The sequel to 2018's God of War has officially been delayed to 2022. According to an announcement from both Sony and Santa Monica Studio, the revised launch date will give the developer more time to deliver a "top-quality game while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of [its] team, creative partners, and families."
The big news was announced deep into a recent post on the PlayStation Blog, which shared an interview with Hermen Hulst – head of PlayStation Studios – that provided development updates for many of its highly anticipated titles. Specifically, Hulst mentioned that 2020 was an unusual year for game development and it had a significant impact on the studio's original timeline.
"So we have, currently, two very big, very narrative-driven games in development: Horizon Forbidden West and the next God of War," Hulst said. "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."
Hulst continued, "And 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."
Apparently, one of the most difficult parts of developing a game during a pandemic is finding a safe way to carry out audio work and performance capture. These require specialized locations and – for a title as massive as God of War – there's a lot of content that needs to be recorded. Pushing the release date to 2022 gives the team more time to perfect these performances and create the game fans expect.
Beyond a delay for God of War, Hulst also mentioned it will likely be a cross-gen title:
"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."