'God of War 5' job listings hint PS5 sequel will explore more Norse realms

With Sony finally, finally confirming plans to release the new PlayStation 5 late next year, speculation has turned to the launch slate for the upcoming console. The hype train for Santa Monica Studio’s God of War has kept on chugging since the game’s release in April 2018, with a Metacritic score of 94 and near-flawless reviews across the board. Earlier this year, Sony released a two-hour documentary called Raising Kratos, detailing the five-year journey to bring Dad of BOYYY to life. Essentially, SMS hasn’t let fans forget about Kratos and Atreus for too long. Now, it clearly seems to be working on a sequel, likely one which will straddle the PS4 and PS5 console generations, judging from a spate of new job listings on its website.

If you were wondering if a God of War sequel would see Kratos and Atreus head back to Greece or some other mythological realm, that doesn’t seem too likely. It seems Dad and Boy will still be in the Norse realm for Round Two, which suits us just fine. (After all, we did learn some awfully intriguing stuff about Atreus at the end of the first game.) A recent tweet from SMS associate producer Shayna Moon gives us a pretty strong hint that our favorite divine dudes will still call Midgard home.

At this point, neither Sony nor SMS have officially confirmed that a sequel is in development. (Would it be GoW 2 or GoW 5?) But given the game’s critical and commercial success — it’s sold more than 10 million copies — why on earth wouldn’t they make another? SMS isn’t exactly denying its focus remains on God of War for the forseeable, either. Consider the following, which appears above virtually all of the job listings on the studio site:

This isn’t the first time SMS has made a big hiring push in the last few months either. The company listed a number of available positions back in fall 2018. But what is unique about the latest crop of jobs is how dang obvious it is that these new hires will be working on the next God of War game.

What could happen in a God of War sequel, anyway? Odds are, Kratos and Atreus will visit the three Norse realms we didn’t get to check out in the first game: Svartalfheim, Asgard, and Vanaheim.

The first of those is the home of the dwarves and a great opportunity for more hijinks with blacksmiths Brock and Sindri. Asgard, as anyone who’s seen a Marvel movie can attest, is the realm of the gods. Kratos and Atreus killed Thor’s dumbass sons Magni and Modi in the first game, so there’s some pretty obvious beef to be settled with the God of Thunder.

We’d be shocked if Asgard wasn’t a major focus of the next God of War. The third realm, Vanaheim, is home to Freya and the Vanir, the seat of the “old magic” referenced throughout the first game. The Vanir-Aesir war comes up quite a lot in the first game, and it’s possible that we could learn more about that epic conflict in the second. 

Also, we’re really hoping that Atreus gets to change into a wolf at some point, which he hints at during the scene below when Kratos tells him he’s a god.

The God of War sequel hasn’t been announced, and doesn’t have a release date, but you and I both know it’s probably coming out in late 2020.