The new God of War game is real, it looks impressive, and if you only game on PC, you will probably be waiting a long time, or indefinitely.
Sony Santa Monica revealed God of War Laufey at PlayStation’s State of Play last night, showcasing 20 minutes of gameplay and confirming that Kratos is sitting this entry out entirely. The protagonist is Faye, Kratos’ late wife, who awakens in the Everywhen, described as the afterlife of the gods, after her burial in the 2018 God of War. Her mission is to protect Kratos and Atreus against a threat emerging in this mythological afterlife realm populated by gods from multiple pantheons competing for power. Game director Ariel Lawrence and Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlog explained to IGN that Faye has been a planned future protagonist since 2018, and that her combat style emphasizes speed and precision in contrast to Kratos’s blunt power approach. She’s accompanied by a talking gelatin cube named Phranque (voiced by The Boys’ Jack Quaid, who also did the motion capture) and a ribbon attached to her sword named Rue. The cube, improbably, stole the show. No release date has been announced; Sony says the game is “coming soon to PlayStation 5.”
The previous three God of War entries, the 2018 reboot, Ragnarok, and Valhalla, all eventually came to PC, representing a significant shift in Sony’s philosophy toward its flagship single-player franchises. That shift has reversed. internal Sony communications indicate the company is pulling back from PC releases for its major single-player exclusives, repositioning them as system sellers for the PS5 platform. Sony will continue releasing multiplayer titles on PC, where the Helldivers 2 result made the economics undeniable, but narrative single-player games appear to be back behind the PlayStation wall.
Laufey is the first major announcement to land squarely within the new anti-PC policy. The console exclusivity play is a direct response to declining console hardware interest, with Sony (and for that matter, Xbox on its side of the fence) leaning back into the argument that platform-defining games require platform-specific ownership. For now, the answer for PC players is: no, you cannot have this one.