Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is doing exactly what a great epic should: leaving audiences dazed, exhilarated, and desperate for more. But 70mm IMAX screenings are scarce, so if your instinct is to reach for a controller instead, here’s the surprising twist — ancient Greek mythology is far rarer in games than you’d expect. The good news? The bangers that do exist span nearly every genre.
The obvious starting point shares the film’s title. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey plants you in the Peloponnesian War (circa 420s BCE), rubbing shoulders with Euripides and Socrates while occasionally wrestling a Cyclops, Sphinx, or Minotaur. It’s the biggest, most RPG-heavy entry in the series, and one of the most charming. Play it on PS4, Windows PC, or Xbox One.
For sheer god-slaying spectacle, Santa Monica Studio’s original God of War trilogy lets the furious Spartan Kratos carve through Olympus. A PS5 remake of the trilogy is in development, but for now the PS3-era remasters stream via PlayStation Plus, and God of War 3’s PS4 version runs on PS5.
The finest gods in all of gaming, though, belong to Supergiant’s Hades and Hades 2 — vain, seductive, tender, and razor-sharp roguelikes to boot. They’re everywhere: PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Loot addicts should try Titan Quest, essentially Diablo in ancient Greece, still thriving on Steam two decades on (the Anniversary Edition covers PS4, Switch, Windows PC, and Xbox One). Its inspiration, Ensemble Studios’ Age of Mythology, flips the script — command your Cyclops and Hydra rather than fight them. The 2024 remaster, Age of Mythology: Retold, is on Windows PC.
Strategy fans craving the film’s actual subject matter should grab A Total War Saga: Troy (Windows PC), based on The Iliad, where you can lead troops as Odysseus of Ithaca himself.
For style, Apotheon (PS4, Windows PC) renders its Metroidvania combat as living Greek pottery — silhouetted figures gliding across luminous backdrops. On the sunnier side, Ubisoft’s Zelda-flavored Immortals Fenyx Rising has you saving the gods for once, across Switch, PS4, PS5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
A deep cut for the completists: Spartan: Total Warrior, Creative Assembly’s 2005 swords-and-sandals brawler, survives only on GameCube, PS2, or Xbox.
Finally, the wildcard. Shadow of the Colossus abandons Greece entirely yet captures Nolan’s mood best — majestic, sorrowful, epic, drenched in that cool bleached palette. Scaling towering stone giants for reasons left unspoken, it’s also the only game here bold enough to suggest that toppling the ancient forces of the world might, actually, be a tragedy. The PS2 original, PS3 remaster, and PS4 remake are all superb.
