During The Game Awards 2022, Christopher Judge's acceptance speech for the "Best Performance" award (given to him for his performance as Kratos in God of War Ragnarök) ran for 7 minutes and 59 seconds. This speech has been noted for surpassing the Guinness World Record for the "Longest speech accepting an Oscar award" that is currently held by actress Greer Garson for her speech at the 15th Academy Awards in 1943, which lasted for 5 minutes and 30 seconds. The length of Judge's speech was referenced during his appearance at The Game Awards 2023, where he presented that year's award for "Best Performance". Prior to announcing the nominees, he took the opportunity to poke fun at the length of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's campaign, claiming "my speech last year was longer than this year's Call of Duty campaign". Following the ceremony, several developers who currently and formerly worked on the Call of Duty series responded negatively to the roast, with Sledgehammer Games engineer Darcy Sandall saying:


It's worth noting that both before and after release, Modern Warfare III's campaign mode was heavily criticized, with many describing it as shallow, short, rushed, and disappointing in spite of its technical aspects.

In one of Mimir's many dialogues, he mentions a story about Kratos once entering into a tournament and lists off a few character descriptions that match up with those who would be seen in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony's attempt at making a Super Smash Bros.-style clone. Kratos even seems ashamed saying, "I would not speak of this", possibly referencing the poor reception it garnered from critics and fans.

Christopher Judge, the voice actor for Kratos, said he almost quit the role upon hearing the news that the game's original director and series creator Cory Barlog would be leaving the project and be replaced with Eric Williams. Barlog, however, convinced Judge to stay on. Judge revealed this during his acceptance speech at The Game Awards 2022 upon winning the award for "Best Performance in a Video Game".

The decision to make Angrboda a black character was criticized by some fans and led to accusations of cultural appropriation. They claimed she should have been white on account of the game being based on North Germanic mythology, and accused the developers of using the race-swap as a way to score political points. The game's narrative director Matt Sophos defended the change by grouping it with other changes made to the original Norse mythology (giving the Dwarves diverse character traits such as a Texan accent and germophobia, Mimir having a Scottish accent, straying from traditional portrayals of Loki, etc.) and pointing out that Angrboda was designed to be a Jötunn, a race of large Norse mythological deities that were seen as culturally inferior to the Æsir, but have similar powers as them including the ability to shapeshift.

A side quest called "The Ballad of Jari and Somr" was made as a tribute to two devs that met and fell in love while working at Santa Monica Studios, Jake Snipes and Sam Handrick. This quest involves going to The Eternal Campfire to unlock it and then searching for ingredients to prepare a meal, an homage to the couples love of making meals together. The unfortunate catalyst for this addition to the game was the death of Jake Snipes in 2020.

A very small detail in the subtitles of the story hints at a large plot twist right from the beginning of the game. This detail is the fact that Spoiler:when Odin is impersonating Tyr his name shows in the subtitles without an accent mark above the 'y', giving any eagle eyed players a hint that he's not the real Týr. Later in the game when you find the real Týr his name shows up properly accented in the subtitles.

In the entry for the Lyngbakr Kratos reminisces about his past, reading "To perform an act so heartless... It reminds me of a boat captain I wronged long ago". This boat captain was someone he let die while retrieving a key from around his neck in the original God of War.

There are chimes placed by Ratatoskr that can be found and hit to gain his assistance. If the player hits one enough times in a row Ratatoskr will eventually get fed up and yell at the player.

The musician Raeb is voiced by the game's composer Bear McCreary. Not only is he voiced by Bear, but his face is similar and his name is an anagram for Bear.

The title, cover, and content of each of Kvasirs poems is a reference to other PlayStation IPs including:
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• MLB The Show
• The Last of Us Part II
• Ratchet & Clank
• Death Stranding
• Dreams
• Concrete Genie
• Astro's Playroom
• Uncharted
• Journey
• Ghost of Tsushima
• The Order: 1886
• Bloodborne
• Days Gone