Video Game / God of War III

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God of War III is the third installment in the God of War series and final (chronological) installment of the Greek era of games, released for the PlayStation 3 in 2010.

Picking up right where the previous game left off, Kratos and the Titans begin their assault on Olympus. After killing Poseidon, Kratos is betrayed by Gaia and tossed into the Underworld, but escapes and begins to climb Mount Olympus, killing all who stand in his path and learning that Pandora's Box (and its godly empowerment) still exists, now deep in the Labyrinth and guarded by an eternal fire which can only be snuffed out if Pandora herself immolates herself on it. This proves troubling, because as Kratos escorts Pandora through the dungeon, he quite possibly begins to think of her as a daughter. Kratos wants to kill Zeus, but he also wants his family back; which one will he choose?

The game got an enhanced rerelease in Summer of 2015 for the PlayStation 4. It would be followed by a Soft Reboot of the series and the start of the Norse Saga with God of War (PS4).

The hands of death could not defeat me. The Sisters of Fate could not hold me. And YOU will not escape reading this article! I WILL have my tropes listed!

• Adaptational Villainy: In this game, Hercules, rather than the legendary hero most fiction depicts him as, is arrogant and jealous of Kratos' accomplishments, as well as Zeus' apparent Parental Favoritism for the Spartan. That said, it's implied that he might still be the legendary hero... if it wasn't for Envy from Pandora's Box corrupting him as Fear did Zeus.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Zeus. It's revealed in the ending that his hatred of Kratos wasn't natural, he was just consumed by the evil of Fear from Pandora's Box, which came out when Kratos opened it; a cut line of dialogue from the final battle has Zeus, after Fear exits his body, apologizing for what he's done and requesting a Mercy Kill from Kratos. That being said, there are plenty of hints throughout the series and in actual mythology to suggest he was already a Jerkass God even before his infection and it merely worsened his character/intensified his existing paranoia, making this likely a Downplayed Trope.
• All for Nothing:
  • Heavily downplayed: the previous game ended with Kratos freeing the Titans, with them storming Olympus...and then they get their asses kicked easily by the gods, to the extent that by the time Kratos catches up with them from the Underworld, all but two of them have died. The ONLY benefit of the Titans being brought along was that the gods were too busy kicking their asses to gang up on Kratos as Zeus likely intended for them to.
  • Kratos goes searching for Pandora to destroy the Olympus Flame and open Pandora's Box once more, and in the process lays waste to all Olympus and basically all of Greece...and then it turns out what he was looking for was inside him all along.
• And I Must Scream: The Head of Helios, compared to the severed heads of Medusa and Euryale, is implied to still be alive, as it screams when you activate it. The perks of being a god...
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • A Bolt of Divine Retribution from Zeus blasts Gaia's left hand almost clean off, leaving it hanging by a mass of root-like tendons. Kratos later severs the hand completely.
  • Kratos kills Hermes by chopping both of his legs off in order to take his boots.
• Anti-Villain: For the most part, the gods, while definitely of the jerkass variety, are doing all they can to defend themselves from Kratos, who is the aggressor in the whole situation. In particular, Hades has multiple legitimate grievances with Kratos and Hephaestus only wants to protect his daughter. That said, the revelations offered by the spinoffs and the system that turns dead mortals into monsters under the gods' control in the Underworld make it clear that, while Kratos' Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum is very self-centered, the consequences are something the pantheon's had coming for a long time.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Athena's Heroic Sacrifice to save Zeus has turned her into a transparent, angel-like figure with a new perspective on the conflict. She actually namedrops this trope when Kratos demands to know why she's suddenly cool with him killing Zeus.
• Art Shift: The opening title sequence flashbacks in-game are done in a heavily stylized art style in the fashion of classic Greek pottery artwork.
• Artifact Title: There is no god of war during the game; Ares is long dead, Kratos was cast down (and loses his godly powers a short while into the game), and despite his ambitions, Hercules doesn't get the title either. However, with the prequel God of War: Ascension in mind, the title takes on a new meaning: even after his death, Ares is getting exactly what he wanted.
• Badass Boast: Kratos gives a heck of an impressive one to Zeus at the beginning;
  The hands of death could not defeat me. The Sisters of Fate could not hold me. And YOU will not see the end of this day. I will have my revenge!
