“We all gotta take responsibility sometime, huh?” mutters a young child as he quietly slings a well-worn bow over his back. His eyes never break with the towering presence nearby, a man the child calls father. To those unfortunate enough to have crossed paths with him, though, it’s Kratos, god of war. Most who question him slide through his fiery blades, blood scattered to the winds, but his son, Atreus, is different. So is this God of War. Using Atreus as a vehicle, his creators have decided to turn the tables on him, and therefore, themselves. What does it mean to create, to be, a monster?

But God of War, releasing next week on PlayStation 4, is a functional reboot of the long running series. Though it takes place in the same timeline as the previous games, set years after God of War III, it’s a radical rethinking of what it means to play a God of War game and tell a God of War story.

As the roman numerals on the games went up, so did the much-applauded spectacle. Bigger monsters, larger fights, and an escalation of violence to go with it. But it increasingly revealed the series—and Kratos himself—as one-noted. It was hard to fathom how one would even go about topping God of War III’s escalation, so for a while, they just didn’t.

It’s been 13 years since God of War arrived on PlayStation 2, a game whose sense of grandiosity, penchant for violence, and overwrought gravitas was utterly captivating. It looked incredible, played nearly as well, and delivered the kind of cinematic thrill ride video games promised for decades. The game’s still-memorable intro, an electrifying battle against a screen-filling Hydra, summed up the original God of War’s pitch. A badass with a purpose, tricked into killing his wife and daughter by an all-powerful deity, God of War came at a time when the notion of a “gritty” premise and an anti-hero didn’t draw critical eyerolls; it was new. It helped Kratos felt like a character with meaningful depth and pathos—more than one normally expected from an action game about fighting giant monsters, anyway.

The biggest question mark about the game has been all about one of those core relationships: the one between Kratos and his son, Atreus.

Kratos’ ultimate goal in previous games has ranged anywhere from tracking down and killing a god to declaring war on every god for how they’ve wronged him. Here, though, it’s much simpler: Kratos’ wife, the mother of his son, has died, and her last wish was to have her ashes scattered from the highest point in the realm. From the opening moments to the final credits, most of the action in God of War is about this one goal. (Don't fret; an early moment suggests outside actors have their own agendas, and the game certainly indulges in the audacious spectacle that’s defined the series for years.) This focus informs the action, it informs the story, and most importantly, it defines the core relationships.

God of War isn’t the first game to propose a sidekick, but there’s a reason most games avoid the temptation: It often doesn’t work. How many times have you screamed at incompetent AI, knowing their mistakes were responsible for your death? It drags everything down. Fortunately, Atreus not only works, but he’s the reason the game works at all. The roughly 10-year-old (it’s not fully said) is tightly woven into the game’s combat and story: In fights, he’s a versatile tool for tackling those in your way, and in cutscenes and conversations he’s the audience surrogate, a living metanarrative critique of Kratos’ purpose for existence.

Like many video game sidekicks, Atreus can die, but God of War gives you ample warning when he’s in danger. It’s also easy to get him back, and any hazard he’s in is usually because you’re doing a crap job of managing the fight itself. At the start of the game, Atreus does little more than pelt enemies with arrows as a distraction, but as you unlock new abilities over the course of the story, you’re given all sorts of options for how to use him, both depending on the situation and your style of play.

As Atreus progresses from skittish to empowered in combat, he does the same in the game’s story. His performance is charming, exasperating, and adorable in all the ways you’d expect from someone his age. Instead of a distraction, he’s a welcomed foil to the cynical Kratos, a character who’s spent his life rhetorically and actionably unchallenged. Kratos’ penchant for punching first and asking questions later remains a singular driver in the story, but now, Atreus becomes a real-time counter to often his questionable decision making.

At one point, after seeking out a magical item needed for the quest to continue, Kratos and Atreus end up in the middle of a conflict between two sides. Kratos doesn’t know who’s good and who’s bad, only that whoever gets in the way should probably stop—or die. After killing a boss-like character, there’s a moment where the creature begins speaking. One of the game’s regular riffs is how Kratos’ strength does little to help him understand other people, while Atreus has spent his life learning about other people and culture from his mother. When the creature talks, Kratos holds a punch while Atreus translates his speech. What Atreus hears startles him to the core: The creature claims they’re slaughtering good people.

Atreus: "Did we pick the wrong side?"

Kratos**:** "I..."

Atreus: "Are you going to give me some smug response about how you shouldn't care?"

Kratos: "Hrmph."

Moments like this permeate the story, changing in tone and meaning as the relationship between the two changes. (It’s also remarkably funny? As in, regularly making you chuckle out loud funny?) You can imagine what happens as Atreus grows confidence, and Kratos is forced to reckon with an individual he can’t suddenly dismiss with his fists. The most powerful storytelling in God of War has nothing to do with how the larger narrative—the war between the gods—plays out, but how Kratos and Atreus explore being father and son, now that Kratos can no longer rely on his wife to be the medium between them. He’s the parent.