God of War 2, Horizon Forbidden West, and GT7 are all cross-gen [updated]

By Kes Eylers-Stephenson,

Update 2:

Push Square have heard back on the situation from Sony PR. The news is now officially confirmed — God of War: Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7 are both coming to PS4 and PS5.

Update 1:

VGC have published a story that reports (and is therefore not gospel) Sony made a last-minute decision to port Gran Turismo 7 to last-gen. The reporter, Andy Robertson, stated: "I understand the decision to release a PS4 version [of GT7] was made only fairly recently." The decision to make Horizon Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok cross-gen was made a long time in advance, apparently. "These games were always intended to release as cross-gen titles, I was told, but Sony did not mention the last-gen console during the announcement of either title."

This would suggest that backwards porting doesn't require too much effort, although that might be because of the nature of racing games. The article goes into detail about the impact that cross-gen games will have on development and is a fabulous read, so check it out!

Original Story:

God of War: Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7 are confirmed to be PS4 and PS5 titles alongside the already confirmed Horizon Forbidden West, an interview with Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst on the Official PlayStation Podcast has revealed.

In the PlayStation Blog transcript of the interview, the question asked was: "How does PS4 factor into PlayStation Studios’ development vision? Is it still a focus internally for future game development?" Hulst then qualified the internal reasoning is for making cross-gen games. "You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, right? I think that’d be bad news for fans of PS4, and frankly not very good business." Sony has a huge old-gen install base and needs to feed it, especially while PS5's are in short supply.

While we already know that Horizon is cross-gen, until this interview we were yet to hear about any other PlayStation franchises crossing generation streams. Hulst continues: "Where it makes sense to develop a title for both PS4 and PS5 — for Horizon Forbidden West, the next God of War, GT7 — we’ll continue looking at that. And if PS4 owners want to play that game, then they can. If they want to go on and play the PS5 version, that game will be there for them." PlayStation does not want to leave their biggest IP on PS5 exclusively until they can guarantee that it will either push PS5 sales (currently impossible) or be sold to every possible PlayStation gamer (currently mostly on PS4). So, by keeping God of War, Horizon, and Gran Turismo cross-gen for the time being, Sony can generate the most business.

About the future of PS5, Hulst is a little coyer. "That being said, it’s also very important to have showpieces for PS5, hence the development of Returnal and Ratchet that are exclusive to PS5." A sad lack of news here, just a confirmation that there are, indeed, PS5 exclusive games. Thanks for reminding us, Hermen. Let's hope for more in the future!

In other interview news, Hulst confirmed a delay to God of War: Ragnarok. Are you disappointed with this news, or excited? Do you think cross-gen gaming holds back the next-gen in 2021? We are fascinated by your responses, so get involved down below.

Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about PS5 exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favorite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.