God of War (2005) Story Explained: Plot Summary and Ending

God of War came out in March 2005 on the PlayStation 2, made by Santa Monica Studio. It was the first game in the series and introduced Kratos, but in story order it comes third, after Ascension and Chains of Olympus, at the very end of his ten years serving the gods. It's the story of how a mortal killed a god and took his place. This page has full spoilers for the whole game, ending included. (God of War (2005))

Before the story begins#

The game drip-feeds Kratos's past in flashbacks, but here it is in order. Kratos was a Spartan captain whose army was about to be wiped out by a barbarian horde led by Alrik. He called on Ares, offering his life in exchange for victory. Ares answered, destroyed the barbarians, and bound the Blades of Chaos to Kratos's arms. Kratos then led the god's campaigns across Greece. (God of War (2005))

One night he raided a village and burst into a temple of Athena, killing everyone inside. Among the dead were his wife Lysandra and daughter Calliope, whom he'd left safe in Sparta. Ares had put them there. The village oracle cursed him so that their ashes stuck to his skin forever, which is why he's pale and why Greece called him the Ghost of Sparta. (God of War (2005))

He broke his oath to Ares (the story of Ascension) and swore to serve the other gods for ten years so they would rid him of his nightmares. Chains of Olympus covers part of that service. The first game opens with Kratos standing on a cliff over the Aegean Sea, saying the gods have abandoned him, and stepping off. Then it jumps back three weeks to show how he got there. (God of War (2005); God of War: Chains of Olympus)

The Aegean and the Hydra#

Three weeks earlier, in his tenth year of service, Kratos was in the Aegean on the gods' orders, fighting the Hydra that had been sinking ships. Poseidon lent him a share of his power for the fight. Kratos fought its smaller heads across the wrecked ships and killed the great head. Then he climbed into its throat, where the ship's Captain was still hanging on, alive. Kratos took the Captain's key and let him fall into the Hydra's belly, telling him he hadn't come back for him. (God of War (2005))

None of it helped. The visions of his family hadn't stopped, and he shouted at the sky that ten years of service had earned him nothing. Athena answered. Ares, jealous of her, was attacking her city of Athens, and Zeus had forbidden the gods to fight one another directly. Kratos was the only one who could stop him. If he killed Ares, Athena promised, the gods would forgive his past. (God of War (2005))

Athens and the Oracle#

Kratos sailed to Athens and fought through Ares's army in the streets. Along the way he killed the Gorgon Medusa and kept her head as a weapon, and Zeus appeared in his temple and gave him the power to throw lightning. In the distance he saw Ares himself, a giant tearing at the city, and swore to kill him. (God of War (2005))

The Oracle of Athens called to him, promising to teach him how to kill a god, but harpies carried her off before he reached her. Outside her temple Kratos met an old man digging a grave. Asked who it was for, the Grave Digger said it was for Kratos, and told him to finish his task so the gods would forgive him. Kratos left him and caught the Oracle as she was about to fall. She looked into his memories without asking, saw what he had done, and wondered aloud why Athena had chosen him. Then she told him what he needed. A mortal couldn't kill a god, but the power in Pandora's Box could, and the Box was in Pandora's Temple in the Desert of Lost Souls. Nobody who had gone after it had come back. (God of War (2005))

The desert and Pandora's Temple#

In the desert a statue of Athena explained that the temple was chained to the back of Cronos. Unlike the other Titans locked in Tartarus, Cronos had been condemned by Zeus to walk the desert forever carrying it. Kratos killed the three Sirens whose songs had hidden the way, blew a horn to summon the Titan, and spent three days climbing him. (God of War (2005))

At the temple gate an undead guardian, the first man who had ever tried for the Box, welcomed him in expecting him to fail like everyone else. Inside, Artemis gave him the Blade of Artemis, and Hades lent him the souls of the dead. He killed a giant armoured Minotaur, got through the temple's traps, and became the first mortal to take Pandora's Box. (God of War (2005))

Ares saw it from Athens. As Kratos dragged the Box out, Ares hurled a broken column across the desert, and it pinned Kratos to a wall. He died watching harpies carry the Box away, remembering the night he killed his family. (God of War (2005))

Back from the dead#

Kratos fell towards the River Styx, grabbed onto the boat Captain from the Hydra, who was clinging to the edge of a platform, and used him to climb up. Then he kicked him into the river. He fought his way through the Underworld until he found a rope hanging from above and climbed it. It brought him up through the grave outside the Oracle's temple. The Grave Digger said he'd only just finished it, and told Kratos that Athena wasn't the only god watching over him. When Kratos looked again the old man was gone. (God of War (2005))

The Oracle was dying. She told him Athens had fallen and all hope was lost. Kratos went on to the edge of the city, where Ares was boasting to Zeus that he would use the Box to bring down Olympus. Ares turned to find Kratos alive and laughed at Zeus for sending a broken mortal against him. Kratos used Zeus's lightning to break the chain holding the Box, took it and opened it. Its power flowed into him and he grew to a god's size. (God of War (2005))

They fought across the ruins. Losing, Ares pulled Kratos into a vision of the night of the temple. Kratos fought copies of himself to protect Lysandra and Calliope, and won, but Ares tore the Blades of Chaos off his arms and used them to kill the family again in front of him. As Ares moved to finish him, Kratos saw the Blade of the Gods, the colossal sword the gods had set outside Athens as a bridge, and picked it up. (God of War (2005))

The ending explained#

Kratos beat Ares down. Ares reminded him that he had saved Kratos's life against the barbarians, and said that making him kill his family was meant to turn him into the perfect warrior. "You succeeded," Kratos told him, and ran him through with the Blade of the Gods. Athens was saved. A mortal had killed a god. (God of War (2005))

Then Kratos asked for what he'd been promised. Athena told him the gods forgave his sins, but they had never promised to take away his memories. Nobody, man or god, could forget what he had done. So the game comes back to where it started. Kratos walked to the cliff over the Aegean and threw himself off. (God of War (2005))

He didn't die. Athena lifted him out of the sea, saying the gods would not let a man who had served them so well die by his own hand. As a reward, the gods offered him the empty throne of Ares, and Athena gave him the Blades of Athena to replace the ones Ares had taken. Kratos climbed the steps of Olympus to his throne room and became the new God of War. (God of War (2005))

What it means. The ending is bitter by design. Kratos got everything he asked for except the one thing he wanted. Forgiveness from the gods meant nothing while he could still see his wife and daughter every night, and his suicide is the first time he tries to take a way out the gods didn't offer. Athena's rescue looks like mercy, but it also keeps a useful weapon on Olympus. The last scene, Kratos alone on Ares's throne, sets up the trap the next games close: he has taken the role of the god who ruined him. (God of War (2005); God of War II)

What it leaves open. The game never says who the Grave Digger is, or why Athena cared so much about him. It doesn't explain what was really in the Box. God of War III answers that one: when Kratos opened it, the evils inside escaped into the gods, and the Hope Athena had left at the bottom went into Kratos. (God of War (2005); God of War III)

What it sets up#

The next story in order is Ghost of Sparta, where the new God of War goes looking for his mother and learns his brother Deimos is alive. After that comes God of War II, where Zeus turns on him. For every game in order, see the God of War story explained and the full God of War timeline. (God of War: Ghost of Sparta; God of War II)