Sony Santa Monica, the studio known mainly for the God of War franchise, might be working on a brand new IP. Fans have been speculating as much for a while, given that Cory Barlog expressed his desire to create a new franchise after he successfully directed the enormously successful God of War reboot. At the time, Barlog stressed he'd need to convince Sony first, but a LinkedIn resume of a Sony Santa Monica Character Supervisor (spotted on the ResetEra board) suggests he succeeded in his endeavor.
This developer worked on both God of War and God of War Ragnarok before leaving to join Striking Distance Studios to make The Callisto Protocol. Next, they worked for Unknown Worlds on an upcoming installment in the Subnautica franchise before coming back to SSM:
Santa Monica Studios presented the opportunity of coming back as Character Supervisor, looking after the entire Character Development pipeline on their new IP, so here I am, thrilled to be back, working again with the crew and pushing Characters in videogames together.
As a reminder, Cory Barlog did not direct the most recent God of War entry, Ragnarok, which launched in October 2022 to critical and commercial acclaim. Barlog only worked on it as a producer, so he might have already been cooking something else. As such, the new intellectual property might not be too far away from being revealed.
It's anyone's guess at this point what that might be about, though rumors suggest it might be set in a sci-fi setting. Whatever they're making, fans will surely be eager to learn more, given Sony Santa Monica's excellent pedigree. We'll keep you abreast of any further rumors and/or official news as they appear.
By the way, God of War fans should not fret: the Californian studio surely is not abandoning its prized IP. On the contrary, they appear to have set up separate teams to handle two franchises at once.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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