God of War

The God of War series began in 2005 when Sony Santa Monica released the first game exclusively for PlayStation 2, an action hack-and-slash blending puzzle-solving with quick time events. Its protagonist, Kratos, a Spartan warrior, was driven into the service of the gods by a desperate pact with Ares, the god of war, and was marked by the tragedy of his own family. The story drew on Greek mythology — Olympus, Hades, the Titans — and its monsters, including Medusa and the Hydra. Kratos's signature weapons, the chained Blades of Chaos, cut through hordes of enemies in massive battles full of brutal finishing moves and colossal bosses that often filled more than the screen.

The first game's success led to God of War II (2007), still on PS2, deepening Kratos's war against the gods of Olympus after they themselves betrayed him. The story also expanded through handheld spin-offs on PSP: Chains of Olympus (2008), set before the first game, and Ghost of Sparta (2010), which revealed Kratos's childhood and his bond with his brother Deimos — both filled gaps in the timeline and proved the series could move to weaker hardware without losing its intensity. On PlayStation 3, God of War III (2010) closed out Kratos's revenge on Olympus as the generation's most visually ambitious entry, followed by Ascension (2013), a prequel returning to the origins of Kratos's curse and adding a multiplayer mode.

The turning point came in 2018, when the studio under Cory Barlog rebooted the series for PS4: the setting shifted to Norse mythology, the camera became a single unbroken shot, and Kratos gained a son, Atreus, through whom the game explored a father-son dynamic amid a world of giants, dwarves and Norse gods. Instead of pure button-mashing, the game added RPG elements — a skill tree, gear with attributes, exploration of more open areas — earning widespread critical acclaim and numerous game-of-the-year honors. Ragnarök (2022) on PS5 carried the story to the foretold end of the Norse gods, expanded Atreus into a playable character, and proved the reboot could reach players who never touched the earlier games.

Through its mix of brutal action and strong storytelling, the series shaped the direction of third-person action games as a whole — camera work, combat staging, and the tying of story to player progression — and is now cited as an example of a franchise successfully reinventing itself rather than simply continuing. Nine games spread across PS2, PSP, PS3, PS Vita, PS4 and PS5 together form one of the most cohesive series of the Sony console generations.