• Bad Black Barf: A big thick black cloud of something escapes from Zeus' mouth before Kratos begins his Extreme Melee Revenge. It seems to have been the Fear inside of Pandora's Box, as he seems to come to his senses in that brief moment, and a cut line of dialogue has him completely change his tone and accept his fate after realizing what's happened.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Heavily downplayed. Athena succeeds in manipulating Kratos into slaying the other Gods so she can rule over Olympus an the mortals of Greece alone. However, she loses the power of Hope, as Kratos releases it to mankind instead of returning it to her, much to her annoyance, and centuries later, it's unclear if she even took up that mantle or just abandoned Greece altogether.
• Bag of Spilling: Kratos loses much of his magic and powers (and has the Blades of Athena ruined) after falling into the River Styx and being attacked by the souls within.
• Bait-and-Switch: At the game's end, it appears that Kratos is about to strike Athena down with the Blade of Olympus. Instead, he turns the blade on himself to give the godless world the hope inside him.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Zeus is still the overall main antagonist and target of Kratos' vengeance, but there's also Gaia who wishes to overthrow Olympus for the Titans, and Athena, who appears to be an ally to Kratos but is ultimately using him for her own ends.
• Bittersweet Ending: Heavy emphasis on bitter, to the point of being barely above a full-on Downer Ending; Kratos' need for vengeance has slain all of the Greek gods, and the world lays in ruins and total chaos as a result. However, Kratos realizes the error of his ways and released the power of hope for mankind's use, and as shown in The Stinger, the sun, which has been blocked out since Helios' death, is finally beginning to peek through the clouds again, implying that the world will recover (which it does).
• Blade Brake: After being blasted off of Olympus by Zeus, Kratos tries to stop his fall by sinking the Blade of Olympus into Gaia's back. It works for a moment or two, but he still ends up falling into the River Styx.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The series was already plenty bloody and gory but, thanks to the jump from the PlayStation 2 to the PlayStation 3, this game ramps it up to eleven. The studio actually said some screenshots are so violent, they could not be released on gaming news websites without being censored. They have an independent engine in place to animate enemies being ripped to pieces and having their organs fall out; some highlights include Kratos gutting centaurs and Cronos, causing their guts to spill out, and brutally tearing a cyclops' eye out of its head with his bare hands.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The centaurs. They almost never flinch, love interrupting your combos while you fight smaller mooks (because they always come with smaller mooks), have a crapton of health, and the QTE when they grab you requires some fast reflexes to win. The finishing move on them is one of the squickiest of the game, but you won't mind. Chimeras are a similar case, although they are arguably easier to deal with.
• Boss Remix: The final boss battle with Zeus has this song that contains sections from Zeus' Wrath Divine from the first God of War and The Isle of Creation from God of War II. Both remixed themes appeared in the final boss battles of their respective games.
• Bowdlerize: A few trophies in the PS4 remaster have had their names changed from the PS3 version, usually to remove sexual innuendoes. For example, "Are you horny to win?" is renamed "Horn of plenty". Also, the "I didn't do it, but I wish I did!" trophy, which was earned at the end of the Poseidon princess section after her particularly brutal and cruel death, is removed entirely.
• Breaking Speech: Hermes deconstructs Kratos in the path of the Caverns, and he can only listen. Before his death, Hermes gives another one to Kratos, and later on, it's revealed that it actually registered to Kratos, as it's one of the things he replays in his head alongside much more prominent trauma like the deaths of his family during Zeus' last-ditch Mind Rape attempt on him.
• The Brute: Outside of attempting to rip out his soul, Hades relies more on hitting Kratos with his Claws than the magic or minions of the other gods, and his second form relies on NASTY physical attacks.
• Bullying a Dragon: Hermes decides to take the time to taunt Kratos about how he killed his family, knowing full well that Kratos is known to kill out of spite and is on the warpath against the Olympians. It ends badly for him, to say the least. That said, it definitely took some courage to provide even that brief distraction.
• The Burlesque of Venus: When Aphrodite makes her appearance, she is spread out upon her bed, being "serviced" by her hand-maidens, her bed designed to look superficially like a giant clam.
• Call-Back:
  • As in the original game, the story begins In Medias Res just before Kratos tries to kill himself.
  • Ares' corpse is (somehow) on display in a tomb on Mount Olympus.
  • It's a weird one since it's referencing an interquel that would come out later in the same year, but when confronting Kratos, Poseidon vows vengeance on him for destroying Atlantis.
  • Helios remembers Kratos saving him in God of War: Chains of Olympus.
  • Likewise, Hades is aware that Kratos killed his wife Persephone in that same game. We even see her corpse (somehow) in its glass coffin.
  • Kronos has been banished to the Pits of Tartarus after Kratos got into Pandora's Temple back in the first game.
