Those who were hoping to see the Kratos and Atreus show return in 2021 will have to wait a little while longer — but for a very good reason. As a Tweet from developer Santa Monica Studio revealed, more attention is being given to “the safety and wellbeing” of employees and their families, with the next God of War delayed until 2022 in order to keep that focus intact.
My first thought was: this God of War game was supposed to come out in 2021? Since when? My second thought, of course, was: this is great news.
While this will undoubtedly be disappointing to those merely focus on the “I want to play this game” aspect, seeing a studio step up and make a move like this is pretty positive. It ensures those working on a title can still maintain some semblance of a life while it’s being made. And you know what? That might actually help the game, too! There is no shortage of examples you can point to these days where crunching didn’t actually help a project in the end, and may have even hurt it.
Cyberpunk 2077, anyone?
Seeing the next God of War delayed may sting a bit, but it could ultimately benefit the game by giving Santa Monica Studio more time to polish things up. And by that, I mean actual polish. Not the kind of “polish” studios use when they’re really scrambling behind the scenes to make a shippable product.
In any event: God of War “Not Ragnarok” is now a 2022 title for the newer PlayStation 5 and, quite surprisingly, the PlayStation 4. We’ll be back with more as soon as we hear more firm news about a potential release date.
