God Of War: Sons Of Sparta review – you’re the boy now, Kratos

Kratos returns to Ancient Greece with a tale from his youth, in this new Metroidvania that tries to make the God Of War formula work in 2D.

Given what a huge critical and commerical success 2022’s God of War Ragnarök was, the franchise now stands in surprisingly murky waters. There’s still no sign of a direct follow-up, with developer Santa Monica Studio rumoured to be working on a new title that is not God Of War related. Unless, that is, they’re also doing the recently announced remake of the first three games, but that still hasn’t been confirmed.

It’s all very unclear and into that miasma of uncertainty comes Sons Of Sparta, a 2D Metroidvania by the virtually unknown Mega Cat Studios. Although a spin-off had been rumoured for some time the game was shadow-dropped during the last State of Play, ensuring there were no reviews before launch – just a worryingly large price tag.

At first glance, Sons Of Sparta does not seem encouraging, with low tech visuals that look no better, and in some cases notably worse, than a dozen other indie Metroidvanias. Those first impressions remain unchanged for the first several hours, but while the game does get better with time it’s not wholly satisfying to either God Of War fans or those that just want to play a good Metroidvania.

It’s been 13 years since the last God Of War game was set in Ancient Greece. Given the breakout success of 2018’s soft reboot, there will be many people that never even realised that’s how the series started off, with only a few minor references to it in the two recent games (although there was a bit more of it in Ragnarök’s DLC). Given the upcoming TV series is also set in the continuity of the Norse adventures it’s a surprise for Sony to suddenly change tack and start digging up the past.

In story terms, Sons Of Sparta is a fairly straightforward prequel, as a pre-deification Kratos narrates to his daughter a story from his teenage years. At this point he still gets on well with his brother Deimos, as the two set off on a rescue mission across Sparta. There is a co-op mode, but weirdly it can only be unlocked after beating the story campaign on your own, by which point you are likely to have had more than enough of the game.

That’s not quite the barb it might seem, as Sons Of Sparta is a long game and the first several hours are by far its weakest, until it starts offering up more substantial challenges and boss encounters. Even the visuals are at their worst at the start, so while the game’s 50 shades of brown colour scheme seems off-putting it’s not always as drab and ugly as it first seems. Although the animation never gets any better and remains stiff and unconvincing throughout.

As a Metroidvania, Sons Of Sparta is perfectly capable, with lots of areas being inaccessible at the start, all sitting there waiting for you to get the appropriate item or ability to circumvent them, from a sling that can activate distant switches to various magic totems. The central hub in the main city is unusually large and unwieldy but otherwise traversal and progression works largely as you would expect, with fairly clear signposting.

Metroidvania is not much of a stretch for God Of War, which has always had elements of the genre, but the obvious problem with making it a 2D game is that the combat is made considerably more simplistic, especially as Kratos doesn’t have the Blades of Chaos or any of his other more famous gear. Instead, he primarily uses a spear and shield, but even with a dash move and parry that starts to get old very quickly.

Kratos does learn to use magic quite early on, but it doesn’t stop most fights being overly long and lacking the physicality of the mainline titles. No matter how good you get at poking monsters with your spear it’s physically impossible to make short work of anything, because even the cannon fodder enemies act like damage sponges and always seem to take longer to defeat than you’d like, regardless of how much you’ve upgraded yourself.

The game tries to adopt elements of recent Soulslikes (although it’s not particularly hard), with a bewildering array of colour-code warnings that mean you have to block blue attacks, dodge red ones, parry yellow ones, and just get out of the way of purple ones. Enemies also have coloured outlines that work along the same logic, but it all seems very artificial, more like a rhythm action game than a nuanced combat system.

In terms of role-playing elements, the game mimics the Norse games as closely as possible, which is a shame as their overwrought system is easily the worst part of those games. You always have far too many options, and yet almost none of the gear and skill tree upgrades makes any appreciable difference, so you just stop paying attention. The 3D games never acknowledged this as an issue, so it’s not a surprise that this doesn’t either, but it still boils down to a lot of unwanted menu screen busywork.

Although the script is able to contrast the authoritarian Kratos with the more humanistic approach of Deimos the story is not particularly gripping and the stakes surprisingly small. Santa Monica Studio provided the dialogue to the game but while the script is fine, the story itself doesn’t feel like one that needed to be told.

Needless to say, the world also did not need another 2D Metroidvania and while this is mostly competent it’s nothing more than that and there are dozens of better alternatives available – from Animal Well to Hollow Knight: Silksong – most of which are also cheaper than this. If the God Of War name is enough to tempt then you won’t be entirely disappointed but if that’s not a draw for you, Sons Of Sparta has little else to offer beyond the Metroidvania average.

Formats: PlayStation 5
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Mega Cat Studios
Release Date: 12th February 2026
Age Rating: 16

Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

Comments Add as preferred source