  • Cyclops Enforcers return from the original game after a long absence from the series.
  • At the end, Athena once more tells Kratos to repay her for everything she's done for him. Kratos' response is the same one he gave her in the same scenario in the previous entry.
    Athena: You owe me this, Spartan!
    Kratos: I owe you nothing.
• Cardiac Boss: Downplayed with the Heart of Gaia during the final battle. The second phase of the fight takes place in the chamber where Gaia's heart is housed, and while the main boss in the room is actually Zeus and the minions he summons, Kratos still has to whittle down the health of both he and Gaia's heart before impaling them simultaneously, killing Gaia and shattering her body as a result, while leaving a still-living Zeus for him to finish off in the final phase of the fight.
• Central Theme: Hope Springs Eternal. Pandora espouses her belief in hope to the more cynical Kratos, and, in the end, it is the power of hope that came from Pandora's Box that allows Kratos to defeat Zeus, which he ultimately decides to release for mankind's use instead of the wannabe tyrant Athena's by impaling himself on the Blade of Olympus.
• Chain Lightning: The Nemesis Whip is a visual pun on this; it's yet another chain-weapon for Kratos, and it produces chain lightning.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The Great Chain appears at the beginning, when Kratos is thrown off of Gaia. It comes into play before the final boss, as Kratos uses it to pull Pandora all the way up to the peak of Olympus.
  • The Three Judges appear early on, holding the Great Chain. They become the last obstacle in Kratos' quest to take Pandora to the Flame of Olympus, as he must shatter the Onyx crystals embedded on the statues while fighting hordes of enemies in order to proceed.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Kratos has lost most of the weapons he gained in II, while still retaining the Blade of Olympus and the Golden Fleece.
• Classical Chimera: The Chimera appears as a reoccurring mini-boss. They switch between bipedal and quadrupedal gaits, with the goat being the dominant and final phase of the fight.
• Cliffhanger Wall: The Stinger of this game implied that Kratos survived his apparent Heroic Sacrifice, yet the next two games Ghost of Sparta (2010) and Ascension (2013) were both prequels that failed to address what would happen next. It wasn't until 2018 that Kratos' story would continue with God of War (PS4).
• Combat Commentator: A drunken Hera provides commentary to Kratos's fight with Hercules, starting with an almost-motherly "Now you boys play nice!"
• Continuity Nod: Among the voices Kratos hears inside his own mind are the Boat Captain and the Fates. You can also find a message from the Boat Captain in the underworld, along with ones from Calliope and Callisto.
• Contrived Coincidence: Kratos is sent to Tartarus by Hephaestus to retrieve the Omphalos Stone, which he claims can be forged into a weapon that will give Kratos the retribution he deserves. Though this is just an Uriah Gambit to prevent him from reaching Pandora, Kratos ends up encountering Cronos there - and after being Eaten Alive by the latter and cutting his way out, the Spartan just so happens to find that exact Stone, apparently having been lodged in Cronos' gut. Very convenient sequence of events!
• Cross Counter:
  • Kratos and Hercules have one of these when Kratos steals the right Nemean Cestus. If Kratos wins the duel, he will steal the left Nemean Cestus.
  • Kratos also has one with Zeus during the first phase of their final battle.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Helios' head is graphically ripped off by Kratos. It is neither quick nor painless. This example is one of many in this game.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Not unusual for the series (to the point it probably should have its own page), but this installment takes the cake with how Kratos takes what looks to be Poseidon's mistress/sex slave and makes her hold open a massive heavy crank for a gate, which, after a few seconds of you passing through, pulls her in and crushes her. You can go back and see her bloody remains, which now hold said gate half open due to her corpse causing the crank to get stuck.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The second Titanomachy was shaping up to be this, as the modern Olympians proved more than a match for the Titans: Poseidon took out Epimethius and at least one moreTitan single-handed, Hades swiftly killed Oceanus, Helios had Perses well in-hand, and Zeus easily blasted Gaia apart with one lightning bolt... in fact, the gods would have likely won the battle without a single casualty if not for the intervention of Kratos.
• Death by Irony: In ancient Greece, worshipers of Hades would knock their heads on the ground so the god of the Underworld would hear them. What does Kratos do to Hades immediately before stealing his soul?
• Depth Perplexion: An entire puzzle is made out of this in Hera's Garden. When you activate a switch, a green filter appears on the screen, the camera zooms away, and stairways that are only adjacent by perspective become connected for real. You will thus get at the top of the garden through completely disconnected platforms without having to perform a single jump.
