Well, I guess we now know what that “super secret” Santa Monica Studios PlayStation 3 exclusive Sony kept dangling in front of The Tester contestants is. After an Amazon leak last night, Sony has officially announced the next installment in the God of War series, God of War: Ascension. Details are zero beyond what’s presented in this announcement teaser trailer, which pretty clearly points to the game being a franchise prequel taking place before Kratos became the rage-filled Ghost of Sparta.
Hmmm… could we be playing as Kratos without his trusty Blades of Chaos? Find out more on Monday, April 30th at 8am Pacific, when Sony will be hosting a live streaming event on the PlayStation blog and Facebook. If you have a question for the team, submit it to @PlayStation on Twitter with #godofwarascension in your Tweet by Friday, April 20th at 3pm Pacific. Tweeters who have their questions asked during the event will bag signed God of War: Ascension posters. Nice!
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That was quite likely the worst-kept “secret” ever–you may recall me referencing God of War 4 in the recap of the first episode. Have to wonder how SMS can top the hyperbolic action of what they’ve already done in a prequel setting. Kratos can’t ‘kill” any of the deities he offed in the other five games. It’ll be interesting to see how they weave Ascension into the existing story.
Pretty much. Unless they really surprised us with some completely new IP, the next God of War was the obvious blockbuster they kept teasing. No idea what to expect. If it’s set before all the others, I guess that means we’re going to be playing Kratos when he was just a Spartan captain? This could hopefully build Kratos’ character out more than him just being an angry dude with a constant thirst for revenge. God of War III was awesome, but had the shallowest narrative and character development. Ghost of Sparta did a better job than the other games of showing a more personal side to him so I’d like to see more of that.
Agreed. Prequels can be tough. To maintain emotional heft, developers inevitably drop in things that don’t mesh with future continuity. Learning that Kratos had a doomed brother in Ghost of Sparta was an interesting twist…except that because it’s revealed in a prequel, it isn’t mentioned at all in God of War 2 or 3, which is just odd. Continuity isn’t everything, but it’ll be interesting to see what kind of new twists Santa Monica can create.