God of War Developer Santa Monica Studio May be Working on a Sequel

A new God of War title may be in the early stages of development at Santa Monica Studio as the studio is currently hiring for new positions. A new job listing for Sr Combat Designer requires the candidate to be familiar with God of War (2018) and God of War Ragnarok, including all systems introduced in the new phase of the franchise.

While this is far from an announcement or confirmation, it does seem reasonable that the studio will be looking to explore sequel opportunities. Santa Monica is riding a massive wave of momentum off the success of God of War Ragnarok, heralded as one of the best games on PlayStation of all time. While the Norse chapter of the franchise has come to an end, the last game in the series left things on a pretty open-ended note and there are a lot of directions the series could head in next.

God of War Ragnarok Sequel May Explore New Mythology

Santa Monica Studio has proved itself to be one of the most successful and reliable studios under the PlayStation banner in the past few years. The studio has largely worked on only the God of War franchise, although, there have been rumblings of a new IP in development at the studio.

The development of a new God of War game would require the studio to maintain a little caution as key personnel have recently parted ways with SMS. Most notably, Art Director Raf Grassetti has left the studio to join Joseph Staten (Halo) at Netflix Games to work on a new AAA, RPG experience for Netflix.

Sony has made no secret about what their approach is going to be in this console generation, with an added focus on live service, and multiplayer games. Around the same time last year, Santa Monica Studio was said to be working on a new project with live service, multiplayer elements. 

It will be interesting to see how Sony's most notable single-player game studios will adapt to the change in direction. It certainly helps that Sony has brought on studios like Bungie to help navigate the live service waters. In addition to their own projects, Bungie also seems to be consulting and helping out other studios under the PlayStation banner. Most notably, the studio was brought on to evaluate Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Multiplayer title which is currently in development.