God of War mocap actor used an axe and fake dismembered arm to land Kratos role

God of War mocap performer Eric Jacobus has uploaded the demo reel they sent to Santa Monica Studio when auditioning for the role of Kratos, and it features an axe and a fake dismembered arm. 

As pointed out by Push Square, the stuntman recently uploaded a video, originally filmed back in 2016, to their official YouTube channel, which was sent to the God of War (2018) team at Santa Monica Studio during the auditioning process for Kratos. 

If you weren’t aware, Jacobus provided the motion capture performance for the greek god whilst Christopher Judge provided Kratos’ bellowing voice. Both actors would have had to audition for their roles, though we bet that Jacobus’ probably looked a little different from Judge’s. You can see for yourself below. 

According to the actor, the God of War team saw Jacobus 'Tekken IRL' video series and asked them to come and audition for the action-adventure game. To "sweeten the deal" with Santa Monica Studio, Jacobus filmed a movelist video for the character which sees the performer demonstrate a range of moves that Kratos could pull off in the game. What we didn’t expect to see, though, is Jacobus start throwing an axe around and incorporating a fake dismembered arm in the video. 

This was exactly what Santa Monica Studio wanted to see, though, as we now know that Jacobus got the job and was partly responsible for bringing Kratos to life. If you enjoyed Jacobus's performance in God of War (2018), we have some good news. As confirmed on Jacobus’ website, the stuntman has returned for the game’s sequel God of War Ragnarok - which is due to release on November 9, 2022. 

Just can’t wait to reunite with Kratos and Atreus? Take a look at our games like God of War list to ease the wait until Ragnarok.