God of War is an action-adventure game franchise created by David

Jaffe at Sony's Santa Monica Studio. It began in 2005 on the PlayStation

2 (PS2) video game console and has become a flagship series for
PlayStation, consisting of nine installments across multiple platforms.
Based on ancient mythologies, the story follows Kratos, a Spartan
warrior and later the Greek God of War, who was tricked into killing his
family by his former master, the original Greek God of War Ares. This
sets off a series of events that leads to wars with the different
mythological pantheons. The Greek-based games see Kratos follow a
path of vengeance due to the machinations of the Olympian gods, while
the Norse-based games, which introduce his son Atreus as a secondary
protagonist, show Kratos on a path of redemption and inadvertently
coming into conflict with the Norse gods.
Santa Monica has developed all main entries, while Ready at Dawn and
Javaground/Sony Online Entertainment-Los Angeles (SOE-LA)
developed the three side games. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE)
has published all games except the mobile phone installment, which
was published by Sony Pictures Digital. The first seven games make up
the Greek era of the franchise. God of War (2005), God of War II (2007),
and God of War III (2010) comprise its main trilogy; the first two were
released on the PS2 with the third on the PlayStation 3 (PS3). A prequel,
Ascension (2013), was also released for the PS3. Other games include
Chains of Olympus (2008) and Ghost of Sparta (2010) for the
PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Betrayal (2007) for mobile phones that
supported the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME). The Norse era
began with the 2018 game God of War and released for the PlayStation
4 (PS4) and later Windows in January 2022. It was accompanied by a
short prequel, A Call from the Wilds (2018), a text-based game through
Facebook Messenger. A sequel, Ragnarök, was released in November
2022 on the PS4 and PlayStation 5 (PS5) and concluded the Norse era.