Talking Point: What Do You Want from God of War Maker Sony Santa Monica Next?

It’s been several years since God of War Ragnarok and its superb roguelike add-on Valhalla released, which means some fans have started to ponder what developer Santa Monica Studio is up to.

One of Sony’s flagship first-party studios, the American dev has worked on some of PlayStation’s very best games, including two eras of God of War, spanning both Greek and Norse mythology.

While the dev suffered a serious setback during the PS4 era, when God of War 3 director Stig Asmussen’s new IP was cancelled, it rebounded in historic fashion with a rebooted God of War, which cemented Kratos’ place in the pantheon of all-time video game greats.

But this week knowledgeable Bloomberg scribe Jason Schreier set tongues wagging when he dropped some morsels on the studio’s next project.

The biggest of these is that the team, led by veteran director Cory Barlog, is not working on a fresh franchise as many had previously assumed.

He said that while the studio’s next project is based on an existing property, it may “feel” like a new one. In other words, it’s a totally unique take on existing material, much like with 2018’s God of War reboot.

So, what could it be?

Well this is the most searching question of all, because we have very little to go on.

Back in 2023, ex-IGN journalist Alanah Pearce, who was hired by Santa Monica Studio as a writer, seemed to allude to the fact that she was working on a sci-fi game. This tallied with previous comments by Barlog, who’d said he wanted to make something in the genre too.

But this week Schreier rubbished those rumours, describing them as “nonsense”.

In our opinion, we’re left with two possibilities here: God of War is getting another 2018-style reboot, or Santa Monica Studio has dipped deep into PlayStation’s archives and pulled out a franchise it considers worth revisiting.

Given the popularity of God of War as a franchise, though, the latter seems unlikely to us. While we’re sure Barlog and his team could do some interesting things with the likes of Kinetica and Downhill Domination, we just can’t see Sony signing off on either of them when Kratos’ last two titles sold around 40 million copies combined.

We had always assumed, given how the story ended and how developed he was as a character, that Atreus could get his own standalone adventure, a little bit like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. But it feels like we’re too far away from Ragnarok’s release now to really make that stick.

So our guess is that the next God of War proper is in development. There had always been rumours about Kratos infiltrating various other mythologies like Egypt, and that would certainly fit Schreier’s comments about this “feeling” like a new IP, even if it’s technically not.

Would that be enough to entice you, though? Would you rather see Santa Monica Studio deliver something entirely new? And how is your appetite for God of War holding in the years after Ragnarok?

Be sure to share your thoughts and predictions on Santa Monica Studio’s next project below.