God of War Laufey benches Kratos for his dead wife and a talking cube

Kratos spent the first of his Norse adventures carrying his wife’s ashes to the highest peak in the Nine Realms. In God of War Laufey she gets her own game, and he stays behind in the world of the living. Santa Monica Studio’s next PlayStation exclusive hands the series to Laufey, the Jötunn warrior players know as Faye, who wakes up in the afterlife of the gods just after her own funeral with a borrowed sword, a talking ribbon and a cosmic cube voiced by Jack Quaid.

Sony revealed the game at its State of Play on June 2 with the gameplay video above, which runs close to 24 minutes and has passed 10 million views on PlayStation’s YouTube channel. Laufey launches on February 16, 2027, on PS5 only. It is the 11th game in the series and the first mainline entry in which Kratos is not the main character. Ariel Lawrence directs, Bear McCreary returns to write the score after God of War (2018) and Ragnarök, and Deborah Ann Woll plays Faye again after voicing her in Ragnarök.

Faye’s story runs in parallel with the last two games

Laufey is not a prequel. Its story unfolds at the same time as God of War (2018) and Ragnarök. While Kratos and Atreus carry out the plan Faye left them, she opens her eyes in the Everywhen, which Santa Monica Studio describes as the place where all magic is born and to which it returns. Gods from several mythologies end up there after death, and they do not share it peacefully. Faye learns that the plans she made to protect her husband and son are at risk, and that getting out will be harder than getting in, because the natural flow of magic there has broken down.

The first gods in her way come from outside the Norse cycle. Sekhmet is the Egyptian goddess of war, and Begtse is a war god from Mongolian tradition. Two companions join Faye early. Phranque, played by Quaid, is a cosmic cube who remembers nothing of his past. Rue, played by Perlina Lau, is an enchanted ribbon charged with keeping a sword of enormous strength away from the wrong hands. Faye wins Rue’s trust, and the sword becomes her main weapon.

She fights faster than Kratos and goes after the soul

Santa Monica Studio says Faye had to hit as hard as Kratos and still feel different on the controller. Its answer borrows the movement and fluidity of the Greek-era games and pairs it with the world-building and close character focus of the Norse era. Faye moves between the ground and the air without stopping a combo, chaining attacks into what the studio’s blog post calls “a relentless onslaught against her foes.”

Her signature move comes from her old title. As the Golden Hand of the Jötnar, Faye could already manipulate souls, and in the Everywhen that power grows. She can strike an enemy with her golden palm hard enough to tear its soul out of its body, then hit the soul directly or knock it into other enemies in the middle of a combo.

In September the studio showed a second weapon, the Serpent Bow. Pressing the aim trigger all the way gives a precise shot that can target parts of an enemy’s body to slow it down or weaken its attacks, and charging the bow stacks up to five arrows for a single volley. A half press drops Faye into a hip-fire stance that sprays a cluster of arrows at close range. The bow takes swappable Scales that change its look and its perk, and it works with Phranque, who can launch enemies into the air so Faye can keep them there with arrows.

Pre-orders opened on September 29. The Standard Edition costs $69.99 and the Digital Deluxe Edition $79.99, and early buyers get a Last Wish armor set for Faye and a Golden Leaves look for Phranque. Laufey will also come out on disc. Santa Monica Studio confirmed that in July, after Sony said it would stop producing physical discs and release new games only digitally from January 2028. On October 13 Sony opened orders for a limited $149.99 Collector Box with a light-up statue of Faye, Phranque and Rue, a 51-card oracle deck illustrated by Megan Lara and a mini artbook. The box contains no copy of the game, on disc or as a code.

Cory Barlog, Santa Monica Studio’s head of creative, has wanted to make a Faye game since 2018. When Woll signed on for Ragnarök, he pitched it to her with a poster showing her character next to a cube. Sony has since said that the next God of War brings Kratos back and continues directly from Laufey’s story. For the first time in 21 years, where the series goes next depends on how players take to someone other than Kratos.

Tags: gaming, PlayStation 5, God of War, Deborah Ann Woll, God of War Laufey, Santa Monica Studio