While the reveal of the new God of War game has been very divisive, due to the new direction the series seems to be going in, there is hardly any doubt that it is an exciting new frontier for what was formerly Sony’s flashiest, but in many ways shallowest, series to explore. After a few installments of progressively declining quality, the new game seems to be doing everything right- it is objectively hard to not be excited for it.
Among the things that the new game is doing right is not repeating mistakes made by previous games in the series. This includes, for example, the developers opting to skip out on a multiplayer mode, such as there was in God of War Ascension, opting instead to focus on the single player experience. Cory Barlog, director of this new game, confirmed as much in an interview with Levelup (via NeoGAF).
Barlog also confirmed that, contrary to speculation, this is not planned to be the final game starring Kratos- an assumption that many made after the E3 reveal of the game featured Kratos with a young child later revealed to be his son. Since a lot of game series have been having installments which end with them hinting that the protagonist is passing their mantle on to their child, a similar conclusion being arrived at for God of War was not unreasonable. However, we now know that one of Sony’s most visually striking characters will stick around, at least for a while.
God of War 4 will launch for the PlayStation 4, some time in 2017.