Santa Monica Studios took to Twitter earlier today to announce the delay of their sequel to 2018’s God of War. In a written statement, the developer did not mention any specific causes, but did write that “maintaining the safety and wellbeing of our team, creative partners, and families” is an important objective.
The confirmation of the God of War sequel’s delay comes hot off the heel of a PlayStation Blog post. In the Q&A with Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, one question in particular centred on how studios have adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hulst answered, ” for God of War, the project started a little later. So we’ve made the decision to push that game out to next year, to ensure that Santa Monica Studio can deliver the amazing God of War game that we all want to play.”
Moreover, we learned that the God of War sequel will be on PlayStation 4. “Where it makes sense to develop a title for both PS4 and PS5 — for Horizon Forbidden West, the next God of War, GT7 — 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,” Hulst said.
As disappointing as the delay is for fans of the series, it is heartening to read that Hulst and PlayStation Studios would rather delay a game than subject developers to an intense crunch. “With these things, something’s gotta give. It cannot be the quality of our titles, and it surely won’t be the health or the wellbeing of our amazing team,” he said.
