The unexpected, unannounced centerpiece of Sony‘s State of Play presentation yesterday was not Marvel‘s Wolverine, as some expected, but a surprise 20-minute uncut reveal of gameplay from God Of War: Laufey, the next game in the series — which no one knew about until now.
“Laufey” is better known as Faye, Kratos’ late wife and the place his son Atreus emerged from. Up to now, Faye has been a background character in the God of War series, heavily influencing the events of the previous game Ragnarok, but for unexplained reasons. Looks like an explanation is forthcoming.
Once Faye is ritualistically wrapped and burned, her spirit ascends into the Everywhen, the spirit world where most of the ancient religious figures (the ones you can’t offend people by putting in here) hang out. She’s sneered at and imprisoned by the Egyptian god Sekhmet, who seems to run things around there. As Faye is trying to figure a way out of her cage, she meets a talking gelatinous cube named Phranque, who has a sword stuck in him. At first it appears that the sword also talks, but it’s actually the ribbon tied around it that’s talking. These are some pretty zany characters for a God of War game.
Faye, Cube and Ribbon help each other get free, and soon she’s somersaulting around the area, slashing at enemies with the sword in hand and her magic spells in the other. It becomes clear quickly Faye could hold her own alongside Kratos. Good thing they were lovers and not enemies.
It’s unknown when God Of War: Laufey is being released, but it’s been almost four years since the last GoW and the implication is that they’ve been working on this one all that time. It looks pretty ready to go by the appearance of the gameplay here, but of course appearances can be deceiving. A “vertical slice” is what the industry calls a built-up section of a game that is finished early to cast the illusion the whole thing is farther along than it is — it was a frequent E3 practice.
However finished God Of War: Laufey is, it looks darn cool and we hope to learn more about it in the near future.
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