Save for a brief liaison with Aphrodite, Kratos’ quest is relentless killing until the end. The increase in brutality and gore in God of War 3–not only gratuitous, but indulg ent–reinforced the tone of wanton killings motivated primarily by a tortured man’s hatred of the world. Kratos’ slow, methodical march of pain and death created a dreary mood that crept under my skin, dark and gripping. More so than ever before: by stepping into Kratos’ sandals, I became an instrument of heartless destruction, driven by a rage that once burned so hot it became only stone-cold ash. While playing, I was overcome by how bleak the game became. To achieve his revenge, Kratos does this without hesitation, and without remorse. To kill a god is to tear a piece of creation out of place. An apt correlation, because the gods of Olympus are the world for these people. As each Olympian falls, disaster after disaster is unleashed upon mankind, and ordinary people suffer.

Result: Kratos declares war on the entire world. Zeus must die, and damn anyone or anything that gets in the way. In his mind, it’s all about his revenge alone. The stage is reset for another battle towards bloody satisfaction, but no longer does Kratos serve a higher calling. The Titans betray him, and a new benefactor appears to support him from the Underworld. In God of War 3 his desire for vengeance against Zeus has grown into a grim vendetta, eclipsing all else. Because of this, it’s easy to identify with Kratos’ struggle, and get absorbed into his brutal, bloody mindset. Thus, there’s a bit of righteous satisfaction in destroying them to reach Zeus – it feels like liberation, freedom from the bonds of destiny. The Sisters of Fate – his means to exact said vengeance – are portrayed as capricious and cruel, wielding their incredible power over man and god without mercy or justice. In the second game, Kratos fights to avenge himself against Zeus’ betrayal – revenge again, but reasonable. Compare Kratos’ motivations, his “quest”, between each game of the series: in the first, he fights to destroy Ares mostly out of a need for revenge – a personal motive, but justified by Ares’ evil deeds. Playing God of War 3 put me in a state of mind that I hadn’t experienced from a videogame before. However, the need to top the atrocities of the first two titles pushed God of War 3 to an even darker place. By then we already knew Kratos was as much a monster as the beasts he fought against, perhaps more so. God of War 2 revisited the idea, but the impact was lost, the shock dulled.

Killing hordes of mindless mythical monsters is all in good fun – but immolating a helpless man, just to open a door? That’s murder. It wanted me to know what I was doing was morally… ambiguous. It wanted me to know what kind of person my avatar was: driven, desperate, savage. It’s easy to tune out an action game’s relentless violence – but God of War didn’t want me to. The stark brutality sinks in, and you realize that God of War has a message. Why? Because to wield the power of Pandora’s Box – the power of the gods- you need to demonstrate your lack of mercy.Īnd suddenly: the game makes you think. So, as the player, you get to drag the caged man up a long slope – fighting off enemies the entire way, giving you plenty of time to hear the broken, terrified man constantly beg for mercy – and then, at last, pop him in a furnace to burn alive. Kratos looks up to see men imprisoned in hanging cages: one pleads for help, to be freed from his suffering.īut nope – Kratos has just gotta have that Box, and it just so happens the mechanism that unlocks the next door requires a sacrifice. God of War is a fairly straight forward action game up to this point – lots of jumping and hacking and slashing, some simplistic puzzle-solving – but suddenly, the game throws a curve ball. Kratos is cutting a bloody path through Pandora’s Temple, seeking the artifact that will grant him power enough to exact revenge on his mortal enemy, the god Ares.

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