Head of PlayStation Studios Herman Hulst held a Q&A recently where the gaming exec reiterated Sony’s commitment to quality single-player experiences.
Part of that commitment is not rushing titles and during the session he confirmed that the sequel to the “God of War” reboot, currently rumored to be titled “God of War: Ragnarok,” Has been pushed to 2022.
The delay isn’t a surprise, the title was never truly locked in for a 2021 release and it always seemed a bit of a stretch it would arrive this year – especially as production on the game started later than on the “Horizon” sequel.
Hulst confirmed that Sony’s other biggest AAA title exclusive on the way, “Horizon Forbidden West,” is still on track for 2021. He says via PlayStation Blog:
“So we have, currently, two very big, very narrative-driven games in development: Horizon Forbidden West and the next God of War. And for both of those, they’re frankly affected by access to performance capture and talent. For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn’t quite certain yet, and we’re working as hard as we can to confirm that to you as soon as we can.”
Shortly after the interview, “God of War” developer Santa Monica Studios released a tweet confirming what Hulst said in the interview. Hulst confirms the new “God of War” is also coming to the PS4 saying they won’t be abandoning support for that platform:
“You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, right? I think that’d be bad news for fans of PS4, and frankly not very good business. Where it makes sense to develop a title for both PS4 and PS5 — for Horizon Forbidden West, the next God of War, Gran Turismo 7 — we’ll continue looking at that. And if PS4 owners want to play that game, then they can. If they want to go on and play the PS5 version, that game will be there for them.”
One beneficiary of Sony’s approach is Team Asobi who, following rave reviews for their free PS5 launch title “Astro’s Playroom,” is expanding and will now be considered part of PlayStation Studios with plans to develop smile-inducing “fun, colorful games for all ages” and to do more with the Astro Bot character.
Source: Twitter
