God Of War Ragnarök fans horrified to learn they've been killing children the entire game

I’d imagine that many of you are drifting towards the end of God Of War Ragnarök, and may even be onto mopping up all those side quests you didn’t get a chance to tackle during your runthrough of the main story. If so, you might have discovered a morbidly dark secret that the game has been hiding.

God Of War Ragnarök didn’t win GOTY but it did scoop up an impressive six accolades at last week’s The Game Awards including best narrative, best audio design, and best performance for Christopher Judge as ‘Kratos’. I’m not surprised that Ragnarök won the award for best narrative. Side quests are just as engaging as main missions. In fact, God Of War Ragnarök’s side quests are among some of the best I’ve played - and ‘The Eyes of Odin’ took a particularly unexpected turn.

Take a look at God Of War Ragnarök’s opening boss fight below.

Warning: The remainder of this story contains spoilers for ‘The Eyes of Odin.’ Just like in 2018’s God of War, Santa Monica Studio’s sequel will once again see you hurtling your Leviathan Axe towards Odin’s pesky spectral ravens. This time around though, the quest doesn’t end when you locate the last one. You’ll be encouraged to venture to Niflheim where you’ll find The Raven Tree.

Here, the secret of Odin’s ravens will be unlocked and the more ravens you demolish, the more of their tragic tale they’ll reveal. It turns out, Odin’s ravens were actually once children, sacrificed by their parents as a tribute to the allfather. I did say it was dark. “Mummy and daddy tied the noose tight, to send us to Odin to bask in his light,” they all chant in unison. I’ll admit, it was a part of the game that caught me off guard.

The souls of said children were then sent to the Raven Keeper who, you guessed it, you eventually fight at the end of the mission so even if you do now feel bad about throwing your axe at kids, you do get the chance to free their trapped lil souls.