Video game director and writer Cory Barlog, best known for his work as the lead animator for God of War, as the game director of God of War II and as the writer for God of War: Ghost of Sparta, left Sony in 2007 after working on God of War III for eight months. Now, he’s back.
Cory made the announcement on the PS Blog, where he details why he left and what he has been up to for the past few years – notably, directing the cinematics of Tomb Raider.
Now that he’s back at Sony Santa Monica Studios, he obviously hasn’t announced what he’s working on – although LinkedIn suggest he’s been involved since April. One interesting quote from his return speech is as follows:
There I would use my newly honed powers of awesome to create something that will rock the free world. In an instant I decided to move my family, my wife who is nothing short of a superhero every day and our newborn son, Helo, named after our favorite character in BSG as well as our shorthand for the Sun God Helios – nerd family for sure, down to the sunny Shangri-La that is Santa Monica California.
What makes this sentence so important is the reference to Battlestar Galactica – and we already know that a BSG writer has been involved with a SSM game for the past 2 years. He continues:
What am I working on, you ask? Good question. Sadly, I cannot tell you…yet. But I can say that it is freaking huge, and it will live up to the standards that I helped establish here at SMS. We’re putting together a team as I type this, an Ocean’s 11 kind of thing. We are searching the world high and low for the best of the BEST to come and be on the ground floor of this endeavor. So, hey, if you are a freaking rock star unafraid to roll your sleeves up and take risks, reading this thinking that your current digs are feeling…well…a bit small, a bit dull and in need of some excitement – you need to contact me at Sony Santa Monica.
The new IP is thought to already have a whopping 150 developers working on it, with Stig Asmussen likely at the helm. It will feature magic, has shooter and vehicular combat elements, and is almost definitely a PS4 game.
Are you excited? You should be.
