God of War Ragnarök Ending Explained: the Full Story and What It Means

God of War Ragnarök is the second and final game of the Norse saga. Released by Santa Monica Studio in November 2022, it opens three years after God of War (2018), as the long winter of Fimbulwinter runs out and the prophesied end of the gods draws near. It ends the war between Kratos and Odin, and only the Valhalla epilogue comes after it on the series timeline. This page has full spoilers, including the ending. (God of War Ragnarök)

Before the story begins#

At the end of the 2018 game Kratos killed Baldur, Odin's son, and Baldur's mother Freya swore revenge. Baldur's death started Fimbulwinter, the three-year winter that comes before Ragnarök. In Jotunheim a mural showed that Atreus's mother Faye was a giant, that Atreus was the Loki of prophecy, and, in a panel only Kratos saw, what looked like Kratos dying in his son's arms. Atreus later dreamed of Thor arriving at their door. (God of War (2018))

Fimbulwinter and Odin's offer#

The game opens near the end of those three years. Freya has been hunting Kratos and Atreus the whole time. Atreus has grown into a strong young man and has been sneaking off to study giant shrines, searching for Tyr, the Aesir god of war said to be dead. The family's old wolf, Fenrir, dies, and in his grief Atreus turns into a bear until Kratos brings him back. (God of War Ragnarök)

Then Thor and Odin knock on the door, as Atreus dreamed. Odin talks to Atreus, offers to forget Baldur's death, and makes one demand: stop looking for Tyr. Kratos won't promise, and he and Thor fight on the frozen land outside. Thor leaves, but Odin has made his interest in Atreus very clear. (God of War Ragnarök)

Kratos had planned to sit out the coming war. Atreus wants to understand the prophecy, and Kratos goes with him rather than let him go alone. Their base becomes Sindri's house, hidden in the roots of Yggdrasil, with Brok, Sindri and Mimir. (God of War Ragnarök)

The search for Tyr#

A clue in a giant shrine points to Svartalfheim, home of the dwarves. There Kratos and Atreus find Tyr's prison and free a ragged, frightened god who seems broken by his years in a cell. They take him home. He's an odd guest, and he keeps telling Kratos not to start a war with Asgard. Nobody suspects he isn't Tyr at all. (God of War Ragnarök)

Atreus, meanwhile, is carried off to Ironwood in Jotunheim, where he meets Angrboda, a young giant. She shows him a giants' mural that seems to foretell Kratos dying in Ragnarök and Atreus serving Odin, and gives him marbles holding the souls of giants. He also helps place a giant's soul in a snake in Ironwood, and that snake will grow into Jormungandr, the World Serpent, who later gets thrown back through time. (God of War Ragnarök)

The middle of the game cuts back and forth between Kratos and Atreus, so the next two sections follow each thread rather than the exact chapter order. Atreus's first visit to Asgard and his trip to Helheim come before Heimdall's death, and the mask is finished after it. (God of War Ragnarök)

Freya, the Norns and Heimdall#

Kratos goes with Freya to Vanaheim to break the curse Odin placed on her, which had tied her to Midgard. On the way he finally tells her about his past: his brother, the wife and daughter he killed because of Ares, and the fall of Olympus. He warns her that revenge brought him nothing. Kratos breaks the curse there, and the two reconcile. In Vanaheim Freya is also reunited with her brother Freyr, who leads the Vanir resistance against Asgard. (God of War Ragnarök)

The Norns tell Kratos that Heimdall, Odin's son with the gift of foresight, plans to kill Atreus. Brok works out that Heimdall can be beaten if his senses are swamped, and forges the Draupnir Spear from the self-copying ring Draupnir. When Heimdall confronts Kratos and Freya in Vanaheim, the spear lands the first blow Heimdall has ever felt. Kratos spares him, but Heimdall keeps vowing to kill Atreus, and Kratos strangles him. Kratos takes his horn, Gjallarhorn. (God of War Ragnarök)

Atreus in Asgard#

Atreus goes to Asgard on his own, against his father's wishes, to learn what Odin wants. Odin welcomes him as Loki and sets him to work on a mask that Odin believes will let him see through a crack in the world to all knowledge. Atreus makes friends with Thor's daughter Thrud and sees Asgard for what it is: a home to people who aren't all monsters, and a court ruled by Odin's fear. (God of War Ragnarök)

