Sony’s Santa Monica Studio has wrapped up their epic Norse story arc with last year’s release of God of War Ragnarok, so now ever-inquisitive fans turn their attention to the future. What might Kratos get up to next? We really have no idea at this point, but we now know the name of somebody who will likely help chart the franchise’s next step.
Recently, Bonnie Jean Mah announced on X that she’d joined Santa Monica Studio as a narrative director. Mah previously worked at Vancouver-based developer The Coalition, where she acted as a narrative designer on Gears of War 4 and Gears 5, before becoming overall narrative director for the whole franchise. She also had a brief stint as head writer for Age of Empires IV. So yes, this does seem to be a fairly major Microsoft-to-Sony defection. Here’s what she had to say about the new job on X…
“ALL RIGHT, let’s do this…I’m SO excited to share my news: I’ve joined Sony Santa Monica Studio as a Narrative Director. I’m beyond thrilled to be working with this team and studio. LET’S GOOOOO.”
She doesn’t specify what exactly she’ll be directing narratively, but it’s probably a good bet it will be God-of-War-related (her tweet shows her posing next to a Kratos statue). No doubt there will be some raised eyebrows about this move – the Gears games actually have somewhat underrated stories, but are they on the same level of what Cory Barlog achieved with the new God of War games? I’d argue no.
Santa Monica Studio currently has multiple projects in the pipeline, with one said to be a new IP from Cory Barlog that’s been in the works for “many years.” Of course, God of War isn’t going anywhere either after the major success of the last two games.
God of War Ragnarok can be played on PS5. What do you think about some of Microsoft’s GoW getting into Sony’s GoW? What do you want to see next from the franchise?