• Disappointed in You: At the end of the third game, Athena says this to Kratos when he runs himself through with the Blade of Olympus, giving the power to the humans instead of her.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The hilariously suggestive sex QTE in III certainly counts. Though given where the half-circle-up is, it does rather suggest Kratos takes an unholy amount of time getting out of the practically nothing he's usually wearing.
  • Aphrodite complains to Kratos, "Do you know how long it's been since a real man came into my chamber?"
• Due to the Dead: Despite being stated in-universe to be the most hated god on Olympus, Ares' body has been preserved in ice in a tomb.
• Dying Moment of Awesome:
  • When Helios' plea for his life ends in vain, he out of nowhere screams "FEEL THE POWER OF THE SUN!!!" and shines so brightly that nothing can be seen. Doesn't stop him from losing his head.
  • Kratos (apparently) kills himself, ruining Athena's plans and releasing the power of hope to mortals. That said, like usual, it doesn't stick.
• Enemy Posturing: During the battle with Hercules, you can (and should) attack him when he turns his back on you to start bragging to Hera.
• Entitled Bastard: Despite having abandoned Kratos to fall into the River Styx after their initial attack on Zeus went badly, along with the fact that she flat-out told Kratos to his face that he was nothing more than a pawn of hers and the Titans and she had no more use for him, Gaia genuinely expects Kratos to help her up when she's later having trouble reclimbing Mount Olympus... only to be shocked when Kratos basically tells her to screw off before cutting off her hand, sending her falling to her (apparent) doom.
• Epigraph: The game opens with a quote by Greek philosopher Plato: "The measure of a man is what he does with power".
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: By the end of the game, all of Greece has been devastated, the Olympians and Titans have been murdered, and most of the named cast has been killed off, with the exception of Aphrodite (whose survival is ambiguous), Athena (who is technically already dead), and Kratos (who is implied, and later confirmed, to have survived).
• Even Evil Has Standards: Evil might be a stretch, but Kratos does not blame Hephaestus in any way; yes, he turned on and tried to kill him, but he was doing it to protect his child, rather than just being a monumental cunt for its own sake like the rest of the Pantheon. Kratos even notes later than Hephaestus was being a good father - it just meant the two had to clash, as their goals didn't align with each other. And while Kratos shows the cruelty and rage that made him so infamous that even the Norse pantheon eventually took notice, as in all the previous games, Kratos doesn't go for the kill unprovoked on any Olympian or Titan - every single one of them that Kratos kills took either the first swing or betrayed him, and in several cases he's completely willing to just walk past them until they make him fight them.
• Evil All Along: The post-Final Boss reveals that Athena was playing Kratos throughout the game, with the intent to take over Olympus when Zeus is gone.
• Evil Gloating: Hercules' undoing. He actually manages to knock Kratos out, but he stops to boast to Hera. Kratos gets his second wind and takes this opportunity to steal the Nemean Cestus from him.
• Extreme Melee Revenge: At the very end of the game, Kratos tosses aside his weapons and decides to just straight-up beat Zeus to death with his bare hands. It's a QTE event, and the player can carry on for as long as they please.
• Eyeball-Plucking Birds: The teaser trailer "Fear Nothing" begins with a raven scavenging the corpse of an unnamed human. Just before Kratos drives the bird off, it plucks out the remaining eyeball and eats it whole.
• Eye Scream:
  • After defeating Poseidon, Kratos gouges out his eyes with his thumbs. From Poseidon's POV.
  • The QTE to finish off a cyclops is Kratos tearing said cyclops' eye clean out of its socket with his bare hands.
  • Perses tries attacking Kratos, who jams the Blade of Olympus into his eye in response.
• Facial Horror: Hercules ends up getting his face caved in as a result of Kratos beating him to death with the Nemean Cestus.
• Failed a Spot Check: In their final battle, Zeus and Kratos are so busy fighting each other they don't notice a very pissed off Gaia showing up until she's right on top of them.
• Fanservice Extra: Poseidon's Princess and Aphrodite's servants are extremely attractive women in skimpy clothing designed to show off most of their skin and leave their breasts exposed. The former is only used as a completely gratuitous Kick the Dog moment by Kratos because he needs to go through a door, the latter two only provide fanservice to the viewer. Their designs, at least, are justified in both cases: Poseidon's Princess is more-or-less his Sex Slave, and the handmaidens serve the Goddess of Love, now overcome by Lust.
• Fingore: Kratos rips one of Cronos' fingernails off during the fight with him. The sheer crudeness of it makes even the toughest gamers cringe and shiver, but compared to what Kratos does to Cronos later on in the fight, it's actually pretty damn tame.
