God Of War 1 Direct

Most games use the "sex minigame" as a reward. In GOW1 , Kratos sleeps with two women in a ship captain’s quarters immediately after he lets that same captain die to a Hydra. The act isn't erotic; it's gratuitous and cruel. It establishes immediately that Kratos isn't a power fantasy—he's a monster you happen to control.

By 2005 standards, Kratos was a revolutionary protagonist—not because he was strong, but because he was pathetic . He spends the entire game trying to erase his past (killing his family), only to be told by Athena that the Gods won't forgive him; they’ll just make him forget. The "happy ending" is actually a lobotomy. The final shot of him sitting on the throne, detached from humanity, is deeply tragic, not triumphant. God of War 1

God of War (2005) is fascinating because it established a template that the series would later spend nearly two decades subverting. Here are a few interesting angles about that first game: Most games use the "sex minigame" as a reward