With the dust just about settling on the ground in the aftermath of E3 2021, there’s a palpable sense of anticipation building on the internet surrounding Sony’s enduring radio silence. Skipping gaming’s equivalent of Christmas morning again has led to questions being raised by fans in relation to how exactly the publisher plans on showing off its upcoming PS5 and PS4 software. Having alreadyspotlightedHorizon Forbidden Westin its own personal State of Play in May, all signs are pointing to Santa Monica Studio’s untitledGod of Warsequel being the next big focus within Sony’s marketing plans.
The mysteries surrounding the next inevitable State of Play, andGod of War2018’s sequel, naturally go hand in hand as a result of this. After confirming the existence of the game all the way back in September of last year, to widespread excitement alongside the PS5’s own release date, there’s been a noticeable lack of new details revealed since that briefest of tantalizing teases. Despite this, there’s still plenty of reasons to believe that if the game shows up during Sony’s expected events, that fans could be getting their hands on the Norse mythology inspired sequel earlier in 2022 than they might have imagined.
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The State of Play
While Sony has spent the last few years cooling its relationship with E3, the publisher has at the same time placed an ever increasing reliance on its own private Nintendo Direct style presentations for revealing new games, trailers, and release dates. With expectations building around this time of year, ResetEra’s proven industry insider ‘Navtra’ recently claimed that an unmissable State of Play is scheduled to drop at some point around the 8th of July. Naturally, a hefty grain of salt has to be prescribed for any leak of this nature, as industry plans can easily be misconstrued or changed rapidly. Since the initial tease a growing chorus of voices have, however, corroborated the event’s existence, leaking theGhost of TsushimaIkishima based follow-up.
All indicators suggest the wind is blowing in one direction. Further evidence a showcase in on the horizon has also been publicly offered up by the likes of Geoff Keighley, who promised that moreDeath Stranding: Director’s Cutnews would land within a couple weeks during the Summer Game Fest. With official confirmation of a date being the last piece of the puzzle left missing before fans can bookmark their calendars, all of these teases are positive signs for theGod of Warsequel’s reappearance.
The State of God of War
During the hair raising reveal of theGod of Warsequel, the trailer also induced more than few raised eyebrows from onlookers, with a closing statement that proclaimed Ragnarok would arrive in 2021. It’s for this reason that the recentannouncement from Santa Monica Studiothat the game would fall short of that ambitious target wasn’t met with as much public outcry as a lot of other high profile delays. Attaching such an ambitious initial release window, in spite of the ongoing Pandemic, raises the question of just how far along the developer has gotten with the game.
It stands to reason if the studio was confident enough back then to believe that development would be wrapped up by this year, that could be a solid indicator that the game might still be ready for an early 2022 release. With the last game in the franchise having hit stores back in 2018, the sequel will likely have been cooking for 4 years by that point. That length of development is also backed up by the announcement thattheGod of Warsequel is PS4 bound, suggesting the process was started before PS5 devkits were finalized.
Some form ofGod of Warappearance is one of the safer predictions that can be made in regards to the next State of Play because of this. Having been working away for so long in secret, there’s a decent chance that Santa Monica Studio will not only be ready to showcase it’s labors, but also announce a release date simultaneously. Over the course of the pandemic, Sony has admittedly moved away from attaching concrete release dates to its upcoming first party output, withHorizon Forbidden West’s noncommittal 2021 windowof delivery being the latest example of this. Providing a specific date for the nextGod of Warwould be a bold statement of intent from all parties involved because of this, however there’s evidence to suggest it could theoretically still happen.
God of War’s April Target
Historically, there’s a massive precedent for entries within theGod of Warfranchisereleasing in the earliest months of the year. As far back as the original 2005 game, almost every entry regardless of development studio or system has managed to methodically hit store shelves within March. That is with two notable exceptions, the first being the PSP’sGhost of Sparta, which is noteworthy in part for being the only installment to miss the opening six months of a year. More significantly and of relevance though is the other non-March release, 2018’sGod of War, which ushered in the Norse themed part of Kratos' life in April of that year.
Having set the lastGod of Warcomplete with a new cast and setting, it’s highly plausible that Santa Monica Studio will also stick to its newly established release convention going forward. Sony as a wider entity has a adopted a fondness for targeting April with other games recently too, asthe likes ofReturnalandMLB The Show 21have both shown this year. Keeping all of this in mind it seems even more likely that any appearance from the still unnamedGod of Warsequel at the next State of Play, will coincided with a symbolic countdown being triggered for April 2022. Despite Sony’s ability to pull in a crowd at any time of the year, especially if PSX returns, this time of the year is the perfect opportunity to get gamers excited with gameplay and a release date.
The untitledGod of Warsequel is in development for a 2022 release on PS4 and PS5.
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