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 already spotlighted Horizon Forbidden West in its own personal State of Play in May, all signs are pointing to Santa Monica Studio's untitled God of War sequel being the next big focus within Sony's marketing plans.
The mysteries surrounding the next inevitable State of Play, and God of War 2018'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.
RELATED: God of War: Ragnarok Needs to Develop One Key Relationship Further
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 the Ghost of Tsushima Ikishima 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 more Death Stranding: Director's Cut news 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 the God of War sequel's reappearance.
During the hair raising reveal of the God of War sequel, 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 recent announcement from Santa Monica Studio that 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 that the God of War sequel is PS4 bound, suggesting the process was started before PS5 devkits were finalized.
Some form of God of War appearance 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, with Horizon Forbidden West's noncommittal 2021 window of delivery being the latest example of this. Providing a specific date for the next God of War would be a bold statement of intent from all parties involved because of this, however there's evidence to suggest it could theoretically still happen.
Historically, there's a massive precedent for entries within the God of War franchise releasing 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's Ghost 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's God of War, which ushered in the Norse themed part of Kratos' life in April of that year.
Having set the last God of War complete 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, as the likes of Returnal and MLB The Show 21 have both shown this year. Keeping all of this in mind it seems even more likely that any appearance from the still unnamed God of War sequel 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 untitled God of War sequel is in development for a 2022 release on PS4 and PS5.