Original Kratos actor Christopher Judge has explained why he didn’t reprise his role for the Amazon adaptation.

Christopher Judge played Kratos, the titular God Of War, in the 2018 reboot as well as 2022 sequel . However for the upcoming Amazon Prime Video adaptation Ryan Hurst, the actor behind game antagonist Thor, was set to take on the role of Kratos before an on-set injury forced him to step down. Now Dave Bautista is set to play Kratos in the live-action series.

Speaking at a panel over the weekend though, Judge revealed that he was in talks to return as Kratos before he ultimately decided to pass on the role. “We had talked and I thought, ‘God, what a great legacy to leave for my grandson.’ So I started working out. I got bigger,” he said (via ).

“I did read for it [but] it was so hard for me to memorise my lines, which I never had a problem with [before]. And that was my mind and body starting to tell me, ‘You don’t want to do this.’ I was one of the leads of at 33 to 44, and then stopped. Now, at 62, to be the lead, I just have no desire to live that way again. I didn’t want to, at 62 years old, work 18-hour days. I didn’t want to be dieting constantly. I didn’t want to be working out constantly.”

The next game will launch next year and focus on Kratos’ dead wife Laufey as she journeys through the afterlife. After that, the series will return to Kratos’ story, though it’s not known if Judge will return for that. “While is a different thing, it’s still part of the larger tapestry of what we truly want to explore [with] all these different characters in there,” explained studio boss Cory Barlog in an interview in June. “But there’s always going to be Kratos games throughout the whole history.”

In other news, Rockstar Games has announced the “next evolution” of the fan-created  spin-off game from  with nopixel 5 set to go live early next week for select players.