God of War: Chains of Olympus is a hack and slash, action-adventure game developed by Ready At Dawn exclusively for the Sony PlayStation Portable. The game is the third title of the God of War video game series and is a prequel set before the original God of War. The game was released on March 4, 2008 in North America, March 28, 2008 in Europe and July 10, 2008 in Japan. This game is the second project developed for the PSP by Ready at Dawn, who was responsible for making the critically acclaimed Daxter, another handheld spin-off of a console series.[6]

The gameplay of Chains of Olympus is similar to its predecessors; it is a third-person action adventure game that focuses on gruesome and violent enemy death scenes and protracted boss fights. Also familiar to the series are box-based puzzles and the quick time events that the player can execute to display a close up kill of the enemy. There are fewer tightrope walking sequences in the game that was prominent in previous games of the series.

Kratos still collects red orbs to power up his weapons and abilities. He also collects Gorgon eyes to increase his health and Phoenix feathers to increase his magic(In the PS2 version of the game Kratos needs to collect 6 but in the PSP he only needs to get 5). The game's controls remain mostly unchanged but because of the PSP's reduced amount of buttons the game uses both shoulder buttons and the analog stick in order to dodge.

God of War's weapons include Kratos's trademark Blades of Chaos, the weapon that was given to Kratos by Ares when Kratos agreed to serve him and the Gauntlet of Zeus, a magical gauntlet that allows Kratos to unleash devastating punches on his opponents. There is also a Sun Shield that Kratos picks up that allows him to block most attacks, parry an attack that stuns the opponent and also deflect projectiles back at enemies. Kratos also acquires magical spells throughout the game that helps him deal with the amount of enemies he faces. This includes the Efreet spell, which knocks out all nearby enemies, the Light of Dawn, which allows the player to throw balls of light, and Charon's Wrath, which can inflict damage on several enemies. There are three major bosses in the game: the basilisk, Charon and Persephone, as well as a shorter mini-boss fight with a Persian king