Its been four years since the world of video games was graced with the absolutely stellar “God of War.” Though sharing the same name as its 2005 predecessor, the 2018 revival changed the game completely for its character Kratos, as well as fans of the PlayStation exclusive series. The game’s final cliffhanger left us eagerly anticipating what many assumed to be an upcoming Ragnarok, and sure enough, we found out it was on the horizon. But is that horizon releasing as expected in 2022, or do we have more time left stuck in Valhalla?
When “God of War: Ragnaork” was originally teased back in 2020, it was slated for a 2021 release. Considering that this article is being written in April of 2022, clearly that release did not happen. Still, as of right now, Sony and Santa Monica Studio are planning on a release later this year on both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. One of the animation directors, Bruno Velazquez, has confirmed that the game is still on track for 2022.
The lack of updates about the project, footage, concrete release date etc. is concerning to many. As we start to approach the end of the first half of 2022, shouldn’t we have more indication of how the game is shaping up? It’s a good question, and frankly despite Velazquez’s assurances, there’s still legitimate reason to believewe may not see the continuing adventures of Kratos and BOY until after the 2022 holiday season has passed.
First of all, let’s face the hard facts that COVID-19 is still around and about with its variants still creating havoc for people and work places. That alone is cause for concern in terms of seeing a game meet its intended release date. Additionally, there’s the problems that come from how the focus of the game’s development had to shift from being a PS5 exclusive to a PS4 game as well. Somewhere along the line, Sony realized limiting “God of War: Ragnarok” to a PS5 exclusive would leave a lot of money on the table. PS5s are still excruciatingly hard to find due to scalpers and the ongoing chip shortage and it’s highly likely that a very large percentage of PlayStation owners are going to wind up playing Kratos’ latest adventure on last-gen hardware.
Santa Monica Studio had the unenviable job of having to take what was originally supposed to be an exclusive title to next gen tech and scale it back to work on a system that is pushing 9 years old. Also, as anyone who knows anything about the game industry, one animation director may not know the full story about what’s going on, nor may they be able to disclose what’s actually going on until the executives are ready to disclose it.
All this is to say that hopefully Velazquez is on point and we’ll be able to see Kratos this holiday season. Not to be pessimistic though, don’t be surprised if we see a delay pop up. If that does happen though, you can virtually guarantee it’ll be worth it if “Ragnarok” is even half as good as the last title.
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