So, we all saw how Sony Santa Monica is bringing back God of War, both in the form of a remake of its original trilogy and a brand new, side-scrolling, metroidvania looking prequel title that brings the hero Kratos to a time when he was just another aspiring soldier for the Spartan army, right? In fact, the latter is called God of War: Sons of Sparta and it is already out and we talked about it right here.
Well, as it turns out, it seems that’s not the only thing that the famous PlayStation-aimed development studio is cooking. And for the record, everything you read from here is rumor-central for something that we all know exists, but kind of…forgot?
Anyway, let’s dive in.
New Sony Santa Monica game is not related to God of War’s latest announcements
In the lead up to God of War Ragnarok’s release (November 2022), you may remember that Cory Barlog, aka the guy who brought the franchise to modern day consoles and introduced the Norse mythology storyline, was largely uninvolved with it, yes? That’s because he was involved with a new project that, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, was not a new IP, “but it felt like one”.
Well, that project kind of drifted away from the spotlight and you’d be forgiven if you forgot about it — we totally did — but leaker Shinobi602 confirmed on ResetEra that not only the project was still going, it has nothing to do with the latest State of Play’s announcements and, to add fuel to the fire, it may get a reveal soon, either on a new State of Play event in May or even Summer Game Fest.
Now, we’ll put on our PRG Speculation hats (we got those, didn’t you know?) and try a bit of guesswork here: if we pay attention, there’s nothing saying that the announcement is not God of War-related, only that it doesn’t relate to yesterday’s reveals — and given Ragnarok’s ending, it makes sense to move Kratos to a new direction, as the character’s actor, Christopher Judge, has desired to: soooo…maybe a God of War in Egypt?
Outside of that, it’s kinda hard to determine what it could be, and highly unlikely, too: Sony Santa Monica’s portfolio of development is all God of War since 2005, except for 2001’s Kinetica, futuristic sci-fi looking racing game that came out on PlayStation 2 and even garnered favorable reviews, but hardly an old IP that deserves a comeback.
Furthermore, Sony Santa Monica has provided external work (meaning they lent some developers and consultation on titles made/releases by other companies) to several known brands — Twisted Metal, for instance, has people from the studio on pretty much all of its games.
One name that stands out is Ready At Dawn’s The Order 1886: one of PlayStation 4’s launch games, the title put you in Victorian-era England in an alternative reality where you, a member of an elite group of soldiers, fought against monsters like werewolves and such.
It was a good game, but one that felt way too small and abruptly ending.
Now, it would be tougher for Sony Santa Monica to be working on an IP they do not own, but again, nothing in the rumors flying around states that this is not the case either, so who knows?
Furthermore, Ready At Dawn no longer exists — it was bought up by Oculus Studios (now Reality Labs) in 2020 and completely shut down by it in August 2024. But since there is no word on what happened to the late studio’s IPs, this could be a very remote possibility.
