God of War Laufey
About this game
My first God of War was Chains of Olympus on PSP, sitting next to a friend on a couch and passing the handheld back and forth. That was the beginning of a franchise relationship that's spanned almost two decades - through Ghost of Sparta, through the PS3 originals, through the extraordinary reinvention in 2018, through Ragnarök. The series has meant something to me for a long time. And when Santa Monica Studio revealed God of War Laufey at the PlayStation State of Play on June 2, 2026, with nearly 20 minutes of gameplay footage, my first reaction was something between genuine surprise and "of course - it was always going to be her." This is Faye's game. Kratos's wife. Atreus's mother. The woman whose death literally set the entire modern God of War trilogy in motion. A character whose presence shaped everything about the Norse saga without us ever actually playing as her. And for the first time in the franchise's history, Kratos is not the playable protagonist. The premise picks up immediately from the opening scene of God of War 2018 - Faye wakes in the Everywhen, the afterlife of the gods, directly after being cremated on her funeral pyre. She quickly discovers that the plans she carefully put in place to protect Kratos and Atreus in her absence are now in danger. The Everywhen itself is a corrupted battleground where gods from across every mythology - not just Norse, not just Greek - are vying for dominance. To save her family, Faye has to fight her way through all of it. She's described in the lore as the Golden Hand of the Jötnar, the most powerful protector of the Giants - someone who once fought Thor to a standstill - and the game makes that combat ability absolutely central to what you're doing. Deborah Ann Woll, who voiced Faye in brief flashback scenes in Ragnarök, returns to lead the cast. Two companions join her early in the journey: Phranque, a sentient cosmic cube with a genuinely warm and earnest personality voiced by Jack Quaid, and Rue, an enchanted ribbon guardian keeping an extremely powerful sword out of the wrong hands, voiced by Perlina Lau. The antagonists shown in the reveal trailer include Sekhmet, the Egyptian lion goddess, and Begtse, a war deity from Mongolian mythology - a sign that the cross-pantheon scope of the Everywhen is going to be expansive in ways the Norse games never attempted. Combat is built on the modern over-the-shoulder God of War framework - the single-continuous-camera-shot presentation returns - but Santa Monica has injected what they explicitly describe as "classic DNA of the Greek era." Faye is significantly faster and more aerial than Kratos. She moves fluidly between ground and air combat without the action stopping, can juggle enemies skyward, uses her free hand for a range of magical abilities including blocking, and has a hyper-responsive feel that the studio says reflects her specific warrior identity rather than being a reskinned version of Kratos's moveset. It genuinely looks different - quicker, more stylish, more acrobatic - while clearly existing in the same visual and mechanical language as the games that came before. Game Director Ariel Lawrence and Head of Creative Cory Barlog both appeared in a behind-the-scenes interview video discussing how the concept of a Faye-led game originated and what the long-term vision for the series looks like from here. No release date has been given - the game launched into wishlists on PlayStation Store marked simply as "coming soon to PS5" - but Bloomberg's Jason Schreier noted publicly that the game is "not years away," which points toward 2027 as the most realistic window. No PC version has been announced, though the precedent from the 2018 game and Ragnarök both making their way to PC eventually suggests it'll happen at some point. I've played every God of War with someone. PSP on a couch, PS3 controllers, the 2018 game from start to finish in a single weekend. The idea of doing the same thing with a game that finally lets you understand who Faye actually was - before the story we know, before Kratos, before Atreus - is exactly the kind of thing that makes this franchise still feel genuinely exciting twenty years in. Already wishlisted. Already counting down.
