The new God of War could bring back one unexpected feature from God of War: Ascension - a multiplayer mode. The Sony Santa Monica Studio website has a job listing for a senior multiplayer programmer, calling for somebody who wants "all players to have the best possible shared experience".
The listing reveals as much detail about this theoretical multiplayer feature as you would expect (none), just the fact that the studio needs somebody to help build it. Game director Cory Barlog reportedly said that God of War would not include a multiplayer mode in the weeks after its big reveal at E3 2016. That leaves us with three scenarios: either the initial reports were inaccurate, the studio has changed its mind, or the listing is related to another game that isn't related to God of War. Santa Monica is Sony's go-to location for collaborating with external studios so that may be the case here, though the listing does specifically call out the "critically acclaimed God of War games" in its first sentence.
Another wrinkle: many signs point to God of War being released this year. The senior multiplayer programmer listing was posted near the end of February, which would not leave the studio with much time to implement such a typically complex feature. Though it may just be filling a gap from a previous employee leaving, rather than staffing up an entirely new position.
God of War: Ascension's multiplayer portion let players create their own mythological Greek heroes to slay monsters in competitive and cooperative modes. It did well enough bringing multiplayer to a series that had always been about narrative-driven, single-player monster slaying, but it didn't make that big of a splash. The new God of War has a very different design from previous games, with an over-the-shoulder camera instead of a fixed, floating perspective, for example. So if it does indeed have a multiplayer, I wouldn't expect it to share much in common with Ascension's.
Read all our God of War news to learn more about the new beginning for the deity-stabbing franchise. And check out the reason that Kratos' son is named Atreus.
