God of War Laufey Stars Kratos' Wife Faye, Picks Up After Her Funeral

Sony and Santa Monica Studio just announced God of War Laufey, a new entry starring Kratos' dead wife Faye, revealed with roughly 20 minutes of gameplay during yesterday's State of Play. Deborah Ann Woll voices the protagonist.

Here's the part that'll trip people up: it's not a prequel. Creative lead Cory Barlog went out of his way to clarify that Laufey picks up immediately after Faye's funeral pyre in 2018's God of War, the one we all watched Kratos and Atreus light. "This is what happened to Faye after that funeral," Barlog told GamesRadar. So the woman we thought was ash at the start of the Norse saga has apparently been doing something else entirely, somewhere else entirely, the whole time.

That somewhere is called the Everywhen, a new realm that lets Santa Monica step outside the Norse sandbox without committing to a single mythology. The enemy roster reflects that — leaks and the trailer confirm fights with Sekhmet, the Egyptian war goddess, and Begtse, a Mongolian war god. Barlog's pitch on the gods, for anyone who's played the previous two games and knows the drill: "They're all assholes."

The companion setup is where things get weird. Faye is joined by Rue, a sentient ribbon guardian voiced by Perlina Lau, and Phranque, a cosmic jellied cube voiced by Jack Quaid. Barlog said he hopes that "by the end of this, everybody has feelings for some ribbons and a jellied cube," which is either a confident creative swing or the kind of line a director says right before a focus group revolts. He also promised the "density of magic is amplified by like a thousand," which tracks with leaving Midgard behind for a realm that apparently contains every pantheon at once.

Mechanically, this isn't Kratos with a wig. Faye doesn't have the Leviathan Axe or the Blades of Chaos. Rue functions as a weapon, a grappling tool, and a traversal aid depending on context. Phranque appears to handle the puzzle and lore-dump duties Mimir used to cover, except he's a cube. Combat in the footage looked faster and more aerial than Ragnarok's grounded brawling.

Barlog was careful to manage expectations on the bigger picture. "We'll always tell stories about Kratos," he said, framing Laufey as a chance to explore "somebody who was so pivotal to the beginning." The implication is clear: the Kratos main line isn't dead, this is the side project, and Santa Monica gets to experiment with a smaller, weirder scope before whatever the next mainline game ends up being.

No release date was given. Industry chatter is floating 2027, though nothing official backs that up, and Santa Monica's track record suggests "when it's ready" means a year after whatever month gets whispered first. It also lands in a crowded God of War slate — Kotaku reports the PS5 trilogy remake and the Amazon live-action show are both still in development.

So Faye is alive, the multiverse is open, and one of the main party members is a cube. Sure.