It is not portraying the individual male or female characters of a given story in a certain way that is irrational or evil. Such a thing does not have to be sexist at all. The same is true of making a story that features mostly (or exclusively) male or female characters. The problem would be in the intention of promoting the fallacies of stereotypes, if applicable, or in mass trends of, say, presenting only women as sexual assault victims, presenting only women as having emotion and personal sensitivity, presenting only men as aggressive and domineering, and so on. Likewise, the mass creation of entertainment with mostly men or mostly women would be discriminatory, whether or not the stories promote stereotypes. Even if every character of either gender is largely portrayed as if stereotypes are true, but not every single one, this is idiotic because it contradicts the necessary truths of reason since nonphysical traits do not follow from having certain genitalia. Stereotypes also contradict social experiences [1], though reason is true and knowable independent of all sociality and sensory experience.
The 2018 God of War reboot, on one hand, focuses on largely male characters. It follows Kratos and his son Atreus, eventually joined by the reanimated head of Mimir, on their journey to spread the ashes of Kratos' wife from the highest point in all the nine realms of Norse mythology. Unlike with some contemporary games, the majority of the enemies seem to be resurrected or corrupted male soldiers called Draugr, at least when they are not animals like wolves. The duo winds up visiting a benevolent witch multiple times, this sorceress turning out to be the Vanir pseudo-goddess Freya. There are also actual female witches without alleged divine power (a created being like Freya or even Odin could not be an actual uncaused cause) called Revenants that must be fought to progress. One of them, encountered in an optional side quest, is named Gullveig. Then there are the nine Valkyries, spirits trapped in female bodies that the player can fight to liberate them--a pure spirit has no body and thus no genitalia no matter what the myths or popular culture interpretations of them would posit, so it cannot be male or female even if it presents itself as having the appearance of one gender.
On the other hand, although there are long stretches of the game with no female characters, the ones that are part of the story are very integral to moving the plot forward, highlight how women can be malicious and selfish (a sometimes very neglected truth), or showcase how women can be mighty warriors. The wife of Kratos and mother of Atreus, for instance, though she is used narratively as a significant catalyst that sparks the events of the game, is frequently spoken of by her surviving family members, and her death is a driving force for the plot. There is only something erroneous about a female character dying to push male characters forward (she has died before the game starts, however) if this end was all that female characters were used for across different stories or if it was meant, in this respective case, to degrade the gender of the character by favorably expressing sexist philosophical ideas. This is also not the case with the cameo of Athena, who might only appear as a hallucination, though having her post-mortem astral form from God of War III might point to her literally manifesting outside of Kratos' mind. Athena and her words are used to show how haunted Kratos is by his actions from Greece, a very fitting thematic inclusion.
Some people might think that using the Valkyries as optional and often very powerful bosses to be killed is disrespectful towards women. This is itself sexist: it is not that attacking women is always evil and attacking men is always permissible or at least not as bad. It is that attacking anyone because of their gender is sexist. In fact, it is highly sexist to think that having to fight or kill female characters is abominable, but not the other way around. The 2018 God of War is not misogynistic, and the way female characters of earlier games are utilized is not sexist in itself either, despite the occasional sex minigames (like on the boat at the beginning of the original God of War or with Aphrodite in God of War III) and partial nudity. After all, Kratos has his chest and much of his body exposed, and this is not sexist since the male and female bodies alike are just human bodies; his chest just might be perceived differently, to the detriment of both genders [2], by the typical idiotic non-rationalist than even nonsexual portrayals of female breasts, as with Eos, goddess of the dawn, when Kratos speaks with her in Chains of Olympus.
The God of War franchise has never contained any inherently misogynistic or misandrist leanings despite sometimes portraying things in line with various sexist ideologies and social practices. Actually, female characters have been a prominent or pivotal part of the franchise since its start, from the village oracle of the original game to Athena, who guided Kratos until her accidental killing, even aiding him in his quest against Zeus from her own intriguing afterlife in God of War III (and perhaps appearing in her spirit form in the 2018 game). Though they are closer to catalysts for the initial storyline, the deaths of the first wife and child of Kratos, named Lysandra and Calliope respectively, are of enormous significance in the series, for they are what drive Kratos to renounce service to Ares and serve the other Olympians as penance, though he comes to oppose them. As the Furies in Ascension, Persephone in Chains of Olympus, Gaia in multiple games, Hera in God of War III, and more show, as well as miscellaneous female enemies like gorgons, women are not gentle or peaceful or selfless because they are female. So much in the franchise brims with a philosophical depth that not everyone notices, and the way the series treats men and women is ultimately rather egalitarian, showing Kratos grapple with powerful emotions, women fighting and scheming, and a host of characters of each gender embrace varying moral alignments.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/refuting-gender-stereotypes-unnecessary.html
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