Ratatoskr introduces himself to Kratos and Atreus like a cute, animated Disney sidekick. He climbs on top of Kratos, who might as well be a tree, rifles through his belongings like Yoda in Return of the Jedi<\/em>, and leaps to Atreus where he stands perched on his arm to explain who he is. He’s weird as hell and aesthetically out of place. There are plenty of animals in God of War Ragnar\u00f6k, good and evil, but Ratatoskr is the only one who wears clothes and speaks in perfect English (or whatever language you’re playing in). He has plenty of jokes, but is not quite comic relief. Ratatoskr is odd and unexpected, and that’s exactly how Ragnar\u00f6k director Eric Williams wanted him to be.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted this character in the game,\u201d Williams told us during a recent interview. \u201cI wanted him to do these things and everyone was like, ‘We have to cut this. We have too many characters.’ And I was like, ‘No! He’s staying in the game.’\u201d Ratatoskr is among the many reasons Ragnar\u00f6k is considered the funniest entry in the God of War franchise. Williams wanted the game to have moments of levity to help offset the otherwise dark tone and it’s why he put his foot down to make sure Ratatoskr stayed.<\/p>\n \u201cThat scene where he shows up? That was the one everybody was like, ‘Okay, are we going too far?’\u201d Williams says. \u201cEven the music director was like, ‘I don’t even know what to do with the music here. This is so far away from God of War. We don’t even have music written that will help this along!’ They had to go back and piece some stuff together for it because it was so foreign to what God of War is.\u201d Williams wanted to make sure the person portraying Ratatoskr would be able to deliver a comedic performance, and he knew exactly who he wanted early on.<\/p>\n SungWon Cho is a talented voice actor who has appeared in dozens of games and animated TV shows, but he may be best known on the internet for his short-form sketches poking fun at very specific elements of nerd culture. \u201cI wanted SungWon to voice him,\u201d Williams says. \u201cOne of our writers, Anthony Burch, said, ‘I know SungWon,’ and I was like, ‘Dude \u2013 call him.’\u201d Cho came in and learned about the character and Williams asked him if he was interested in writing for Ratatoskr as well, to which Cho agreed.<\/p>\n Speaking with Cho over e-mail about the role, he said he was brought in before the game was announced and wasn’t even sure what he was potentially signing up for. \u201cI walked into the meeting room not knowing what to expect, and Eric went, ‘So I think you can guess what game we want you for,’\u201d Cho writes. \u201cI responded, ‘I have no idea,” and he sorta his head said toward the projector in the room with a big God of War background, and I just went, ‘……Oh.'”<\/p>\n Unlike most players, he wasn’t too surprised by the look and plan for Ratatoskr. \u201cConceptually, I wasn’t too thrown off in the beginning, but maybe that’s because I’ve voiced a lot of talking animals in my career,\u201d Cho writes.<\/p>\n In terms of writing the character, Cho worked on Ratatoskr from the very beginning. \u201cI was given full reign to come up with the real Ratatoskr’s personality and voice,\u201d Cho writes. \u201cBefore I joined the writing team, Ratatoskr’s personality was actually much more like Bitter’s in the first game, rude and sassy, \u200b\u200bbut I thought it’d be more fun to have the real Ratatoskr be more of an eager-to-please, not entirely trustworthy type who literally ejects aspects of his personality he finds bothersome. I remember pitching him as almost like a car salesman who wants you to like him so he can sell you more cars.\u201d<\/p>\n Cho proposed Ratatoskr’s additional personalities and was given a framework for what information needed to be delivered to the player, but from there he had free reign to develop and write for the character as he pleased. \u201cRatatoskr’s introduction scene was entirely unchanged from how I wrote it, and I think it was pretty key in establishing the character’s personality\/tone,\u201d Cho writes. \u201cAfter I left the writing team and months later went in to record lines, I did notice that some of my dialogue was still in, some had been changed, and there were also new lines, but I was impressed at how it all fit very well into the personality I had established for the character.\u201d<\/p>\n Cho also provided motion capture for Ratatoskr, which was functionally much different from the rest of the cast who who play characters that radically vary in height, but are otherwise all human beings. \u201cIt was a fascinating experience. A lot of people think I literally climbed up on Christopher Judge’s shoulders or something, which would be absurd on its own, but I feel like the actual process was even more bewildering,\u201d Cho writes. \u201cBasically, I was provided a set of bars in front of me and a big platform I could sit on behind me. I then watched the actors in real-time as a puppeteer moved a plush Ratatoskr around Chris’s body, performed the lines live, and had to do the climbing motions while standing. If I sat on a character’s shoulder, I would take a seat on the platform behind me. If I had to climb up something, I could use the bars in front of me to ‘pull’ myself up.\u201d Cho basically watched the puppet version of his character and performed the scenes from the perspective of the puppet. \u201cDefinitely one of the strangest but most entertaining acting experiences I’ve had,\u201d Cho writes.<\/p>\n and now that God of War: Ragnarok’s out, here’s the obligatory goofy motion-capture photos of me suited up to perform Ratatoskr, it’s a very attractive look, i know, thank you @SonySantaMonica<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/cgBT2rcnYc<\/a><\/p>\n\n