Next God of War Game Delayed Until 2022, Says Sony Santa Monica

Sony today announced that the next God of War game — which, just for the sake of reference, we’ll call God of War: Ragnarok, though we now know that’s likely not going to be the game’s final title — will be delayed to 2022. It also revealed it’s aiming for a holiday release date for Horizon Forbidden West and will try and stick to that.

God of War: Ragnarok was teased last year with a very short trailer, but we knew the game was in development. Sony Santa Monica Studio said in a Twitter post: “Since the release of the next God of War teaser last year, we’ve been humbled by the amount of love our community has shown us. We’re incredibly grateful to see so many people excited to experience the next chapter of Kratos and Atreus’ journey. We remain focused on delivering a top-quality game while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of our team, creative partners, and families. With this in mind, we’ve made the decision to shift our release window to 2022.”

In a follow-up blog post on the PlayStation site, Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, expanded on the plans for games and where the delays are coming from. Apparently, the main problem is that the pandemic has affected the ability to safely do performance capture. The work needed for Horizon Forbidden West is apparently already done: “For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn’t quite certain yet…” For God of War: Ragnarok, however, they’d rather be safe than sorry.

He also added a surprising fact: Despite being released possibly as far as two years into the PlayStation 5’s lifecycle, Sony intends to release God of War: Ragnarok on both PS5 and PS4. It sounds absurd, but given the scarcity of PS5s, it may be more practical to plan for a large portion of the community still being on the PS4 next year.

Source: PlayStation Blog