Faye occupies an unusual place in the modern God of War games. Her death starts the 2018 story, her wishes send Kratos and Atreus across the Nine Realms, and almost everything the audience initially understands about her arrives through someone else's memory.

God of War Laufey reverses that arrangement. When the game launches on February 16, 2027, Faye becomes the person through whom the world is understood rather than the absent figure motivating everyone else.

Her story starts where God of War 2018 started without her

Santa Monica Studio is not simply setting the entire game decades earlier to avoid Faye's established fate. Laufey begins after her death. She awakens in the Everywhen and learns that the plans she left behind to keep Kratos and Atreus safe are under threat.

That gives the game room to explore the person behind the legend of the Giant warrior without undoing her death. Deborah Ann Woll returns to play Faye, while Jack Quaid joins as Phranque and Perlina Lau plays Rue.

The Everywhen changes the scale of God of War's mythology

The new setting may matter beyond this one story. The Everywhen is an afterlife for gods in which different mythological traditions meet rather than remaining confined to separate regions and eras.

Sekhmet and Begtse are already confirmed inhabitants. Egyptian mythology can therefore enter the series alongside figures from a very different tradition without requiring the clean geographical break that separated the Greek and Norse sagas.

For a franchise built on repeatedly asking which mythology comes next, that is a fairly substantial change. Laufey's answer is that several of them can arrive at once.

Kratos still has another chapter

The protagonist change is not permanent. During the God of War panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Santa Monica Studio confirmed that another Kratos-led game is already in development and will directly connect with events in Laufey.

That leaves Faye with an interesting job: carry a mainline God of War without its defining character while also moving the larger story toward his return.

The next Kratos game has no announced title or release date. God of War Laufey arrives first, exclusively on PlayStation 5 on February 16, 2027.