A stuntman has recently shared his audition video for Kratos in God of War 2018, which gives us an idea on how Santa Monica Studios chose their mocap actors for their popular game.
Tekken IRL Got Him Noticed by God of War Team
Popular YouTuber and Stuntman Eric Jacobus, who is famous for his Tekken IRL video series, shared a video of his audition to mocap famous game character Kratos for upcoming God of War 2018 (at that time). It was actually through the Tekken IRL series that the dev team took notice of Jacobus and quickly asked him to come audition for the game.
Sweeten the Pot
The video features some of the possible moves that Kratos could do in the game with a one-handed axe. He also made it interesting by adding a movelist for Kratos just like in Tekken. He showed various moves like a 360 straight punch, 720 back fist, and so on. He even made axe combos with dismemberments, which looked quite brutal.
Mocap Work with Multiple Characters
After Jacobus sent the video to the dev team, he then did an 8-hour audition at Sony VA Los Angeles. It was a no-brainer as he quickly got the job and did the combat motion capture for Kratos, Balder, Magni, Modi, and some other characters.
The stuntman does specify that he was not the only stuntman that got the job for Kratos. There were others too like Chris J. and the late Shad Gaspard.
It is possible that Jacobus is now doing the mocap work for Kratos in the upcoming game God of War Ragnarok.