Yes and no, You can play it and not know anything about the others but it helps so it paints Kratos' background a bit better and certain things ingame will have you going "oooooohhhh I know what that is".
You could just watch a quick summary of Kratos's past. I knew the bare minimum and I understood why he acted the way he did at certain points though I definitely probably missed some moments that Dice is referring to.
Either way it's a phenomenal game. 10/10 easily for me
While I'd still prefer the original God of War style, I will definitely play this!
I haven't played GoW 3 and Ascension, though. So these news are nudging me into getting a tool to work that was reported on here some weeks ago as well
I bought this one launch, I let my brother play while I watched. I got a call that night and had to travel for work. When I got back I just never played it and its still unplayed to this day. The pc release could be an excuse to get me to play it now especially with ultrawide support.