God of War Ragnarok character designer and programmer Sam Handrick revealed in a long Twitter thread that the Ballad of Jari and Somr was a memorial to his boyfriend Jake Snipes, a fellow developer who died in 2020. He recalled that he and Jari and Somr had gone throughout the United States to visit amusement parks. They both wanted to leave a symbol in Ragnarok to memorialise their meeting and love while working on the game. Snipes proposed carving their initials in Norse runes onto the globe like a heart.
When Snipes died, Handrick approached God of War Ragnarok director Eric Williams and informed him about the heart carving. The team not only added many hearts to the game, but they also wrote a side quest tale about two guys who met and found a place where they could belong. The location is known as The Eternal Campfire.
