Head to the kitchen and grab your salt, it’s rumour time! If the word of a serial industry source and some leaked concept art is anything to go by, we might just have our first look at God of War 4 – and it seems to be centred around Norse mythology.
The rumours began with a tweet from shinobi602, an industry source who recently leaked that the next Call of Duty will be set in space.
While we don’t know if that particular rumour is true (yet) he has previously correctly announced that Black Ops 3 would feature wall-running, characters with robotic limbs and cybernetics, and be developed for Xbox 360 and PS3. His most recent tease is below.
…to the halls of Valhalla.
My boy.#GodofWar4
— shinobi602 (@shinobi602) April 4, 2016
Following this tweet, NerdLeaks came across the portfolio of Finnian MacManus, a concept artist who worked at Sony’s Santa Monica Studio (who we know are working on a new God of War game) from September 2015 to December 2015 creating concept art for an unannounced project.
Mysteriously, NerdLeaks site doesn’t seem to be working at the time of writing, and Finnian MacManus’ portfolio is also currently inaccessible. You can find all the salvaged concept art on this NeoGAF thread.
The art shows a ton of cool looking locations, and a few shots of Kratos (or someone who looks like him) sporting a beard and axe. Take a look at some just below…
As cool as a God of War dabbling in Norse mythology would be, it’s worth noting that two years ago, Sony Santa Monica shut down a massive project that included key staff from the God of War franchise.
This concept art could be from that canned game – But if McManus worked on the game in 2015 and the previous project was shut down in 2014, then assuming the leaked art is indeed his, the timings don’t really work out.
Whatever the case, God of War 4 definitely needs to happen soon. Obviously we don’t have much to go on at the moment, but it’s something to chew over and debate while we wait for an official announcement.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.