Sony's June 3 State of Play saved its biggest moment for last: over 20 minutes of footage from God of War Laufey, Santa Monica Studio's new spin-off built around Faye, the wife of Kratos who died before the opening of the 2018 reboot. For fans of God of War Ragnarök, this is the deep lore hit they've been waiting for.
The footage appears to cover the very opening of the game, and there's a lot packed into those 20 minutes. Here's the lowdown on what matters most.
Faye isn't in a prequel, she's in the afterlife
The trailer opens with the cremation scene from the 2018 game, then cuts to Faye waking up disoriented in an unfamiliar world. She's dead, but she's somewhere. That place turns out to be the Everywhen, described as the afterlife of the gods, where every deity who dies eventually ends up.
Her story runs parallel to Kratos and Atreus' journey rather than preceding it. Deborah Ann Woll, who played Faye in flashbacks during Ragnarök, reprises the role here with full lead billing.
The Mask of Creation shows up again
While exploring the Everywhen, Faye stumbles across a corpse wearing something that closely resembles the Mask of Creation from Ragnarök. It isn't an exact copy, and it crumbles before she can examine it properly, but her reaction makes clear she recognizes what it represents. She immediately worries that the path she set Kratos and Atreus on may not be as safe as she planned.
This is the first concrete signal that Laufey won't just be a side story. Faye may be actively influencing events from the other side while the main games' timelines play out.
Faye plays nothing like Kratos
Here's the thing: if you're expecting a reskinned Kratos experience, the trailer shuts that down fast. Faye has a double jump, noticeably lighter movement, and a combat style built around aerial juggling. She fights Clicker-like plant creatures by keeping them airborne and exploiting her verticality in ways Kratos never could.
She also has magical abilities, though she notes early on that they feel weaker than they should be. That changes later in the trailer once she fully accepts her death.
Multiple mythologies are colliding in one place
This is where Laufey goes somewhere genuinely unexpected. Faye encounters Mongolian soldiers running a prison camp, gets hauled before Begtse (the Mongolian god of war), and is then stopped from being beaten by Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of war. A Kitsune gets subdued nearby. Dragon corpses burn in a fire pit.
The Norse God of War games always operated on the premise that multiple mythologies coexist in the same universe. Laufey takes that premise and slams all of them into one location.
Begtse tells Faye you can't die in the Everywhen, which sets up an interesting combat dynamic where the stakes of death may function very differently than in the main series.
Two new companions are already fan favorites
Inside her prison cell, Faye meets Phranque, a sentient gelatinous cube with a sword lodged in his side, and Rue, a magical ribbon wrapped around that sword's hilt. Phranque is voiced by Jack Quaid (Hughie from The Boys), and the community has been running wild with theories about what he actually is.
The leading fan theory suggests Phranque may be part of something larger that was severed when the sword was removed. As for the sword itself, one character tells Faye it's "more than she thinks it is." Some players are already theorizing it could be Excalibur.
Phranque, Laufey's cube companion
A ghostly Kratos moment already has fans theorizing
After escaping her cage, Faye has a brief encounter with what appears to be Kratos, who helps her up before vanishing. A fan on social media synced this moment with the opening of God of War Ragnarök, specifically the scene where Kratos briefly dies before Thor revives him, and the timing lines up remarkably well.
Santa Monica hasn't confirmed whether this is intentional, but the Everywhen's fluid relationship with time gives the theory real room to breathe.
Full-powered Faye is exactly what the series promised
The trailer's back half shows what Faye looks like when she's operating at full strength. Soul-separating spells, acrobatic combat, and using Rue to bind and toss enemies while she cuts through them with the mystery sword. Kratos spent two games talking about how formidable she was. This is the payoff.
The trailer ends mid-fight with Begtse, who hints that he may actually fear the sword Faye carries. No resolution, just a title card and a lot of open questions.
No release date, but Santa Monica promises more soon
Laufey is confirmed for PS5 and Santa Monica Studio says more information is coming in the months ahead, but no release window has been announced. Given how much lore is already in play from just the opening segment, the full game has serious potential to reframe both Norse-era titles in a new light.
For players wanting to revisit the story before Laufey arrives, the God of War Ragnarök guides are a solid way to refresh on the lore threads Laufey is clearly picking back up. More broadly, the gaming guides hub has you covered as new details continue to drop.
