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A film adaptation of the original installment had been in development but was ultimately canceled however, a television series adaptation of the Norse era is in development for Amazon Prime Video. Strong sales and support of the series led to the franchise's expansion into other media, such as three comic book series and three novels. As of November 2020, the franchise has sold over 51 million games worldwide. Some games have also been remastered for newer PlayStation platforms. The series has received numerous awards, including several Game of the Year recognitions for the 20 installments. Games in the series have been praised as some of the best action games of all time. A sequel, Ragnarök, was released in November 2022 on the PS4 and PlayStation 5 (PS5) and concluded the Norse era.
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It was accompanied by a short prequel, A Call from the Wilds (2018), a text-based game through Facebook Messenger. The Norse era began with the 2018 game God of War and released for the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and later Windows in January 2022. Other games include Chains of Olympus (2008) and Ghost of Sparta (2010) for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Betrayal (2007) for mobile phones that supported the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME).
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A prequel, Ascension (2013), was also released for the PS3. God of War (2005), God of War II (2007), and God of War III (2010) comprise its main trilogy the first two were released on the PS2 with the third on the PlayStation 3 (PS3). The first seven games make up the Greek era of the franchise. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has published all games except the mobile phone installment, which was published by Sony Pictures Digital. Santa Monica has developed all main entries, while Ready at Dawn and Javaground/ Sony Online Entertainment-Los Angeles (SOE-LA) developed the three side games.
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The Greek-based games see Kratos follow a path of vengeance due to the machinations of the Olympian gods, while the Norse-based games, which introduce his son Atreus as a secondary protagonist, show an older Kratos on a path of redemption and inadvertently coming into conflict with the Norse gods. This sets off a series of events that leads to wars with the different mythological pantheons. Based on ancient mythologies, the story follows Kratos, a Spartan warrior and later the Greek God of War, who was tricked into killing his family by his former master, the original Greek God of War Ares. It began in 2005 on the PlayStation 2 (PS2) video game console and has become a flagship series for PlayStation, consisting of nine installments across multiple platforms. God of War is an action-adventure game franchise created by David Jaffe at Sony's Santa Monica Studio.
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