God Of War Director "Smells Crossover" With Next Assassin's Creed

It may sound like a piece of ill-conceived video game fanfiction come to life, but, following a lighthearted yet thought-provoking tweet from SIE Santa Monica Studio’s creative director Cory Barlog, the internet is filled with speculation of an upcoming crossover title between the newly-revitalized God of War series and Ubisoft’s long-running Assassin’s Creed franchise.

Both IPs are said to have a new game currently in the works, and there’s a slim chance that these two drastically-differing experiences could somehow collide.

“I smell crossover???” That, followed by a few choice emojis that cemented his less-than-serious tone, was Barlog’s response to a recent Kotaku article suggesting that the next installments in both the God of War and Assassin’s Creed anthologies will share both the same setting and release year. The former title will continue on from 2018’s sterling Norse campaign, while the latter will take it’s exploration of near-ancient history to the far north.

As most fans will be quick to point out, there aren’t many gameplay similarities between these two franchises, and it’s unlikely that someone who finds the hack-and-slash carnage of the God of War games to be appealing will be all that interested in the slow, often delicate gameplay of Ubisoft’s stealth assassin series.

The game’s do align, however, in their love of history. Though they both make more than a few creative revisions to historic events, fans of either franchise can certainly find at least some common ground here.

Of course, we won’t be slicing ancient historical figures up with Kratos’ Blades of Chaos — the properties are owned by separate entities, making a crossover unlikely. However, the Assassin’s Creed games have included many small Easter eggs and nods to other games throughout their decade-long timeline.

The 2017 Assassin’s Creed: Origins let players dress their camel mounts up as chocobos from the Final Fantasy games. In fact, there was actually quite a healthy amount of post-launch Final Fantasy-themed content, making this alleged God of War connection feel a bit less unbelievable.

It could very well be that God of War and Assassin’s Creed see at least a small crossover in the future. While the probability of a full-on Kingdom Hearts-style mashup between these two is almost certainly less than one percent of one percent, it would be cool to dress up as Kratos while gallivanting across the Nordic plains of AC’s allegedly-forthcoming installment.

It would also be neat to potentially see some assassin robes make their way into the God of War universe, though it’s hard to think of Kratos as anything other than bare-chested.

A better question would perhaps be if Sony and Santa Monica Studio’s upcoming game is going to go the Assassin’s Creed route and introduce any microtransactions. While Ubisoft has been notoriously money-hungry in the past, 2018’s God of War installment shied away from most of the industry’s current monetization practices.

Only time will tell, of course, if any of these predictions come true, and we probably won’t get much — if any — info regarding this subject until we’re well into 2020.