God of War 5 could be released sooner than expected, job listing implies

God of War 5 has been all but officially announced by Sony Santa Monica. A batch of previous job listings and even game director Cory Barlog have offered hints that a sequel for God of War (2018) is already be in the works. Now, freshly posted Sony Santa Monica job openings suggest that gamers could soon receive a God of War 5 announcement and that the developer might be beginning to work on a completely new franchise.

Two openings for the game studios were made available on Monday. One was for a Lead Writer, and the other was for a Technical Art Lead. Both job descriptions do not mention what game they’d be focusing on, but the summary of the Lead Writer’s responsibilities make it sound like the role will be writing a story from scratch rather than continuing a narrative.

Here’s the first bullet point under the Lead Writer’s main responsibilities:

”Partner with the project directors to oversee and contribute to the creation of the story and writing of the game’s narrative elements to ensure it meets their intended vision. This includes writing and reviewing pitches, scripts, character bios, and world lore.”

The story writing for God of War (2018) was helmed by Barlog, Matt Sophos, and Richard Gaubert who are all still currently working for Sony Santa Monica and presumably God of War 5. It’s possible that the studio wants to grow its writing team, but in a Kotaku interview from April 2018, Barlog suggested the God of War writing team had more than enough ideas to work with.

He stated that the team had enough story ideas for five new games. He later clarified on Twitter that he was speaking candidly and that there isn’t a plan for five more God of War titles, but it sounds like they have plenty of material to work with for God of War 5.

So if these new positions won't focus on God of War 5, then what game could the new roles eventually be working on? And Barlog might have teased the answer months ago.

Back in November 2019, the developer changed his profile picture on Twitter to an image of the satellite Voyager-2 and tweeted a message in Morse code which translated to “55HSIE.” The final three characters are seemingly a reference to Sony Interactive Entertainment, but the meaning behind “55H” remains a mystery to this day. Fans have taken it to be a cheeky teaser at an unannounced science fiction game. Could this actually be the case?

The Inverse Analysis — Rumors that Sony Santa Monica had canceled the release of a new sci-fi IP date back to 2015. In 2017 art from the nixed title had allegedly leaked.

It’s possible that the studio is reviving the long-dead IP to launch on the PlayStation 5. That suggests that God of War 5 might actually be nearing completion, but we won’t know for sure until it’s announced.

Sony first announced God of War (2018) during E3 2016, two years before it was released. The entire game took Santa Monica about five years to develop, but much of that time was dedicated to complicated logistics like creating a working game engine and other labor-intensive mechanics.

Now that the studio has that groundwork already established, it might be able to produce the sequel much faster and allocate more employees to work on this long-rumored sci-fi series. Expect more news on all things God of War and more as the PS5’s holiday 2020 release date inches closer.