Based in ancient history, the story follows the titular protagonist, Kratos, a Spartan warrior and later the 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 pantheons. The Greek era of the series sees Kratos follow a path of vengeance due to the machinations of the Olympian Gods, while the Norse era, which introduces his son Atreus as a secondary protagonist, shows an older Kratos on a path of redemption, which inadvertently brings the two into conflict with the Norse Gods.