Santa Monica Studio: What will be the new mysterious triple A project?

Santa Monica Studio is looking for new creative staff to make a triple A title for PlayStation 5. The news that the software house behind the saga God of War having a new game in the pipeline immediately shocked gamers, who up ResetEra and on other forums they have launched into more various hypotheses in an attempt to discover even the smallest detail that can give some clues to the nature of this mysterious project. It will be a God of War sequel, despite Sony has already announced the arrival of God of War Ragnarok? It will be a title unrelated to it on a narrative level but set in the same universe? It could be one spin off, or something radically new and different? And when will it arrive?

The questions that have gathered around the Santa Monica team are many. The job advertisement for a Art Director, published by the software house on its profile Twitter, has given way to a waltz of speculations, which have moved both in the direction of understanding towards the very nature of the project, and on the timing. But the users have also launched themselves in an attempt to understand who in the team is the real engine of the idea: it has been for a long time that Cory Barlog he said he was open to new projects that distance themselves from Kratos, so as to allow him to explore new possibilities, always within the PlayStation ecosystem. Not only that, scrolling through the long list of titles in which the children of Santa Monica participated in a more or less direct way, further possible developments are added to the list of hypotheses. So let's try to reconstruct what happened in these days, starting from the tweet that generated the discussion and trying to envisage possible future scenarios.

Santa Monica Studio looking for a new Art Director

Yesterday the Twitter profile of Santa Monica Studio published a post in which it claims to be looking for an Art Director:

We are looking for an Art Director with proven experience, for the development of a new title not yet announced". The latter, then, will have to “guide and inspire the team in creating a visual quality of the highest level.

Let's try to make some assumptions. First, one was attached to the message from the company animated gif that portrays an artwork of the characters of the God of War of 2018. At first one might think that this new project may be linked to the arrival of God of War Ragnarok, but we feel we can immediately exclude this possibility: although the chances that the title will arrive by the end of this year, also given the numerous postponements that are hitting the gaming industry already in these early months of 2021, the sequel to the reboot released two years ago should, at least on paper, be at an advanced stage of development, and therefore will certainly count on the work of an already consolidated Art Director . The tweet itself, which states that the team is working on an "unannunced title", decidedly remove this possibility. That this professional figure works on God of War Ragnarok is, therefore, strongly to be excluded.

https://twitter.com/SonySantaMonica/status/1351621823599808512

A new title, we said. Could it still be a game inserted within the Spartan warrior saga? Let's go in order. Taking a look at the long epic story of Kratos, in addition to the main chapters, the guys from Santa Monica Studio have also developed some spin-offs over the years, which have cleverly inserted themselves between the folds of the main narrative to enrich the story. In addition to the most famous God of War Ascension, released on PlayStation 3 in 2013, there are two other titles released on PlayStation Portable: God of War: Chains of Olympus, released in 2008, e God of War: Ghost of Sparta, arrived instead in 2010. The Californian software house, therefore, is not new to this kind of productions. However, due to the magnitude that their projects have now reached, the release of a further spin-off after Ragnarok seems very difficult to us. First, because the epic of the son of Zeus in Greece seems to us to have been duly emptied, and then because the new cycle opened in Norse land is just beginning, and a chapter that could enrich its history, if it ever comes, seems to us at the moment. unlikely. No further God of War beyond the one already announced, therefore.

Cory Barlog at the center of the project?

Cory Barlog yes, Cory Barlog no. At the time of Ragnarok's announcement, rumors had hinted that the project would have been entrusted to another member of the main team, while Cory Barlog would oversee a second secret project. Although those directly involved have denied this possibility, the developer has always joked about this hypothesis that, if we analyze two other important data, it may not be so strange. To begin, under the tweet from Santa Monica, a former technical director of the Sony team reported, through his LinkedIn profile, that he had generated a long-term multiphase strategy on two different projects: If one is God of War Ragnarok, the other must be the new mysterious title. Also, the announcement for the new Art Director it is not the only one to have been opened by the software house.

In fact, the new proposals include a lead gameplay programmer, a gameplay design director, a gameplay designer and a lead writer, key figures in the development of “a new journey”, like the one that Santa Monica wants to achieve. If two clues do not prove, here is the third one: on January XNUMXst of this year, Cory himself had brought to light a very specific name on his social channels, that of his colleague Eric Williams, a "name we will remember", as he will likely be the leader in charge of the God of War Ragnarok work machine. Consequently, Barlog is expected to lead this second talented team to a whole new IP (perhaps with the help of Alanah pearce?), which would satisfy the wishes of the developer, and would allow Santa Monica to expand in different directions, as are also being done by other important software houses such as Naughty Dog, Rockstar o Insomniac. This is the hypothesis most accredited by users on ResetEra and, among other things, already feared by the same studio back in 2017, for a project that, until now, has never seen the light.

https://twitter.com/corybarlog/status/1212439831042617345

A return from the past

Not God of War Ragnarok, not a spin-off about Kratos' past, but a new IP developed by a second Santa Monica Studio team led by Cory Barlog. Yet, before concluding this discussion in this way, there is still one last possibility that we feel we should not discard. Yes, because the Ghost of Sparta is not the only character born from the mind of the Californian boys. Santa Monica, over the years has in fact worked on numerous "secondary" IPs, and we cannot exclude from the hypotheses their return from the past. Among the most recent works that have seen their collaboration, there is the unfortunate The Order 1886. The title, released on PlayStation 4 in 2015, it saw the collaboration with Ready at Dawn, development house with which they also worked for the creation of the two PSP games Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta, detail not to be underestimated. The Order 1886 was an excellent product that, despite failing to force itself into the gamer bubble, nevertheless captured the attention of a fair number of fans who would like a sequel. Ready at Dawn, however, was acquired last March by Oculus VR, a company owned by Facebook since 2014. If we then combine the poor sales of the title with this acquisition, the chances of a new The Order become remote.

The other projects that have seen the collaboration of Santa Monica Studio are several. Among them, the recent one stands out Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, title created in collaboration with The Chinese Room which has received numerous acclaim, e Journey, an immersive experience that hit players to the heart. Yet, according to users' forecasts, the most likely return would come from the extreme past of Santa Monica, or a sequel to Kinetika, futuristic racing game developed on PlayStation 2 in 2001, which would constitute a real return to origins.

Ultimately, the possibilities opened up by the Santa Monica announcement are endless, and we'd like to give you answers with greater confidence. At the moment, we can only move in the field of hypotheses, discarding the least realistic from the deck, and holding the cards that seem the most successful. To date, if we were to throw our Jolly on the table, it would be that of a new IP made by a second team from Santa Monica, under the supervision of Cory Barlog. Which, it seems, really lacks an Art Director. We are sure that in the coming days the issue will become clearer with tweets, and therefore we advise you to follow the profiles of the interested party to find out if our Jolly will be the useful card to break the table.