I Played God of War: Ragnarok During a Breakup—and This Is What I Learned

I didn’t buy God of War: Ragnarok because I needed a distraction. I bought it because I needed a reason to stay awake.

It was late November, the days turning gray faster than my thoughts could catch up. I’d just come back from the worst kind of conversation—the kind that ends in silence and the slow click of a door that might never open again.

She left me.

There were no screaming matches, no thrown phones, no threats or tears on the kitchen floor. Just distance. Emotional. Lingering. Heavy like fog you can’t walk through.

I couldn’t sleep that night. So I turned on the PS5.

The Cold Opening

The God of War series had always meant something to me, but I didn’t know how much until I picked up the controller and pressed "New Game."

I wasn’t looking to fight gods. I was looking for an escape.

But Kratos didn’t offer escape—he offered something else. A mirror. A silent, simmering mirror that forced me to look at the very thing I was trying to forget.

Ragnarok begins in winter. Snow, storms, and a sullen silence between father and son. It felt familiar. Too familiar.

The Rage Beneath the Surface

Kratos is older now. Wiser, maybe. But the rage hasn’t gone anywhere. It lingers, tucked behind his voice, beneath every swing of the Leviathan Axe. It’s the same rage I felt boiling under my skin when I replayed that last conversation with her. When she said she "didn’t know who we were anymore."

Kratos wasn’t allowed to explode. Neither was I. Instead, we both kept moving forward—through battles, through pain, through empty worlds filled with enemies who felt easier to fight than ourselves.

Atreus and the Weight of What Comes Next

Atreus is growing. Testing. Pulling away from his father.

She used to say the same thing about me: that I pulled away when things got hard. That I never let her in when I needed to.

I watched Kratos try. He tried to connect, to guide without control. But his attempts felt like mine—awkward, poorly timed, often too late.

There’s one scene where Atreus storms away, and Kratos just stands there, watching his son disappear into the woods. I paused the game there. I didn’t know why. Maybe I just didn’t want to watch someone else fail the same way I had.

Fighting the Gods of Our Own Making

The bosses in Ragnarok aren’t just obstacles. They’re metaphors—living, breathing tests of patience, grief, and trauma.

Thor, Odin, Freya—all of them feel like avatars of unresolved emotion. Some are full of vengeance. Some wear masks of wisdom. Some just want power.

I kept thinking: How many people in our lives wear those masks? How many versions of ourselves do we create to avoid admitting we’re broken?

I wasn’t just fighting gods. I was fighting guilt. Fighting memory. Fighting the man I used to be when we were together—the one who never looked up from the screen, the one who always needed space and never offered warmth.

I didn’t like that guy. Kratos didn’t like who he used to be either.

The Quiet Between Battles

What I didn’t expect was the silence.

Ragnarok is full of quiet moments—sitting by a fire, talking to Mimir, sledding across icy wastelands. In those spaces, the game gives you time to breathe. Time to think.

At first, I skipped the side missions. I told myself I didn’t care about the lore or the lost spirits in Vanaheim. But gradually, I stopped rushing. I started listening. To the stories. To the regrets. To the quiet way Freya talked about losing her son.

I think that’s when it hit me: this wasn’t a game about revenge. It was a game about healing.

Letting Go Without Forgetting
There’s a part late in the game where Kratos finally tells Atreus something real. Vulnerable. Not a command. Not advice. Just truth.
“I will follow you,” he says. “Wherever you go.”
It broke me.
Because that’s the thing about love—even when it ends, you still want to follow. You still look for their name in your notifications, still hear their voice in the back of your mind when you make coffee, still check if their blanket is folded the way they liked it.

But healing isn’t following. Healing is letting go, without needing to forget.
Kratos learned that. And, somehow, so did

The Final Battle

I won’t spoil the ending. But I’ll say this: the last act of Ragnarok isn’t about destruction. It’s about change.

It’s about choosing not to become the thing that hurt you.

And that’s what breakups test most—not your endurance, not your anger, but your ability to stay kind. To resist becoming cruel just because someone made you feel small.

When the credits rolled, I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt still. Emptied out. Clean.

I turned off the console and sat in the dark. Not crying. Not shaking. Just still.

And for the first time in weeks, I sleep
What I Learned

I didn’t expect God of War: Ragnarok to teach me anything. I thought it would just keep my mind busy while my heart fell apart.

But it taught me that grief is a process. That silence doesn’t mean weakness. That being strong isn’t about holding everything in—it’s about choosing what to let go.

It taught me that love changes us, and that loss reveals who we really are when there’s no one left to impress.

It taught me that you can miss someone and still move forward.

And above all, it reminded me: we are not our past. But we carry it with us. Just like Kratos. Just like Atreus.

And maybe that’s okay.