Ken Feldman, lead environmental artist behind the God of War games, revealed that one of the first designs for Kratos was a “little elf character,” akin to something out of Disney’s repertoire.

Some designs had him as an escaped slave, and another was a “blind monk carrying a baby.”

Feldman stated that it took over a year-and-a-half to come up with Kratos’ final design. “That was the most difficult thing. Everything had to be based around this character – the story, the weapons. The first guy we came up with was a little elf character, he was hysterical. His animations looked like Disney.”

Lead designer David Jaffe stepped in and commented about Kratos’ design, “I wanted to make a game that really spoke to my passion for action-adventure movies. My love of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Greek Myths – specifically the Harryhausen stuff like Jason And The Argonauts, Clash Of The Titans – and my love of games like Adventure on the Atari 2600, and Devil May Cry and ICO, and kind of mashing that into one thing.”

God of War III gets released halfway through next month, and we can all thank Zeus that Kratos is a very angry bald man.