Exclusive: Sony Santa Monica Working on 3 Titles, 2 Of Which Are Secret

Events like E3 are always about talking to industry folks and getting news where you can. Of course, when it comes to exclusive content, most of it is already signed away between publishers and large news sites who tend to have first dip on them. This of course does not mean exclusive content is impossible to come by, especially if you do a bit of detective work and ping back and forth between people within the same organization.

Having had a chance to do just that during E3, we were able to get some inside knowledge on Sony Santa Monica Studios and piece together some key knowledge about the studio’s current slate of games and future projects.

By now, it’s no secret that the team is working on God of War: Ascension for the PlayStation 3. Due in the early part of 2013 and led by Todd Papy, the game once again features Kratos before the events of God of War 1. Fan of the series should also be no stranger to Stig Asmussen, director of God of War 3. During my short chat with him, the director revealed to me that he’s working on a brand new IP while the other team, under Mr. Papy, hammers away at GoW: Ascension. From the gist of the conversation, it also seemed that the new game is destined for the PlayStation 4 though that’s impossible to confirm.

With two titles there, we now move onto another piece of the puzzle. Fans of The Tester, PlayStation’s reality show, will also remember that some lucky game contestants were given a tour of Santa Monica Studios and showcased a game. After the show’s ending, Sony would reveal God of War: Ascension, making it an easy connection that the showed off game was GoW. Well another piece of the puzzle that I’ve learned at E3 is that the game shown off was not GoW: Ascension and instead, another title, which confirms the story from Stig and placing the number of internal game development at two.

So where does the 3rd game come into play? Well, during our detective work at E3, I was able to confirm that the title shown was different then that of GoW while also not being the project under Stig, leading to a total of 3 in-house projects. Beyond that, we don’t have any details on the project while I’ve specifically stayed vague on the people and conversations as they were never official interviews.

Discuss:

Do you think Sony Santa Monica is working on PS3 or PS4 titles?