• First-Person Dying Perspective: The player experiences each of the blows of the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that Kratos gives to Poseidon from Poseidon's own point of view. In an incomplete variation, the fight ends with Kratos jamming his thumbs into Poseidon's eyes and blinding him, turning the screen black, before finishing him off with a Neck Snap shown from a third-person camera angle.
• Foreshadowing: When Kratos first asks Hephaestus about the Flame of Olympus, his facial expression completely shifts on a dime, and sharp eyes will notice his eye twitches slightly as he responds with his own question as to why the Spartan wishes to know about it. He vaguely states Kratos will find the Flame if he can escape the Underworld, which does in fact happen. This conversation clues him in on the threat Kratos poses to Pandora, which is why he's so unhelpful for the rest of the game until his attempted Uriah Gambit.
• Gaia's Lament: Because of Kratos' actions, the world is flooded and all plant life is dying out. Once Gaia returns, she is infuriated that her world has decayed and declares that, despite her fondness for him, she now has a reason to kill him completely on purpose.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Icarus' Wings alternate between Cutscene Incompetence and Cutscene Power to the Max this time around. At the beginning of the game, Kratos doesn't think about using them before falling into the Styx (though he might just have been too shocked to do so), but in several cutscenes afterwards, he uses them to actually fly using powerful updrafts, while you can only glide in gameplay.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The majority of Kratos' encounter with Hermes is simply chasing him down; since he's the speedy messenger of the gods, he delights in dashing about making fun of him. Once Kratos manages to knock the wind out of him, he barely puts up a fight — chasing him down was the real contest.
• Gorgeous Gorgon: This game introduces the Gorgon Serpents, which are more human-looking and conventionally attractive than their counterparts.
• The Great Flood: Poseidon's death early in the game unleashes this on Greece, causing the water levels to suddenly rise dramatically and swallow up the lowlands.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: In this game, Kratos can use the small mooks as battering rams.
• Götterdämmerung: By the end of the game, Kratos has slain all of the Olympians except Aphrodite (whose fate is left up in the air) Artemis (apparently forgotten from the first game), and Eos (who probably perished on her own after Helios).
• Hate Plague: It's eventually revealed that the Olympians Took a Level in Jerkass after the first game as a direct result of Kratos opening Pandora's Box, as said action released the evils inside to infect them, turning them into a bunch of hateful and paranoid tyrants with their worst attributes amplified.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Hades' soul is ripped out by his own claws, Hercules is beaten to death with his own weapons (the Nemean Cestus), and Hephaestus is impaled on his own anvil.
• Immediate Sequel: The game picks up exactly where God of War II left off.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Lots of it, as usual.
  • Kratos impales Hephaestus with the god's own anvil when the latter tries to murder him in a desperate attempt to prevent him from going after Pandora, although Kratos bears no actual prejudice against Hephaestus at all, admitting later that he was just a father trying to protect his daughter.
  • Kratos (seemingly) defeats Zeus in the final battle by pinning him against Gaia's heart and stabbing through him with the Blade of Olympus, killing him and Gaia at the same time.
  • And to top it all off, Kratos stabs himself with the Blade of Olympus to prevent Athena from claiming the power of Hope stored inside him, though the post-credits cutscene implies (and eventual sequel confirms) that he has survived.
• In Medias Res: The title screen of the game has Kratos saying "My vengeance... ends now", which takes place right at the end after Kratos kills Zeus, much like the presentation of the original game. The entirety of the game takes place before that moment.
• Ironic Echo: When their initial attack on Zeus goes badly and leaves them clinging to the side of Mount Olympus, Gaia refuses to help Kratos, telling him he was nothing but a pawn of the Titans and she has no further use for him, declaring "This is our war, not yours," and leaving Kratos to plummet into the River Styx. When Kratos later gets out of the Underworld and comes across Gaia struggling to reclimb Olympus, the latter legitimately expects Kratos to help her despite her betrayal. Instead, Kratos throws Gaia's words back in her face before severing her hand and sending her plummeting to her apparent demise.
  • When starting a new game, Kratos says "My vengeance... ends now", teasing that he's about to complete his Roaring Rampage of Revenge. At the end of the game, we return to this scene after he has already accomplished this when he killed all of the gods. With this line, he realizes the damage he caused and sacrifices himself to give the world hope and the potential to heal.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: The gods refer to Pandora, an Artificial Human, as "it" or "thing."
• It's Personal: Hades has a vendetta against Kratos for killing his wife, his niece, and his brother. Can you blame him?
