He stood on the back of a mountain-sized Titan, screaming at the sky. It was 2010. The gaming world had never seen anything like the opening sequence of God of War 3. Most of us sitting in front of our fat PlayStation 3 consoles were genuinely worried the hardware might melt. It didn't, obviously. But the scale of that game changed the industry forever. Even now, over fifteen years later, there’s a massive argument to be made that Sony Santa Monica peaked right then and there.
Kratos wasn't "Dad-tos" back then. He wasn't reflecting on his sins or trying to be a better man for Atreus. He was a singular, vibrating chord of pure, unadulterated rage. He wanted to kill Zeus. He wanted to burn Olympus to the ground. Honestly? He didn't care who got in the way.
The sheer scale of God of War 3 ruined other games
Scale is a word marketing teams love to throw around. Usually, it's a lie. In God of War 3, it was the literal foundation of the level design. You weren't just running through a forest; you were running across the arm of Gaia as she scaled Mount Olympus.
The technical wizardry required to make that work on the PS3’s Cell processor is still studied by devs today. Stig Asmussen, the game’s director, pushed for a level of cinematic brutality that felt almost illegal at the time. Remember the Poseidon fight? We didn't just watch Kratos beat a god. We saw the fight through Poseidon’s eyes. We felt the thumbs press into the sockets. It was visceral. It was uncomfortable. It was exactly what the series needed to fulfill the promise of the first two games.
Most modern games use "dynamic" cameras. God of War 3 used a "directed" camera. You couldn't move it. Some people hated that, but it allowed the developers to frame Kratos against backdrops that looked like Renaissance paintings dipped in blood. By locking the perspective, they could pour every ounce of the console's power into what you were actually seeing. That’s why the 2015 Remastered version on PS4 still looks better than many native PS5 titles today. Lighting and art direction beat raw polygon counts every single time.
Why the combat feels better than the Norse games
This is where the hot takes start flying. The 2018 reboot and Ragnarok are masterpieces of storytelling, sure. But the combat in God of War 3 has a rhythm that the newer over-the-shoulder games just can’t replicate.
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- The "Square, Square, Triangle" combo is iconic for a reason.
- The Blades of Exile felt like they had infinite reach.
- You had the Cestus, the Claws of Hades, and the Nemesis Whip, all swappable mid-combo.
It was a dance. A very, very violent dance. In the newer games, the camera is tucked so tight to Kratos's back that you lose that sense of battlefield awareness. You rely on colored arrows to tell you when someone is sneaking up behind you. In the third game, you saw everyone. You grabbed a harpy, flew across a chasm, and ripped the head off a Helios soldier in one fluid motion. It was faster. Snappier. Kratos felt like a god of war, not a heavy tank.
The "Everything Must Die" philosophy
There’s a specific kind of darkness in this game that the series eventually moved away from. By the time you reach the final act of God of War 3, the world is literally falling apart. You kill Poseidon, and the oceans rise to swallow the earth. You kill Helios, and the sun disappears. You kill Hermes, and a plague ravages the land.
Kratos is the villain of this story.
Let's be real. He isn't saving anyone. He's a man who has decided that his personal revenge is worth the literal apocalypse. That kind of narrative bravery is rare. Most studios want their protagonists to be "relatable" or "likable." Kratos in this era was neither. He was a force of nature. When he used a civilian as a doorstop—literally jamming a screaming woman into a gear mechanism to keep a gate open—the game forced you to realize how far gone he was.
The boss fights that defined a generation
Chronos. That’s the one everyone remembers.
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Fighting a boss that is also the level you are standing on was a mind-blowing concept. When Kratos is standing on the fingernail of the Titan Chronos, he is a speck. A tiny, angry dot. Then he drives a blade into that fingernail, and you feel the scale shift. It wasn't just a Quick Time Event (QTE) fest; it was a choreography of gore.
Compare that to the boss fights in most modern Action-RPGs. Usually, it's just a bigger health bar and a few glowing weak points. God of War 3 treated every god like a unique puzzle. Hades felt like a wrestling match in a graveyard. Hercules was a mirror match against a brother who felt slighted. Every encounter ended with a permanent change to the world map.
The technical legacy of 2010
Santa Monica Studio did things with the PS3 that shouldn't have been possible. They used something called "MLAA" (Morphological Anti-Aliasing) which was a software-based way to smooth out jagged edges without killing the frame rate. It gave the game a crisp, clean look that survived the transition to HD displays much better than its peers.
The character model for Kratos went from about 5,000 polygons on the PS2 to over 20,000 in this game. Most of those were put into his face. You could see the pores. You could see the individual flakes of ash from his family’s remains bonded to his skin. It was a flex. The developers were essentially telling the rest of the industry, "This is the bar. Good luck."
Is the Remastered version worth playing?
Yes. 100%. If you haven't played the God of War 3 Remastered on PS4 or PS5 via backward compatibility, you're missing out on the smoothest version of the experience. It runs at a locked 60 frames per second at 1080p. On a modern screen, the fluidity makes the combat feel even more responsive.
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Some textures look a bit flat by today's standards, especially the environmental rock faces, but the character models and the sheer volume of blood spray still hold up. It’s also usually dirt cheap during PlayStation Store sales.
What most people miss about the ending
People talk about the "Hope" speech at the end like it was a bit cheesy. Maybe it was. But look at the context. Kratos finally realizes that the cycle of vengeance has left him with a world of nothing. He "wins," but there's no one left to rule. No one left to save.
The act of turning the Blade of Olympus on himself wasn't just a suicide attempt; it was the only selfless thing he had done in three games. He gave the power of Hope back to the remnants of humanity instead of letting Athena have it. It was the perfect bridge to his later character development in the Norse realms. Without that moment of total desolation, his "redemption" in the 2018 game wouldn't have felt earned. It would have felt like a soft reboot. Instead, it was a sequel to a tragedy.
How to experience God of War 3 today
If you’re looking to dive back in or experience it for the first time, don't just mash buttons. To really appreciate what makes this game special, you should:
- Play on Titan (Hard) difficulty. The "Normal" mode lets you breeze through, but on Titan, you actually have to use the parry system and the secondary weapons. It turns the game into a tactical brawler.
- Pay attention to the background. During the Titan battles, look at the other Titans in the distance fighting the gods. They aren't just looped animations; they are part of the massive, scripted sequences happening in real-time.
- Check out the "Making Of" documentaries. Many versions of the game come with "Unearthing the Legend." It shows how they built the Chronos fight, and it’s a masterclass in game design.
- Use the Remastered Photo Mode. It was one of the first games to really embrace a robust photo mode, and it lets you see the incredible detail in the gore and the environments that you usually zip past at 60fps.
The game is a relic of a time when "AAA" meant a tight, 10-hour, linear explosion of creativity rather than a 100-hour open-world checklist. It’s focused. It’s mean. It’s arguably the most "video game" video game ever made.