Exactly 12 years ago today, we played the lowest-rated game in the God of War series – the chronologically earliest God of War: Ascension.
With which game did Kratos’ story begin? Many will say with the original God of War from 2005. However, chronologically, the story of the God of War series only started in the seventh game – God of War Ascension. We played it on the PlayStation 3 console exactly 12 years ago today.
In this prequel, we saw a suffering Kratos after a family tragedy. After being tricked by the god of war Ares into harming his own family, Kratos renounces Ares and breaks his blood oath, causing him to be captured and tortured by three furies. However, Kratos breaks free and sets out on a revenge campaign against the furies.
The gameplay in Ascension was quite similar to that of the previous games. However, there was also news. Kratos in addition to his Chaos Blades could pick up other weapons as well and use them for a limited time. The mechanic of holding the opponent was also introduced, which could then be discarded.
The biggest novelty and uniqueness of Ascension was the first and only multiplayer in the God of War game. It was exclusively online multiplayer in which up to eight players played. This is where players first controlled mere mortals, that is. characters who sided with different deities such as Ares, Hades, Zeus or Poseidon. It was played through five different modes and on 15 different maps, and the battles were predominantly team-based.
Despite the additional content that followed two months after the game’s launch, the multiplayer in God of War: Ascension just wasn’t very popular. At the end of the same year in 2013, it was already announced that the game would not receive new content. However, its servers are still alive in 2025, and multiplayer can still be played today.
God of War: Ascension sold three million copies, which is not a bad result. However, he was the first GOW game to not win any awardsand with an average rating of 80 on Metacritic, it was and remains the lowest rated part of the series. This game was followed by the longest break for the series and a reboot in which Kratos returned stronger than before. Ascension, on the other hand, remained “trapped” on the PlayStation 3 and cannot be played on the current PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles.