Publisher Sony Group Corp. is expected to announce the release date later this month, two of the people said.
God of War Ragnarok, the latest entry in the long-running series and a direct sequel to 2018’s God of War, was announced in 2020 for PlayStation consoles. Sony has delayed the game several times since then, both publicly and internally, as its developers deal with the pandemic and other production challenges. Earlier this year it was planned for September, but it was recently bumped to November. A spokesman for Sony didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new game is expected to be a big hit and one of Sony’s key pieces of software as it works through hardware challenges. The Japanese video game publisher and manufacturer has been unable to make enough PlayStation 5 consoles to keep up with demand, costing it market share. God of War Ragnarok will be available both on the new console and on the old PlayStation 4, which has sold more than 117 million units, giving the game a substantial install base. The first game sold nearly 20 million copies.
A recent report from the European gaming website GameReactor, combined with the game’s absence at big industry events such as the Summer Games Fest and Sony’s own State of Play, led to speculation that God of War Ragnarok wouldn’t be out until 2023.
It all started so simply. In the original God of War, you piloted the wrathful, ashen-skinned Spartan Kratos as he tore through beasts and gods ripped from the pages of Edith Hamilton’s classic Mythology on his way to enact vengeance on the titular Ares, stopping only to deliver grim monologues about the tragic loss of his wife and child.
Now, after the ensuing avalanche of sequels, prequels and side stories, the saga of Kratos’ star-crossed life has become as tangled and complex as the mythic tales that inspired the world he’s inhabited. And though the upcoming PlayStation 4 follow-up does its best to leave the lyres and winged chariots of fantasy ancient Greece in the rearview mirror, here’s a quick primer on all the major revelations from the previous games, and how they shaped the angry antihero at the helm.
As revealed in 2007’s God of War 2 and the 2010 PlayStation Portable entry God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Kratos was born in the Greek city-state of Sparta, the demigod spawn of one of Zeus’ many dalliances with mortal women. He was bred for battle in that infamously bellicose society alongside his brother, Deimos, knowing nothing of his Olympian heritage.
Early in his adolescence, Zeus learned of a prophecy that stated that one of his children would eventually slay him — just as he himself had murdered his father, the Titan Cronos, to usher in the era of the gods. Zeus sent two of his children, Athena and Ares, to find the fated offspring and kill them. Eventually, the two siblings determined that Deimos was the likely candidate due to strange markings on his body, and they stole him away from Kratos and delivered him to Thanatos, the god of death, giving Kratos a distinctive scar over his eye when he tried to stop them.
As he grew older, Kratos married and fathered a child, as recounted in the backstory to the original God of War. His appetite for glory and merciless tactics in battle won him acclaim from his superiors and fear from his legions of foes, and over time he gathered his own army under the banner of Sparta. However, even great armies lose battles, and his eventually found itself overpowered by the Barbarians from the nebulous “East.” With defeat in sight, Kratos swore fealty to Ares, the same god of war that had taken his brother, in order to turn the tide of the battle. Impressed by his half brother’s ruthlessness, Ares allowed him into his service, and bestowed upon Kratos the Blades of Chaos, a set of swords forged in the underworld that became literally chained to his forearms as a reminder of his oath. With this newfound power, Kratos defeated the entire opposing force by himself, reveling in the bloodshed.
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