Crank Handle
Crank Handles are items that are found several times throughout the God of War series.
Key handles include one in the Challenge of Atlas in Pandora's Temple, when Kratos finds the Handle of Atlas which he then uses to operate the big Statue of Atlas. Later on in the Challenge of Poseidon, Kratos then finds another handle which he uses to lower a cage that holds a soldier who he must then sacrifice. In God of War II, Kratos finds a crank handle in the booby-trapped entrance hall of the Palace of the Fates. He then uses it to turn a crank in the palace's main open area to shut off a set of flaming vents.
In God of War II, there is only one crank handle in the entire game, being found shortly before the boss fight with Euryale. This handle is needed to deactivate a trap later down the road. Unfortunately, the player can forget to pick it up, and if they do so, they will softlock their game. While they can keep playing up until the Palace of the Fates' main area, once Kratos gets to that point, he will be unable to progress further, and since he cannot go back to retrive the crank handle, the player will be stuck there forever, unable to finish the game. This will require the player to reload an older save, or in a worst-case scenario, be forced to replay the entire game all over again from the very start. Future games in the series possibly stopped having missable objectives like this to prevent players from accidently making their save unplayable.