On a mission to Helheim with Thrud, Atreus moves the soul of the dead Fenrir into the body of the soulless giant wolf Garm. Fenrir comes back as a giant wolf. (God of War Ragnarök)

Brok's death and the road to war#

Atreus comes home with the finished mask. "Tyr" suddenly changes his tune, says he knows a secret way into Asgard, and calls Atreus by his birth name, Loki. Brok grows suspicious and confronts him, and the man stabs him in the stomach in a fit of rage. Tyr was Odin all along. He tries to escape with the mask, Kratos stops him taking it, and Odin gets away. Freya can't heal the wound, and Brok dies in Sindri's arms. (God of War Ragnarök)

That changes everything. Kratos stops trying to prevent Ragnarök and agrees to lead it. The allies split up to raise armies across the realms, while Kratos and Atreus go to Muspelheim to find Surtr, the fire giant. The prophecy says Surtr and his love Sinmara will join to become Ragnarök, so he has kept away from her and carries her frozen heart in his chest. He refuses to drag her into it. Instead he fills the Blades of Chaos with primordial fire, Kratos drives them into Sinmara's heart, and Surtr becomes Ragnarök without her, waiting for Gjallarhorn's call. When the armies are ready, the horn sounds and the realms' forces pour into Asgard. (God of War Ragnarök)

The ending explained#

The armies of the realms crash into Odin's Einherjar on the plains before Asgard's wall. It turns out Odin has put Midgardian refugees in the way as shields, so the plan changes: get the innocents out first. Thrud and her mother Sif turn on Odin when they see it. Jormungandr fights Thor, and Thor hits him so hard the serpent is thrown back in time, which is how he was already waiting in the Lake of Nine in the 2018 game. (God of War Ragnarök; God of War (2018))

Thor then fights Kratos. Kratos wins and doesn't kill him. He tells Thor they can both be better for their children. Thor stands down, and Odin, furious, kills his own son. Kratos, Atreus and Freya then fight Odin together, Atreus smashes the mask, and they bring Odin down. Atreus pulls Odin's soul into one of the giants' marbles, and it is offered to Freya. She doesn't want her revenge. Sindri, still grieving for Brok, takes the marble and smashes it, ending Odin for good. (God of War Ragnarök)

Surtr, now Ragnarök, drives his sword into Asgard. Freyr holds him back so the others can escape and dies when Asgard explodes. Asgard is the only one of the Nine Realms destroyed. The others survive, freed from Odin. (God of War Ragnarök)

What the ending means#

The big twist is that Kratos doesn't die. The 2018 mural only showed part of the story. Angrboda shows Kratos and Atreus a painting by Faye revealing that she destroyed Loki's shrine in Jotunheim, so that her husband and son could choose their own fate. Kratos then finds one more, hidden mural. It shows Kratos himself, alive after Ragnarök, revered by the people of the realms. Kratos had spent two games expecting to die and preparing Atreus for a life without him. He chose mercy over revenge with Thor and with the Midgardians, and the future he finds reflects that choice. (God of War Ragnarök; God of War (2018))

Atreus also tells his father he's leaving to find the remaining giants, whose souls he carries, somewhere beyond the Nine Realms. Kratos gives his blessing, which is the whole arc of the two games in one scene: the father who wouldn't trust his son now lets him go as an equal. Atreus leaves as Loki, on his own terms. (God of War Ragnarök)

What it leaves open#

The game doesn't say where Atreus goes or whether the giants survive out there. It doesn't show what Odin hoped to find through the crack in the world. It leaves Kratos, Freya and Mimir in Midgard with the work of rebuilding. Later, the real Tyr is found alive in a fragment of Asgard that fell into Niflheim, freed at last from the prison Odin kept him in. (God of War Ragnarök)

What it sets up#

The free Valhalla epilogue picks up soon after. Freya asks Kratos to take up the role of God of War, and he goes into Valhalla with Mimir to face his Greek past first. For the full saga from Sparta to here, see God of War story explained. (God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla)

Test yourself: take the God of War Ragnarök quiz, twelve questions on the false Tyr, Brok's death and the fall of Asgard. (God of War Ragnarök)