How it compares to the games around it

✚ Checked 2026-11-15 · PS5 1.005.000 / PS4 launch build · 2 sources

Where it sits, in three different senses

Comparing Sons of Sparta to "the other God of War games" is three separate comparisons, and conflating them is why the conversation around it was confused.

Against God of War: Betrayal (2007)

The only other 2D game in the series, and the obvious comparison by format.

The interesting difference is the structure. Betrayal was 2D because the hardware demanded it; Sons of Sparta is 2D as a deliberate art and design choice, with "high-definition pixel art" as a stated pillar and a Metroidvania map to match. Same format, opposite reasons.

Against Ascension (2013) and the Greek era

Chronologically this is the earliest story, sitting before Ascension and before the Ghost of Sparta flashbacks. That has two consequences:

• The weapon gap is real. No Blades of Chaos, because the story predates them. Spear and shield instead.
• The tone is domestic. Adult Kratos narrates to his daughter Calliope, which places the frame story before the tragedy of the first game. The subject is a thirteen-year-old at training camp, not a god-killer.

That second consequence is where the series' own creator objected, calling the portrayal of young Kratos generic and arguing the game does not reflect the licence. That is a substantive criticism from a specific vantage point — the person who defined what "God of War" means — and it is the strongest version of the "this is not really God of War" argument.

Against the Norse era (2018, Ragnarök)

This is the comparison with the least overlap and the most marketing weight.

Sony's own framing is that this is a canon story from the same writers, not a side project. That is the pitch: the Norse games' narrative credibility applied to a deliberately smaller, retro-styled game.

Whether that holds up is exactly what the reviews split on — narrative credited, genre execution criticised.

The price comparison is the real one

At half the price for half the hours, the value is roughly proportional. That is worth saying because "$29.99" is sometimes used to argue the game is a bargain that excuses its flaws — it is not a bargain, it is a proportionate one.

Where it genuinely beats its predecessors

Three things, and they are not nothing:

1. The platinum is the easiest in the series. 4/10 difficulty, 20+ hours, 0 missable trophies, and no difficulty requirement. Compare that to any Norse-era platinum.
2. No New Game Plus requirement. There is no NG+ at all, so the platinum is one playthrough plus clean-up.
3. It fills a canon gap that has been open since 2010. Deimos was a backstory event in Ghost of Sparta; here he is a character.

The honest summary

Sons of Sparta is not a smaller version of the Norse games and it is not a modernised Betrayal. It is a $29.99 canon prequel in a genre the series had not attempted, made by a studio (Mega Cat) with a pixel-art reputation, written by the series' own narrative team, and scored by Bear McCreary.

Judged as a God of War story, it was received well. Judged as a Metroidvania, it was not. Both judgments are about the same object.

What this page is not

It is not a ranking. Ordering these games by quality would be an opinion dressed as a table, and the series spans 20 years and four hardware generations — the comparison that actually helps a buyer is the one above, which is about what each game asks of you.