God of War

God of War is a revenge saga that reinvented itself without losing its core. The early PlayStation games cast Kratos, a Spartan warrior weaponized and then betrayed by the gods, in brutal action set against Greek mythology, told across a deliberately scrambled run of sequels and prequels.

In 2018 the series relocated to Norse mythology and slowed down, trading frantic combo-driven spectacle for a weightier, single-shot camera and a story about fatherhood that earned some of the medium's highest praise. What holds both eras together is Kratos himself: rage as both engine and curse.

This is a game-first franchise, and its swing from mythological bloodsport to restrained character drama is one of the more remarkable mid-life reinventions the form has produced.

The God of War franchise spans 11 games in the CrossBinge catalog.