For the first time in 20 years, the next God of War game won’t be God of War

Sony-owned American Santa Monica Studio has been making nothing but games in the God of War action-adventure series for the last 20 years, but it looks like it has finally taken on something new.

Image source: Santa Monica Studio

As noted by users of the ResetEra forum, specialist Glaucus Longi, who recently returned to Santa Monica after several years of working in other studios, let slip the word about the team’s future project.

«Santa Monica Studio gave me the opportunity to return as a supervisor to oversee the entire character development department for their new franchise, and here I am,” Longhi’s LinkedIn profile reads.

Of course, Longhi did not reveal what kind of new project Santa Monica is preparing. The last time the studio released an original game was in 2001. It was the racing arcade Kinetica for PS2 – the debut development of the team.

It’s worth noting that this is not Santa Monica’s first attempt to release something new: for three years until 2014, the studio was working on the sci-fi game Internal-7 (codename), but it was canceled before leaving pre-production.

Even before the release of God of War (2018), its development director Cory Barlog said that in the future he would like to release something “completely his own,” but the decision was entirely up to Sony.

The latest release from Santa Monica Studio is the action thriller God of War Ragnarok. The game debuted on November 9, 2022 on PS4 and PS5, and will reach PC on September 19, 2024 (Steam, Epic Game Store).