2018's God of War was a critical and commercial hit when it landed on PS4, ooh, almost two years ago now. Amazingly, while we've all assumed that a sequel is on the cards, we haven't actually had official confirmation. There have been teases, sure. Rumours and job listings, even - but no official word on the subject.
There's an entire mountain of evidence pointing towards the fact that a God of War sequel is in development... but Santa Monica Studio is clearly having too much fun letting us all dangle to just come out and admit it. Or, you know, they're just too busy working on the game.
Either way, we come, unsurprisingly, to yet another tease. This one is different though. This one might just be the strongest argument yet for the idea that development on the next God of War is well underway. As you can see from the tweet below, Santa Monica Studio's Narrative Animator Kim Newman has shared a picture of herself in a full motion-capture suit. A clear sign that work on the God of War sequel has kicked up a notch?
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While I like to think the above tweet means development on God of War II (or God of War: Ragnarok, or whatever it ends up being called) has shifted gear, there could be another explanation for Newman getting back into the mo-cap suit at this stage. It could be that Santa Monica Studio is preparing a CG reveal trailer or teaser of some kind, perhaps for the rumoured PS5 reveal event in the next few months?
Even if we're still a year or two away from the sequel actually launching, announcing a new God of War with a shiny CG trailer would be a killer way for Sony to show it means business with the PS5. With PlayStation skipping E3 for the second year in a row, and the next-gen console coming at the end of 2020, Sony needs to go big. Announcing a next-gen sequel to one the biggest PS4 games would certainly qualify as big.
God of War Director Cory Barlog has been teasing a sequel for some time now, but it's only recently that we've started to see evidence that the game might have actually entered production. In November last year, for example, it was discovered that Santa Monica Studio were hiring for an Assistant Cinematic Director and a Cinematic Artist with "experience in martial arts or dance".
Quite how martial arts will factor into the next game is unclear, but if they feature at all, I'd imagine it won't have anything to do with Kratos changing up his brutal fighting style all of a sudden. Then again, the term "martial arts" is super broad, and could mean any number of things. Hell, I could see Kratos getting into Taekwondo, to be fair.
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For now, we don't really know when the next God of War is coming, or where it'll take Kratos and Atreus... but isn't that so exciting? After God of War III I honestly felt like I'd seen everything the franchise had to offer. Now, I feel like Cory Barlog and his team could take Kratos anywhere.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: PS5, PlayStation, Santa Monica Studio, God Of War