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: At the very end of the game, Kratos goes through this when Zeus inflicts a Mind Rape on him, traveling through his psyche with aid from the spirit of Pandora and managing to finally acknowledge his past sins, allowing him to unlock the power of Hope and kill Zeus once and for all.
• Kick the Dog:
  • While on his way through Olympus, Kratos winds up in Poseidon's personal quarters, kidnaps his mistress, and forces her to prop a door open. She begs him not to leave her behind, but he just ignores her as she is crushed under the lever's weight.
  • Aphrodite refers to her husband Hephaestus as "worthless" and cheats on him without a hint of remorse. That said, she's implied to have been corrupted by Lust at this point.
  • Zeus forces Daedalus to build the new labyrinth for him, with the promise that he will bring back Icarus if he does. Once Daedalus is finished, Zeus ties him up in such a way that if the labyrinth is ever finished, Daedalus will be ripped to pieces. And as Kratos, you have to do this.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One possible exchange between the handmaidens who watch Kratos and Aphrodite have sex:
  Handmaiden 1: This is definitely for mature audiences only!
  Handmaiden 2: Parents should not let their children watch this!
• Lightning Lash: The Nemesis Whip is a whip-like weapon consisting of two sets of three blades connected by a series of chains. It also charges Kratos' melee attacks with electricity, allowing him to electrocute his foes and activate certain machines.
• Meaningful Echo: Early in the game, Pandora says that she trusts Kratos, who replies with a blunt "you shouldn't". At the end, Athena tells Kratos that she trusts him to do the right thing, to which Kratos responds "you shouldn't", in a more sorrowful tone. In both cases, Kratos is right; he initially plans to use Pandora as an instrument of his revenge on Zeus (although he later changes his mind, it doesn't amount to much), and the Spartan betrays Athena by impaling himself on the Blade of Olympus, releasing the power of hope into the world rather than surrendering it to Athena.
• Mind Rape: Zeus inflicts this on Kratos, trapping him in an illusion that forces him to relive all the horrible deeds he's committed, hoping to drive him insane and kill him once and for all.
• Mini-Boss: Centaurs return for this game as towering, armor-covered behemoths wielding a flail-spear combo weapon and commanding the hordes of Olympian Legionnaires in battle, as well as being rare (there's a trophy for managing to perform the QTE kill on all three of htem) and incredibly tough compared to the other enemies. The Chimaera may count as well, given the fact that you must "finish" them three times as well as their rarity and toughness.
• Mook Maker: During the fight with Cronos, various skeletons pop out of his flesh to attack Kratos, along with an undead Cyclops that was apparently lurking inside his left shoulder.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The end of the game has Kratos, after having taken his revenge on Olympus, see how the world has been devastated by his actions, and how much of his grief was his own fault.
• Natural Disaster Cascade: The deaths of each of the gods unleashes a different natural disaster upon the world, often based on the god's element — The Great Flood, storm-clouds which seemingly bring The Night That Never Ends, all plant life withering and dying. By the game's end, after Kratos has killed most of the gods including Zeus, Greece is an unrecognizable, flooded, thunderstorm-skied and tornado-plagued waste, although it's indicated humanity will still survive thanks to Kratos bestowing the power of Hope upon them. The sequel implies the effects were limited to Greece and that it eventually recovered.
• Mythology Gag: Hades' original design from the first game can be seen as a wall carving in a side area in his realm.
• Neck Snap: Kratos finishes Poseidon off by snapping his neck. He later does the same to Hera when she insultingly calls Pandora a "little whore" in front of him.
• Never My Fault: Gaia, upon seeing the world falling apart as a result of the gods' deaths, confronts Kratos and blames him for it, saying that "her world bleeds because of him." However, she was the mastermind behind the Titan insurrection against the Olympians, and the one who started it all by resurrecting Kratos after he was killed by Zeus at the start of the second game.
• The Night That Never Ends: The death of Helios causes black clouds to blot out the sun and throw Greece into darkness until the end of the game. It's implied this in turn contributes to Hera's plants dying later on.
• Nominal Hero: Kratos does many, many genuinely evil things throughout this game, including the brutal slaughter of innocent people (at least to the extent that they did not wrong him) as they beg for their lives. This includes burning a man to death for an item he's holding and kidnapping a pleading Sex Slave to use her to prop a door open as she screams for mercy; she is then gruesomely crushed to death by said door.
• Not Hyperbole: Kratos really should have listened when Poseidon said "The death of Olympus means the death of us all;" Killing Poseidon triggers a tidal wave that floods most of Greece, and it's all downhill from there with each Olympian's death.
