Kratos investigates the abduction of the sun god Helios, and prevents the Machiavellian plan of the goddess Persephone to use the Titan Atlas to destroy the world.

[10][11] Predating Chains of Olympus, the game is set roughly six months after Kratos was tricked into killing his wife and daughter, and sees him imprisoned by the three Furies for breaking his blood oath to Ares.

Many years after the events of God of War III, Kratos has ended up in the world of Norse mythology in ancient Norway in the realm of Midgard, and has a son named Atreus.

Returning home to Midgard, Atreus, as Loki, decides that he needs to go and find any remaining Giants and bids a heartfelt farewell while Kratos learns that he is destined to become a revered god.

[44] The series offers combo-based combat, and includes a quick time event (QTE) feature, also called context sensitive attacks, which is initiated when the player has weakened a foe or to perform a defensive maneuver.

[36][52] Minotaur Horns, which increase the Items and Fire meter's maximum length, are available in God of War III and Ghost of Sparta, respectively.

Players must align with either Zeus, Hades, Ares, or Poseidon, which allows them to try different weapons, armor sets, and powers inspired by the god of their choice, and extras can be unlocked.

[62] Game director and creator David Jaffe said that although the idea for God of War was his own, the concept owed a debt to Capcom because he had played Onimusha and said "let's do that with Greek mythology".

[64] Although the game is based on Greek mythology, the development team gave themselves "lots of freedom" to modify the myths, and Jaffe said they took the "coolest aspects of the subject" and created art and story using those elements.

Asmussen said that one of the greatest challenges in developing God of War III for the PlayStation 3 was the "complexity of everything"; individual tasks, such as designing Helios' decapitation, could take a year because the "level of detail [that was] expected [was] so high and intricate, it [crossed] multiple departments".

[82] Between E3 2009 and the time the game shipped, morphological anti-aliasing (MLAA) was added, which graphics engineer Ben Diamand said "improved edges dramatically and saved substantial amounts of frame-rate".

[99] In February 2021, three months after the launch of the PlayStation 5, which is backwards compatible with PS4 games, Santa Monica released a patch to further enhance the playing experience of God of War on the PS5.

[100] As part of Sony's larger efforts to port their first-party exclusive games to Windows, Santa Monica announced in October 2021 that God of War would be released for the platform on January 14, 2022, with support for graphics options.

[114] Prior to the release of the 2018 installment, Cory Barlog confirmed that after the Norse era, future games could see the series tackling either Egyptian, Hindu, or Maya mythology.

[124] Due to Weerasuriya's schedule at Ready at Dawn, he could not return to direct; Dana Jan, the lead level designer for Chains of Olympus, became director for Ghost of Sparta.

At Comic-Con 2010, Jan noted that when development began in 2008, the goal was to make the game bigger than Chains of Olympus, which had apparently pushed the PSP to its functional limits.

Both David Jaffe and Cory Barlog ensured that the Betrayal development team captured the feel of the combat and visual style, and were "helpful with feedback and positive support".

[140] On March 7, 2022, Deadline reported that a live action series was said to be in negotiations at Amazon Prime Video by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, creators of The Expanse, and Rafe Judkins, the showrunner for The Wheel of Time.

[141] During an investor briefing on May 26, 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan confirmed that a God of War television series was in development for Amazon Prime Video.

[142] The series was officially ordered on December 14, 2022, and is being produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios in association with PlayStation Productions, and it will premiere on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

[150] Raising Kratos is a YouTube documentary of Santa Monica Studio's five-year process in making 2018's God of War, showing the "herculean effort" that went into reviving the franchise.

[153] Taking place during the Greek era, the narrative switches between Kratos' past prior to Ascension and present just after the original God of War; it occurs while he is a soldier of Sparta and involves his search for the Ambrosia of Asclepius, which has legendary healing properties and eventually saved his plague-ridden daughter, Calliope.

[165][166][167] Eight God of War soundtracks have been commercially released and have featured several composers, including Gerard K. Marino, Ron Fish, Winifred Phillips, Mike Reagan, Cris Velasco, Winnie Waldron, Marcello De Francisci, Jeff Rona, Tyler Bates, and Bear McCreary.

On March 1, 2005, God of War: Original Soundtrack from the Video Game was released on CD by SIE as an exclusive product for the Sony Connect Music Store.

[194] Track listing With physical and digital copies combined, the God of War franchise has sold an estimated 66+ million games worldwide (as of November 2023).

[4][202] Ascension also only had a generally favorable reception and, not including the PlayStation Vita port of God of War Collection, it has the lowest score in the series from Metacritic (80/100).

"[232] IGN also said that, at the time, God of War III "redefines what the word 'scale' means with regards to videogames, as it throws you into scenes with Titans that are larger than entire levels in some other games".

[237] 2018's God of War received particular praise for its art direction, graphics, combat system, music, story, use of Norse mythology, characters, and cinematic feeling.

Chains of Olympus was criticized by G4, who stated that the game "occasionally suffers from screen tearing and framerate drops", and that some of the puzzles "are so maddeningly difficult to solve".

[250] Due to the success of God of War Collection, Sony announced that further PlayStation titles would receive similar treatment for release under its new "Classics HD" brand.