God of War Ragnarok Cross-Gen News Has PlayStation Fans Divided

The new God of War game was delayed today, and it looks like Horizon Forbidden West is set to follow. As you would expect, this was enough to divide God of War fans into two camps: those heartbroken by the delay and those who aren’t bothered by the delay and are encouraging Sony Santa Monica to take all the time they need. However, this isn’t the most divisive God of War news to break today. Far from it, actually.

In addition to confirming the new God of War game isn’t releasing until 2022 at the earliest, Sony also confirmed the next installment in the long-running series is heading to PS4 in addition to PS5. In other words, it’s a cross-gen game.

According to a large swath of PlayStation fans over on Twitter, the game being cross-gen is bad news for those on PS5. The rationale behind this is that the PS4 version will hold back the PS5 version of the game. Put generally like this, this isn’t true. It’s simply not how game development works. What’s more important is whether or not the game is being built on PS4 and scaled up to PS5 or the other way around. If it’s the former, the backlash has a point. If it’s not, the backlash is misguided.

That said, what argument can be made independent of these two possibilities is that the PS4 version will hold back the ambition and scope of the game. Sony Santa Monica has to make something that will run reasonably well on PS4. This is a reasonable concern, but it really doesn’t apply here.

The God of War series isn’t going to push the boundaries of possibility. It’s not that type of series. The argument that this news is negative is an argument based on the assumption that the game was going to aim to do something on PS5 that can’t be done on PS4. However, the reality is most games aren’t going to push the boundaries to the point where this is true.

One game that is doing this is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which is why it’s a PS5 exclusive. If the new God of War was going to do this, it would probably have been made as a PS5 exclusive. That said, the PS5 games that release in the next several years that can’t run on PS4 will be few and far between. The new God of War will look and run better on PS5 compared to PS4, and there’s no evidence that the game being on PS4 is shaping or limiting the scope of the game, which comes from a series that isn’t known to innovate and maximize generational differences.

For now, all we can do is speculate and theorize because we have no clue what type of game Sony Santa Monica is making with the new God of War. In the meantime, PlayStation fans are divided.