• Not Worth Killing: Kratos initially views Hermes and Hera as such, dismissing Hermes as "a fly from the ass of Zeus" and simply pushing Hera aside when she tries to pick a fight with them. Unfortunately for them, they end up pushing Kratos' Berserk Button and getting themselves killed anyway.
• Off with His Head!: Kratos kills Helios by ripping his head off with his bare hands. It's still alive, but is only seen screaming afterward.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Poseidon enters his war form, which is a colossal simulacrum of himself connected to his Hippocampus and made of seawater, electricity and rocks. Slightly subverted in that Poseidon himself physically resides inside the colossus, and the whole thing turns back into inanimate matter when he's forcibly removed by Kratos.
  • After being deprived of the Claws and dragged into the Styx, Hades sheds his helmet and appears as a towering giant, exposing his deformed face and gashed cranium.
  • During the final battle against Zeus, he manifests as a copy of himself made of sheer darkness which tries to infect Kratos with Fear as a last resort. It's ambiguous, though, as to whether this is Zeus himself using the power of Fear or the other way around.
• Pink Is Erotic: Aphrodite makes her first physical appearance in Olympus. She has a high sex drive and is found having sex with her handmaidens as both Greece and Olympus are falling apart because of Kratos, whom she still gladly lays with. Aphrodite's Chamber has a pink and purple color scheme to reflect her title as the goddess of love and, well, sex.
• Portal Network: After passing the Trials of Erebus, the Three Judges allow Kratos to use Hyperion Gates to quickly travel across Greece.
• Prophecy Twist: Just as Cronos had killed his father Uranos, and as Zeus had overthrown his father Cronos, it was prophesized that Zeus would be killed by his own child (and presumedly succeeded as the ruler of gods). Zeus' actions throughout the second and third game are all meant to prevent Kratos from fulfilling that prophecy. There is, however, an additional Genius Bonus that is easy to miss. In some versions of the myth of the birth of Athena, Zeus devours her pregnant mother because she was prophesized to give birth to a child more powerful than its father and he remembered the prophecy about his own end. When Athena later sprang from a hole in his head, the issue was apparently forgotten and she joined the pantheon of gods. By the end of the game, it turns out that Athena had been planning everything from the very start (as befits a goddess of knowledge and strategy) to get Zeus killed and become the new ruler of the gods instead...which would make her also qualify for the prophecy, except that Kratos prevented her from usurping Zeus' power by giving the mortals the power of Hope instead.
• Reforged Blade: As the Blades of Athena were ruined by the River Styx when Kratos fell in, Athena remakes them into the Blades of Exile.
• Refuge in Audacity: After defeating Helios, Kratos tears off his still-living head and uses it for a flashlight. It even screams every time you take it out.
• Regret Eating Me: Near the end of the fight with him, Cronos attempts to finish Kratos off by eating him whole, apparently not having learned from what came about from doing that with his offspring. Kratos just cuts his way out of Cronos' gut (which conveniently contained the Omphalos Stone he'd been sent to Tartarus for) with the Blade of Olympus. Ironically, before doing so, Cronos tells Kratos that "eating you will be more unpleasant for me"; he had no idea how right he was.
• Retcon: The opening has a longer version of Zeus' speech from God of War II, but his tone is slightly more aggressive than it was there. Additionally, the sequence of the gods peering over the edge of the citadel down at the ascending Titans includes more characters than it did before.
• Room Full of Crazy: Daedelus' workshop, filled with notes revealing he worked on the labyrinth for years, during which his obsession with getting his son back got worse and worse.
• Sacred Flames: The Flame of Olympus, originally the lock for Pandora's Box and the source of Zeus' godly might. Extinguishing them to access the Box (and, as a useful side effect, weaken the King of the Gods) is a driving motivation for Kratos.
• Sadly Mythtaken: In the myths, Hera was dedicated to making Hercules' life miserable; she was the one who imposed the Twelve Labors on him as penance for killing his family (which was also her fault). Here, he's her champion against Kratos, though she still mocks him alongside Kratos and clearly doesn't mind if he dies.
• Scary Scorpions: Kratos runs afoul of some in the labyrinth, including the giant mommy scorpion, which has somehow eaten the Boreas Icestorm and gotten big as a result.
