God of War Ragnarök will be releasing on November 9th of this year, and unfortunately for excited fans, spoilers for Kratos and Atreus’ next adventure are already appearing online.
As per a report by IGN, these spoilers first made their way to social media around October 24th, courtesy of a Twitter user who had gotten his hands on an early copy of the game, @PS4Markus.
The leaked media included both videos and photos capturing Ragnarök’s first few hours, as well as Kratos’ facing off against an early boss and his meeting with a new character who knows about his past.
We’ll refrain from going into too much detail here, but if you’re interested, these spoilers can be found here.
Though the user in question has since deleted their entire account, and with it their originally leaked content, the damage had already been done.
With these spoilers in the wild, on October 29th, Sony Santa Monica Studio and Creative Director Cory Barlog took to Twitter to express his sincerest apologies to eager fans who may have had the unfortunate luck of accidentally stumbling upon the leaked information.
“You know, right now, I can really understand the benefit of having just an installer on the physical disc,” opened a frustrated Barlog, sharing a GIF from The Big Bang Theory showing protagonist Sheldon Cooper exasperatedly throwing a stack of papers into the air. “smh”.
“A retailer selling the game nearly TWO WEEKS before release,” he continued. “Just so disappointing.”
“Sorry to everyone that you have to dodge the spoilers if you want to play the game fresh,” added the studio head. “Completely f–king stupid you have to do this. This is not at all how any of us at SMS wanted things to go.”
Drawing his thread to a close, Balrog ultimately clarified, “to be clear, I was expressing my frustration in the first tweet. not advocating for that at all. not the future i want as a gamer or dev. just so beyond frustrated.”
“Feel terrible for the team,” he reiterated. “This whole ordeal is incredibly stressful for us all. Mental health break time.”
In a separate statement, Sony’s Santa Monica Studio both asked players to be courteous of others who wished to go into Ragnarök blind, as well as recommended that such players also take their own personal measures to protect themselves from the spoilers.
“As we approach launch, it is important for our studio to preserve the experience of God of War Ragnarök for players who want to enjoy the game for the first time without spoilers,” said the studio. “We ask that you please be considerate of the many fans who do not want to accidentally see clips, gameplay, or narrative spoilers and avoid sharing them wider.”
“We are doing our best to limit the exposure of unsanctioned footage and screenshots, but the reality is that we cannot catch everything,” they then reassured, before advising, “For those of you who do not want to risk seeing anything before launch, we strongly advise that you mute any keywords or hashtags associated with the game until release day.”
“We appreciate the support you’ve shown us more than we can say,” the statement concluded. “We can assure you it will be worth the wait to experience the game yourself when it is released in less than two weeks on November 9th.”
Officially announced in September of 2020, God of War Ragnarök originally held a release date of 2021. However, the game was ultimately delayed – thankfully only once – to its current release date of November 9th, 2022.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic affected the game’s motion capture production thanks to governmental limits on interpersonal interactions, this delay appears to have been based more in developer Sony Santa Monica’s desire to provide players with the best possible product rather than any pandemic related reason.
Set three years after the end of 2018’s God of War, the upcoming will continue the story of the aforementioned Kratos and his son, Atreus, as they try to uncover the secret behind the latter’s true identity and stop the coming of the titular Ragnarök – the apocalyptic war at the end of all things as depicted in in Norse mythology.
Luckily, fans won’t have to dodge spoilers for long, as God of War Ragnarök – which will no doubt be a late-entry in this year’s ‘Game of the Year’ discussions – is set to release on November 9th, 2022 for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles.
