Every Kratos Kill Ever: God of War 1

Before the first God of War game was released, most people had a pretty clear idea of Greek mythology and the history of the ancient myths. Maybe we learned it from our first-year class in college, maybe we got all we needed to know watching Disney’s Hercules or the lesbian adventure Xena: Warrior Princess. Regardless, the mythology seemed set in stone (and probably was in the case of many stories), and to go and change it on us this late in the game seems ridiculous. However, that’s exactly what Santa Monica Studios did with the invention of Kratos, gaming’s most beloved serial killer and the slayer of all we know about Greek mythology. With the release of God of War: Ghost of Sparta, I thought it might be handy as a quick reference guide to take a look back at the God of War series and remember just how much of Greek mythology Kratos has butchered.

As a side note, this isn’t everyone whom Kratos has met or even witnessed die. These are the figures or creatures or even inanimate objects that he himself has slain. I’ve also only included the major figures. There have been countless cronies to fall under his blade through the years, all the cyclops and chimera and sirens, but their repetition derives them of their significance, for the most part. This is part one in an ongoing series that be published in order by release date, ending with Ghost of Sparta. Of course, beware, for there are spoilers aplenty within these articles.

You can use the links below to jump to the series of kills you want to prime yourself on as they get released in the next couple of days.

God of War 1 – God of War 2 – Chains of Olympus – God of War 3 – Ghost of Sparta

God of War 1

The Hydra

The very first adventure that PlayStation 2 owners were able to take Kratos on started off with a pretty monumental bang. As the game starts up, players are thrown aboard a sinking fleet that is being mauled by a giant sea creature with three heads. Kratos is forced to battle said heads at various spots, even once inside the corridors of a ship. The level culminates in a final battle with all three heads at once that acts as a staged boss fight where Kratos must deal with two minor heads before tackling the main vein. The Hydra is a popular beast in Greek mythology, and the legend goes that if one cuts off a head, three more will grow in its place. Kratos does the smart thing and impales each head on various parts of the ship. This causes two of the heads to explode for some reason that defies the laws of physics, but, well, it looked cool! In the original myths, the Hydra is a beast slain by Hercules as one of his many trials. Fortunately, God of War takes a few liberties with which creatures and beings are alive or dead in its interpretation. And in many ways, this first fight is definitive of the entire series. Kratos tackles something much bigger and grander than himself, does so fearlessly and without any thought of his own safety, and then butchers it in brutal fashion. It’s the beginning of something truly special.

Medusa

Like the Hydra, the mind jumps to the figure of Medusa pretty quickly when thinking of Greek myths. Medusa was a gorgon, a woman turned into an abomination by the goddess Athena when Athena caught Medusa and Poseidon befouling one of the goddess of wisdom’s temples. In another telling, the three gorgons were born monsters from ancient sea deities Phorcys and Ceto. God of War seems to borrow from both versions. Traditionally, gorgons have been snake-haired women capable of turning anyone to stone with a mere glance, and the God of War series uses them very liberally after this first encounter. In one of the most famous myths, the hero Perseus slays Medusa and uses her dismembered head to stone the great Kraken. Kratos does something similar, defeating her and using her head through the rest of his adventure as a magic attack to stone enemies. Unlike Perseus, Kratos doesn’t cut off her head, but instead tears it off with his bare hands, a gesture fans of the series have become quite familiar with. The guy likes using his hands.

The Minotaur

The story of the minotaur is a particularly graphic one in Greek mythology. As legend would have it, king Minos of Crete requested from Poseidon a white bull, to prove to his throne-challenging brothers that he was the favored of the gods. Poseidon sent the bull, but instead of sacrificing it as he should have, Minos kept it. Angered by his indifference to the gods, Aphrodite made Minos’ wife fall in love with the bull. She coerced the famous inventor Daedalus to craft for her a wooden cow, which she then climbed into and copulated with the white bull. The union of this offspring was the Minotaur, and it become so vicious growing up that Minos crafted a great maze for it underneath his city. The hero Theseus would one day slay the Minotaur, securing his legend as a hero, though he too would fall victim to Kratos’ blades. In God of War, the Minotaur is an armored giant, covered in heavy steel plates that Kratos must chip away before he can eventually impale the beast to a door. He also has the power to breathe fire, for whatever reason. Minotaurs become a fairly common fight in the series, and generally appear in their slightly larger-than-man size. Their horns are also used as collectibles to augment Kratos’ item usage bar.

Ares

And now we come to the god that started it all. Ares is one of the most famous figures in mythology, and with good reason. He is, quite literally, the god of war, and without him this series of video games wouldn’t exist (or at least it would have a very different name). Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera, and is the first of the true Pantheon that Kratos encounters in the series (Persephone, despite her lineage, is a fairly minor god). Kratos’ history with Ares is the source of all the tragedy and horror in the Spartan warrior’s life. In a moment of what we hesitantly might call cowardice, Kratos called out to Ares to save him, offering up his very existence in return for the means to slay the Barbarian King. From this moment on, Kratos became the tool of Ares, his avatar on Earth to reign chaos down upon the unwitting citizens of the ancient world. It was this bestowed bloodlust that would eventually cause Kratos to murder his wife and child, an act that pulled away the curtains and revealed his service for what it really was: blind slavery.

Though still bound by the Blades of Chaos, it was after this that Kratos eventually embarked upon his original quest to slay the god of war, a feat that required him to procure Pandora’s Box and take its power to kill a god. With a vacuum of power in Olympus, Kratos was then forced to take up the mantle of god of war himself, and as we would later learn this fit him well as he was the son of Zeus from the very beginning.

With Ares, we will close out this first bit of butchery and mayhem. In relative terms, what we’ve seen up to this point is fairly minor when considering the rest of the series. A god and a handful of mythical monsters is small potatoes compared to what Kratos will go on to accomplish, which we’ll see in the next installment which will be God of War 2. If I’ve forgotten anyone major to fall beneath the twin Blades, feel free to chastise me in the comments below! Sometimes it’s hard to remember just how many figures Kratos has killed. What was your favorite fight in the first venture into the series with God of War 1?