God of War Timeline Explained: How Each Game Intertwines
While searching for the Flame of Olympus, Kratos encounters new and old faces, such as Hephaestus and the corpse of Persephone. Finally, Kratos finds the Flame of Olympus and discovers that it holds Pandora’s Box. The only way to extinguish the flame is with Hephaestus’ “daughter”, Pandora. Kratos doesn’t find her until he’s waded through rivers of blood, killed most of Olympus’ pantheon, and retrieved a stone from the stomach of Cronos (long story). Kratos brings Pandora to the flame, but along the way his fatherly instincts kick in and he bonds with Pandora. We soon learn that Pandora can only destroy the Flame of Olympus by sacrificing herself. It turns out that Pandora is a breeze to do so because of how Zeus treated Hephaestus. Zeus tells Kratos not to let Pandora put out the flames, and for a moment Kratos agrees with his father. Then Zeus falsifies his own message by telling Kratos not to fail as he failed his family, triggering Kratos’ need for revenge.
After Pandora kills the flame and herself, Kratos opens the box to claim the weapon. Unfortunately, the box is empty. Naturally, Kratos doesn’t let that detail stop him from killing Zeus (and Gaia for good measure). Once the deed is done, Athena returns and demands that Kratos return the weapon from Pandora’s box, and it takes her a few moments to realize that he had it since the first god of war game. The weapon, as any Greek mythology fan will tell you, was hope, and it has been inside Kratos. Unfortunately, this means that when Kratos opened the box, he released the great evils it also housed, infecting the gods of Olympus. In other words, Kratos unwittingly caused the events of God of War 2 and 3. Oops.
Undeterred, Athena demands her hope back, but Kratos has been burned by the gods too many times to trust her. So he kills himself one last time to spread hope to mortals. God of War 3 ends with Athena leaving disappointed, followed by a post-credits scene where Kratos has seemingly recovered from death again.
God of War (release date – 2018)
2018 god of war is a soft reboot that takes place an unknown number of years after God of War 3. Kratos has left Greece and its gods and found himself in the Norse lands of Midgard (not to be confused with Final Fantasy VII‘s Midgar). Not only that, but he found a new wife, Faye, and had a son named Atreus with her. Unfortunately, Faye died before the game starts, so Kratos sets out to fulfill her last request and scatter her ashes from the top of the tallest mountain in existence. Before he can do so, however, he is attacked by a mysterious man who cannot feel pain. Kratos fends off the attacker, but is soon forced to take Atreus along for the ride.
Unlike previous entries, the narrative of god of war is not about Kratos need for revenge. It instead focuses on his growing desire to be a good father to Atreus, while hiding the truth of his godly heritage from the boy. The result is a journey through several realms from Norse legend as Kratos and Atreus try to find a way to the land of the giants, Jötunheim. Along the way, they meet some friendly faces, such as the dwarfs Brok and Sindri and the goddess Freya.
In the end, Kratos and Atreus reach their destination, all the stronger for the journey they shared. Atreus grows and learns the burdens that come with godhood, while Kratos finally makes peace with his bloody past. Naturally, the two have to kill a few Norse gods along the way, including the sons of Thor and the mysterious stranger, who we eventually learn is actually Freya’s son, Baldur.
