God of War 2 delayed to 2022 — and won't be PS5 exclusive

God of State of war 2 delayed to 2022 — and won't be PS5 exclusive

(Prototype credit: Santa Monica Studio)

Information technology's official: the God of War sequel has been pushed dorsum from its 2021 release window to some time in 2022. And it won't be a PS5 console exclusive.

Sony Santa Monica bankrupt the news on its Twitter account, citing the safety and wellbeing of its "team, creative partners, and families" as a reason for the delay.

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This isn't a huge surprise given that the pandemic has had a knock-on effect in virtually every industry. But the biggest bombshell is the confirmation that God of State of war ii will be a cantankerous-gen title.

Sid Shuman, head of PlayStation Studios, delved into the filibuster a scrap farther in the PlayStation weblog and noted, "And so nosotros have, currently, two very big, very narrative-driven games in development: Horizon Forbidden W and the next God of State of war. And for both of those, they're frankly affected past access to performance capture and talent."

When information technology comes to Horizon Forbidden West, Shuman said the game is "on track to release this vacation season," only added that information technology'south not a certain thing.

"For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn't quite certain yet, and we're working equally hard as we can to ostend that to you as soon every bit we can," explained Shuman.

Development on God of War kicked off after Horizon Forbidden West, and Shuman explained that the Sony "made the decision to push that game out to next year, to ensure that Santa Monica Studio can evangelize the amazing God of War game that we all want to play."

But fans who were looking forrad to a next-gen experience are in for some bad news, as Shuman confirmed that Horizon Forbidden West, God of War 2, and Gran Turismo 7 volition all be cross-gen titles, coming to both PS4 and PS5.

"You can't build a customs of over 110 one thousand thousand PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, correct? I recall that'd be bad news for fans of PS4, and bluntly not very adept business," said Shuman.

"Where it makes sense to develop a title for both PS4 and PS5 — for Horizon Forbidden West, the next God of State of war, GT7 — we'll continue looking at that. And if PS4 owners want to play that game, so they can. If they want to go on and play the PS5 version, that game will be there for them.

"That being said, it's also very important to have showpieces for PS5, hence the evolution of Returnal and Ratchet that are exclusive to PS5."

God of State of war really pushed the PS4 in terms of graphics, so we'd hope the sequel does the same for the PS5. However, making God of War 2 a cantankerous-platform game could meet some compromises in visual allegiance to ensure it runs on older hardware. Depending on how well Santa Monica Studio can scale the game's graphics, its cross-platform nature could prevent it from fully embracing the PS5's power.

That might be disappointing for people who've played the PS5 restock game to get hold of the console with the promise of getting loftier-end PS5 exclusives.

The flipside to that is it's currently very hard to find the PS5, or indeed the Xbox Series Ten, in stock, due to a global chip shortage affecting game console and graphics bill of fare supply.

All the same, Returnal is a great example of a next-gen title harnessing the power of the PS5, meaning that people who've managed to find Sony'southward new console have a game to justify the $499 outlay. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart should manage the same trick — so stay tuned for our review, which drops next week. And if you don't want to go in completely blind, you can go upwardly to speed on the serial with our Ratchet & Clank: Rift Autonomously primer.

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Shabana is T3'southward News Editor covering tech and gaming, and has been writing well-nigh video games for near a decade (and playing them since forever). Also as contributing to Tom's Guide, she's had bylines at major gaming sites during her freelance career before settling down at T3, and has podcasts, streaming, and video content under her belt to boot. Outside of work, she also plays video games and should really think about expanding her hobbies.