Sony started its annual E3 press conference with a gameplay demo of a new God of War game. The footage shows the franchise’s main antihero, Kratos, training a young boy to hunt in the wilderness. The boy, who calls Kratos his father, helps him take down a series of vicious monsters, showing off the series’ signature mix of hack-and-slash action and quick time event cutscenes. There does appear to be a more fluid, Dark Souls-style combat going on though. Kratos also has a wicked beard, so there’s that too.
The title does not appear to be an official God of War 4, but rather a reboot of the franchise or a possibly a prequel to the main series, in which Kratos is still a mortal man and a father before becoming beholden to Ares. It also isn’t clear that this new God of War is set in a time before or after Ancient Greece, or if it’s going to tackle an entirely new mythology like the much rumored Norse setting. Kratos still has his ash-white skin, after all. But he’s also wielding an axe and not his signature Blades of Chaos. So many questions, so little information! One thing we know for sure: Kratos is back.
While Sony’s press conference didn’t feature a new console like its competition, the spectacle did include plenty of game announcements. Resident Evil 7, Spider-Man, and Days Gone joined already shown titles like Horizon Zero Dawn and Detroit: Become Human in a flurry of trailers and gameplay demonstrations.
While the presentation was crammed, we managed to condense everything to a clip that runs just a smidgen over 5 minutes. That should leave you with plenty of time to begin learning Latin or finally read that dusty copy of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock that you’ve been putting of since high school. Let’s hear it for the true winner of E3 2016: self-improvement.