• Sequel Hook: During the opening boss fight, Poseidon promises to make Kratos pay for sinking Atlantis, which hadn't occurred in any of the previously-released games; when Gaia rails against Kratos and Zeus, the latter replies "Your pawn has failed you, Gaia. Perhaps you should have chosen the other one!"; and while in Kratos' mind, a character never heard before can be heard addressing him as "brother". Played with, as all of these are actually interquel hooks for God of War: Ghost of Sparta, in a vein similar to the confrontation between Kratos and Atlas in God of War II setting up God of War: Chains of Olympus.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Subverted, then played straight, in the Hot Coffee Minigame: if Kratos initiates sex with Aphrodite, the camera pans not to an innocent room detail like a pot or a statue, but to Aphrodite's own half-naked concubines, who proceed to peep and comment the action as they grow more and more aroused and amorous. If the minigame is successfully completed, the camera pans back to the bed as we see the two women start having sex on the floor.
• Shout-Out:
  • Early in the game, Kratos gains a power called "Army of Sparta," which summons a large phalanx of Spartans to drop in over Kratos and lash out with their spears. After being completely upgraded, the move even ends in a hail of arrows. Adding to it is the shields having the same design as the ones in the movie.
  • The trophy for discovering the hidden room in Hades full of disembodied arms is called (NSFW) "Mr. Hand".
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Kratos tries to shut down Pandora's talk of hope by showing her Daedalus' mangled body within the labyrinth, but it doesn't do much to actually dissuade her.
• Situational Sexuality: Because there aren't any men available, Aphrodite is sleeping with her slave maidens. Then Kratos arrives, and she pushes them away so that she can have an Optional Sexual Encounter with the Ghost of Sparta.
• So Last Season: On meeting Athena, she replaces Kratos' old blades with all-new ones, given the old ones were tainted by the River Styx when he fell in.
• The Stinger: After the credits, we see the spot where Kratos apparently killed himself; his body is missing, with a blood trail leading over the cliff's edge, implying that he may have survived. He did.
• Titanomachy, Round Two: We get to see the war in full action — and neither side wins. Gaia blurts out that she was planning to discard Kratos, who then decides to kill both sides while they're busy fighting one another.
• Tornado Move: The Blades of Athena's magic spell, Divine Reckoning, creates a tornado around Kratos.
• Torso with a View: Kratos is left with a gaping stab wound clear through his stomach after stabbing himself with the Blade of Olympus. Funnily enough, he probably just reopened the wound he got in the same spot from Zeus' betrayal.
• Uncertain Doom: Aphrodite is the only goddess not killed by Kratos during his rampage, yet her survival is ambiguous at the end due to Athena not accounting for her when saying she is the last remaining Olympian. It's possible she may have died when Gaia's corpse crushed Mount Olympus or Zeus' death unleashed complete chaos upon the world; then again, each God's death had a plague associated with it, and we simply can't say for certain that love/lust "died" to chaos in the same manner that the sun, sky, ocean, and afterlife did, nor that can we say that it survived, though by the 2018 game it's highly implied that all the other Greek gods died as collateral damage.
• Undead Counterpart: Kratos faces a unique undead variant of a cyclops sprouting out of Cronos' shoulder when fighting the latter.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In the cutscene where Pandora talks to Kratos about hope, she seems unfazed by the fact that Kratos is using a severed head as a lantern.
• Uriah Gambit: Hephaestus pulls one on Kratos in the midgame; fearing for Pandora's life, he sends Kratos to Tartarus to get the Omphalos Stone. What he doesn't tell him is it's inside Cronos' gut, and that Cronos is not happy that Kratos (apparently) killed Gaia.
• Video Game Vista: The entrance to Tartarus, a seemingly-endless volcanic plain that reaches out into the distance. Kratos doesn't stay long, though, mostly because of Tartarus' most dangerous occupant, Cronos, trying to kill him.
• Was It Really Worth It?: At the end, Kratos finally gets his revenge, having killed everyone who ever wronged him...but by that point he realizes just how much of his misery was his own fault. He also finally notices the devastation he wrought upon the world during his campaign for vengeance, and he's been changed enough to actually give a damn about it.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: By the end of the game, all the gods are dead... except Aphrodite, who is last seen still fooling about with her handmaidens. There was originally going to be a scene where she tried killing Kratos herself, but that was removed.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Hades inflicts this fate on the Titan Oceanus during the opening battle, and tries it on Kratos during his boss battle, even uttering the trope name. Once Kratos claims the Claws of Hades, however, he uses them to inflict this fate on the weapons' original owner, killing him in the process.
• Zerg Rush: Weaker enemies in this game can, when numerous enough, charge at Kratos in great numbers and dog-pile him, forcing him to complete a QTE to free himself.