The PS5 event on June 11 will be all about gameplay, but you can’t have gameplay without games. While Sony will likely show off a mix of third- and first-party titles, the company has yet to reveal exactly what those titles will be. We might have a hint, though, courtesy of a lead developer on the 2018 hit God of War.
Jeet Shroff, a gameplay director at Sony Santa Monica Studios, was the engineering lead on God of War (2018), a sequel/soft reboot in Sony’s long-running deicidal action series. On June 9, he shared the below tweet:
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“Come join us as we get into the details about what the future has in store!” wrote Shroff, including a link to PlayStation’s tweet about the June 11 event.
Come join us as we get into the details about what the future has in store! #gamedev #playstation https://t.co/GPBp4dxkxPJune 9, 2020
The response to Shroff’s tweet has been creative, to put it mildly. A number of fans and professionals have breathlessly exclaimed that Shroff’s tweet all but confirms the announcement of a new God of War 2 game at the PS5 event. And while that’s certainly not impossible, it’s also worth pointing out that Shroff said nothing about God of War, and that historically speaking, we’re not quite due for a new God of War game just yet.
First off, if we take Shroff’s tweet at face value, then yes, Sony Santa Monica will have a presence at the PS5 event. (Unless Shroff meant “us” as the larger PlayStation developer community, which is also possible.) This could mean a new God of War game. It could also mean that someone on the team wants to share general programming insights, or that the team is working on a new IP, or that an older God of War game will get a port to demonstrate some PS5 feature or other. (God of War III came to the PS4 to demonstrate that system’s enhanced frame rate, among other things.)
If Sony does show off a new God of War game, fans should bear in mind that it may not be a launch title. Mainline God of War games tend to come out somewhere between three and five years apart. Since we got the last God of War title in 2018, 2021 seems like a reasonable release date for the next one. On the other hand, only two years passed between the first and second God of War games on the PS2, so anything’s possible.
If you want to tune in and see for yourself, the event will take place on June 11 at 4 PM ET on PlayStation’s official YouTube and Twitch channels.
