cares?» you might find yourself saying. «Everyone gets a case anyway.» I hear you and everyone else who’s told me that. But design-focused Apple is as obsessive about colors as they are about making their devices thinner. And I wonder if their heads are in the clouds about which hues adorn their pro products.

Making the case for a caseless color iPhone

I’m more invested in this conversation than most — I’m one of those freaks who doesn’t wrap my phone in a case. I find cases bulky and superfluous, and I like to be able to see Apple’s design work. Also, true story, I’ve broken my iPhone screen only twice: First when it was in a «bumper» that Apple sent free in response to the iPhone 4 you’re-holding-it-wrong Antennagate fiasco, and second when trying to take long exposure starry night photos using what I didn’t realize was a broken tripod mount. My one-week-old iPhone 13 Pro slipped sideways and landed screen-first on a pointy rock. A case wouldn’t have saved it.

My current model is an iPhone 16 Pro in black titanium — which I know seems like avoiding color entirely — but previously I’ve gone for colors like blue titanium and deep purple. I wanted to like deep purple the most but it came across as, in the words of Patrick Holland in his iPhone 14 Pro review, «a drab shade of gray or like Grimace purple,» depending on the light.

Pros can be bold, too

Maybe the issue is too many soft blues. Since the iPhone Pro age began with the iPhone 11 Pro, we’ve seen variations like blue titanium (iPhone 15 Pro), sierra blue (iPhone 13 Pro) and pacific blue (iPhone 12 Pro).

Pacific blue is the boldest of the bunch, if by bold you mean dark enough to discern from silver, but it’s also close enough to that year’s graphite color that seeing blue depends on the surrounding lighting. By comparison, the blue (just «blue») color of the iPhone 12 was unmistakably bright blue.

In fact, the non-Pro lines have embraced vibrant colors. It’s as if Apple is equating «pro» with «sophisticated,» as in «A real pro would never brandish something this garish.» I see this in the camera world all the time: If it’s not all-black, it’s not a «serious» camera.

And yet I know lots of pros who are not sophisticated — proudly so. People choose colors to express themselves, so forcing that idea of professionalism through color feels needlessly restrictive. A bright pink iPhone 16 might make you smile every time you pick it up but then frown because it doesn’t have a telephoto camera.

Color is also important because it can sway a purchase decision. «I would buy a sky blue iPhone yesterday,» my colleague Gael Cooper texted after the first rumor popped online. When each new generation of iPhones arrive, less technically different than the one before, a color you fall in love with can push you into trading in your perfectly-capable model for a new one.

And lest you think Apple should just stick with black and white for its professional phones: Do you mean black, jet black, space black, midnight black, black titanium, graphite or space gray? At least the lighter end of the spectrum has stuck to just white, white titanium and silver over the years.

Apple never got ahead by being beige

I’m sure Apple has reams of studies and customer feedback that support which colors make it to production each year. Like I said, Apple’s designers are obsessive (in a good way). And I must remind myself that a sky blue iPhone 17 Air is a rumored color on a rumored product so all the usual caveats apply.

But we’re talking about Apple here. The scrappy startup that spent more than any other company on business cards at the time because each one included the old six-color Apple logo. The company that not only shaped the first iMac like a tipped-over gumdrop, that not only made the case partially see-through but then made that cover brilliant Bondi blue.

Embrace the iPhone colors, Apple.

If that makes you nervous, don’t worry: Most people will put a case on it anyway.

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Astronomers Say There’s an Increased Possibility of Life on This Distant Planet

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are working to confirm potential evidence of life on a distant exoplanet dubbed K2-18b.

Astronomers are nearing a statistically significant finding that could confirm the potential signs of life detected on the distant exoplanet K2-18b are no accident.

The team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (which has only been in use since the end of 2021) to detect chemical traces of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), which they say can only be produced by life such as phytoplankton in the sea. 

According to the university, «the results are the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on a planet outside our solar system.»

The findings were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and point to the possibility of an ocean on this planet’s surface, which scientists have been hoping to discover for years. In the abstract for the paper, the team says, «The possibility of hycean worlds, with planet-wide oceans and H2-rich atmospheres, significantly expands and accelerates the search for habitable environments elsewhere.»

Not everyone agrees, however, that what the team found proves there’s life on the exoplanet.

Science writer and OpenMind Magazine founder Corey S. Powell posted about the findings on Bluesky, writing, «The potential discovery of alien life is so enticing that it drags even reputable outlets into running naive or outright misleading stories.» He added, «Here we go again with planet K2-18b.Um….there’s strong evidence of non-biological sources of the molecule DMS.»

K2-18b is 124 light-years away and much larger than Earth (more than eight times our mass), but smaller than Neptune. The search for signs of even basic life on a planet like this increases the chances that there are more planets like Earth that may be inhabitable, with temperatures and atmospheres that could sustain human-like lifeforms. The team behind the paper hopes that more study with the James Webb Space Telescope will help confirm their initial findings.

More research to do on finding life on K2-18b

The exoplanet K2-18b is not the only place where scientists are exploring the possibility of life, and this research is still an early step in the process, said Christopher Glein, a geochemist, planetary researcher and lead scientist at San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute. Excitement over the significance of the research, he said, should be tempered.

«We need to be careful here,» Glein said. «It appears that there is something in the data that can’t be explained, and DMS/DMDS can provide an explanation. But this detection is stretching the limits of JWST’s capabilities.»

Glein added, «Further work is needed to test whether these molecules are actually present. We also need complementary research assessing the abiotic background on K2-18b and similar planets. That is, the chemistry that can occur in the absence of life in this potentially exotic environment. We might be seeing evidence of some cool chemistry rather than life.»

The TRAPPIST-1 planets, he said, are being researched as potentially habitable, as is LHS 1140b, which he said «is another astrobiologically significant exoplanet, which might be a massive ocean world.»

As for K2-18b, Glein said many more tests need to be performed before there’s consensus on life existing on it.

«Finding evidence of life is like prosecuting a case in the courtroom,» Glein said. «Multiple independent lines of evidence are needed to convince the jury, in this case the worldwide scientific community.» He added, «If this finding holds up, then that’s Step 1.»

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