The next instalment in the God Of War saga was pitched way back in 2018, as actress Deborah Ann Woll teases more adventures with Kratos.
If it hadn’t leaked, the announcement of God Of War Laufey during the recent State Of Play presentation would have been a pretty huge surprise.
After 2022’s God Of War Ragnarök, the direction of the franchise felt uncertain. We had the Valhalla DLC, which did a good job of rounding off Kratos’ story, so it was unclear if the series would pivot to another character or jump to a new mythology.
Atreus or Freya felt like the obvious candidates, if they were going to shift to a new character, so it was surprising when it turned out to be Kratos’ late wife Laufey – who only briefly appeared in God Of War Ragnarök during dream sequences.
While it might feel like an unexpected pivot, Laufey actress Deborah Ann Woll has revealed Santa Monica Studio creative director, Cory Barlog pitched the idea of a Laufey game to her back in 2018 – the same year the original God Of War reboot came out.
Speaking in an interview with Comic Gaming magazine, Woll explained how she was glad it had been announced, as she hadn’t been able to talk about it for ‘nearly 10 years’.
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‘He pitched it to me in 2018, and they had known about it before then,’ Woll added. ‘It’s wild. Like when Cory [Barlog] brought me in to talk about doing Ragnarök and show me the 2018 game, he already had a poster for the Laufey game with me and a cube. A cube that’s been there since the beginning. It’s deeply a part of the lore.’
It’s unclear if this poster resembles the key art in any way, but in an age when the majority of spin-offs are cynical exercises to expand a franchise, it’s perhaps a reassuring sign that Laufey was, to some degree, always part of a wider narrative plan.
Woll goes on to to tease God Of War Laufey, and mentioned how the Kratos arm of the franchise will ‘continue going forward’.
‘I pinch myself that I get to be a part of this and that I get to lead the charge for a little bit of this kind of new direction,’ Woll said. ‘The other direction is going to continue going forward. But we’re going to put a little time and focus on expanding this world and really trying to say, this is us doubling down on the world of God Of War.
‘We want this to be huge. We want you to feel like there’s such an untapped universe. And this is just the beginning of a step into some of that.’
Earlier this month, Barlog teased there would be more games starring Kratos in the future although – with the studio also working on the God Of War remake trilogy – a new sequel might be a few years off.
God Of War Laufey doesn’t have a release date yet, but insiders believe it could launch in early 2027.
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