The God of War franchise began as a guilty pleasure — a playground for fun, frenetic violence and debauchery. At its core stood Kratos the almighty jerk, a leading candidate for the least likable protagonist in video game history. He was 7 feet of sinewy, pro wrestler-grade character flaws, and he wore them like a title belt. Kratos raged through sequels, bounded console generations and unleashed morally dubious destruction for nearly a decade — until 2013, after which the ancient Greek action star went uncharacteristically quiet. I didn’t mourn his absence. By the tail end of their first decade, Kratos and God of War games felt more derivative than edgy. I lost interest.

Then, during E3 2016, Sony released a trailer for a new God of War game. Kratos emerges from the shadows sporting a lumberjack’s beard. The camera lowers, revealing an overeager kid tagging along — Kratos’ son. An ax rests where Kratos’ Blades of Chaos should be. It looked like it came from different series altogether. On the same day as the trailer’s debut, Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlog wrote that he “wanted to reimagine the gameplay, give players a fresh perspective and a new tactile experience while delving deeper into the emotional journey of Kratos to explore the compelling drama that unfolds when an immortal demigod makes a decision to change.”

GOTY #1: God of War

For our 2018 guide to the best games of the year , Polygon has been counting down our top 10 each weekday, ending with our top choice — hello! — as well as the full list of our top 50 favorites from 2018 . And throughout the month, we’ll be looking back on the year with special videos, essays and surprises!

Nothing about the trailer or Barlog’s pitch sounded like the gore-soaked murder-fest I’d once loved. I was intrigued, if skeptical. I’ve played plenty of gritty, grown-up reboots, but he was describing something introspective. How could one game possibly redeem a garbage person like Kratos?

God of War is that sort of pseudo-reboot, without question. But where so many of its contemporaries re-emerged as benign clones of their predecessors, God of War charts a new course. It keeps a healthy and deliberate distance between its new direction and its predecessors while simultaneously burning the past as its fuel for change. Kratos hasn’t put down his weapons to become a pacifist. But he has changed, and the franchise has changed with him.

God of War

Release date: April 20, 2018

Platforms: PlayStation 4

Developer/Publisher: SIE Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Get it here: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop | PlayStation Store

The death of Faye, Kratos’ wife and Atreus’ mother, launches a father and son on a quest to scatter her ashes from the top of the highest mountain. But Faye lingers throughout the story, felt ephemerally through her absence and tangibly through the subtle handprints of golden paint she left before her passing — markers guiding her family farther from home but closer to each other.

That the environment’s ubiquitous navigational hints are an emotional story reveal, not just a means of the developers guiding us through the world, speaks to the way Barlog and his team justify every pebble of this game with an emotional intent, a small function in the astonishingly cohesive whole.

Among other big, AAA games of the year, God of War seems to be the porridge that’s just right. Marvel’s Spider-Man is mostly safe and familiar open-world ideas wrapped in beautiful synthetic webbing. It’s great, but it’s also deeply familiar. Red Dead Redemption 2 is astounding in scope and ultimately emotionally satisfying, but along the way it takes a few too many risks, some of which can spur an antagonistic relationship with its players. God of War’s structure is familiar, but its creators take calculated risk in its presentation.

This is God of War’s most remarkable achievement, the thing that made a good game great. There’s plenty of the franchise’s trademark gore coupled with deeply satisfying reimagined combat, but the specific creative decisions and their incredible technical execution elevate it to more than slasher film gross-outs. The way it proceeds in a single, uninterrupted shot without tedious backtracking. The way it tells a story with compassion and empathy, without throwing out the franchise’s established mythology. The way it gives Kratos a companion through the adventure, without making the boy feel like a burden — except for when a child should and would be a pain in the ass. The stunning midgame revelation tucked under floorboards, which we danced around like the dental floss kid after inhaling an entire box of Lucky Charms.

God of War embraces then de-emphasizes its vainglorious roots to tell a story about people struggling to survive. They’re powerful, but that power leaves them unpleasant, depressed and confused. It flips the emphasis from combat to narrative. Kratos’ “decision to change” — to be a better, more complete individual — is a mirror of the franchise, which, after a healthy hiatus, turned inward, mining its many flaws for some uncomfortable truths.

God of War doesn’t do just a few things well. It does nearly everything well, consistently and in harmony. It is exquisitely paced, doling out narrative and combat, puzzles and fighting, quiet moments and intense action without overdoing anything.

But what stays with me are the relationships between a mother, brothers, a man, a boy and a head. It is a staggering technical achievement of spectacle and violence in service of a heartbreaking story about relationships. God of War begins as a tenuous connection between an aloof father and a resentful son on a road trip. It becomes less of a journey to the top of a mountain than a series of lessons about learning to love — with all of the imperfect, sometimes shameful, often difficult realities that devoting yourself to others entails. It ushers its heroes, kicking and screaming, to the realization that to truly, deeply love something, you mustn’t contain it, you mustn’t prevent it from growing. People and ideas change. Impede them at your detriment.

People often criticize sequels for being lazy and unimaginative. “Hollywood is all out of ideas!” they shout at the resurrection of yet another ’90s sitcom. They may broadly have a point. But not here. Not in this case.

God of War is proof that sequels can also be opportunities, not just to make something new but interrogate something old. They can be better. That’s exciting, because it also suggests that the next entry — and the one after that — won’t be static continuations of what worked in 2018, but games that reflect their own moment. God of War succeeds by defining this year in games, by balancing familiarity and risk to become not derivative, but transformative.

God of War is our No. 1 game of 2018, but we also recommend 49 others, spanning a variety of styles, genres, platforms and perspectives. You can read about them in Polygon’s Top 50 Games of 2018!