‘God of War’: Laufey Devs Explain Why Faye Is the Real Star Now Replacing Kratos

PlayStation’s State of Play on June 2 delivered a major surprise for fans of the God of War series. The next mainline entry, God of War Laufey, will not follow Kratos. Instead, the story shifts to his wife, Faye, also known as Laufey, who steps into the lead role for the first time in the franchise.

The game is being developed for PlayStation 5 by Santa Monica Studio. It was officially announced during the showcase and marks a major change for the long-running series. For the first time, Kratos is not the central character. Instead, the story focuses on Faye and her journey through a mysterious afterlife realm called Everywhen, a space said to connect gods from different mythologies.

According to the story setup shared at the event, Faye arrives in Everywhen after her funeral, which was shown briefly in God of War (2018). In this new place, she finds herself caught in conflicts involving powerful gods of war. At the same time, she begins to uncover that her past choices and secret efforts to protect Kratos and Atreus may have unexpected consequences.

In an interview with IGN, Santa Monica Studio creative director Cory Barlog and game director Ariel Lawrence explained why Faye became the focus of a full game. Barlog said the idea was not about replacing Kratos, but about expanding the universe around him. He described it by saying, “We’ll always tell stories about Kratos, but I think for us, it was just a chance to talk about somebody who was so pivotal to the beginning and get to know them and push beyond into this new world and give us some place to be surprised and see how things connect. So for us, it’s not a departure; it’s more of an expansion.”

Barlog also revealed that Faye had been on the team’s mind for years. Even in the 2018 reboot, she was already a key emotional presence in the story, despite rarely appearing on screen. He said, “The character to usher us into this sort of new world is this character, who is such an anchor to the rebirth of where we were going with the franchise.”

He further explained that Faye was always written as a powerful force in the background of Kratos and Atreus’ journey. “She was omnipresent but visually not represented. In 2018 she was a feeling; she was a phantom and a specter but one whose tendrils stretched out through the entirety of the narrative,” Barlog said. The team became interested in what her life and strength looked like before the events players already know.

Gameplay-wise, Faye is designed to feel very different from Kratos while still fitting within the same universe. Ariel Lawrence explained that the challenge was showing a character who matches Kratos in strength, but expresses it in a new way. She said, “Kratos is like a brick wall, and he’s a little stoic, but it’s just that his brutality is different. How do we show somebody who’s his equal as she is?”

She added that the combat style will pull from earlier God of War design ideas while also introducing faster and more flexible movement. The goal is to build a fighting style that feels grounded in the series but clearly shaped by Faye’s identity rather than Kratos’ rage-driven approach.

God of War Laufey does not yet have a release date, but it is already positioned as one of the most unusual shifts in the franchise’s history, putting a long-hidden character at the center of a story that has always revolved around Kratos.

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