Daily Briefing: Thursday 16th September

God of War devs don't want to "spend 15 years on a trilogy "

The news that God of War Ragnarök will mark the end of Kratos' Norse saga was met by a little bit of surprise and confusion by fans who were expecting another trilogy. The reasoning for this, according to developers Sony Santa Monica, centres around the sheer amount of time it would take to develop a trilogy of games. Speaking to YouTube channel Kaptain Kuba about the decision, Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlog said that the studio didn't want fans to have to wait 15 years to experience a trilogy.

• Barlog said “I think one of the most important reasons is the first game took five years, the second game, I don’t know how long it’s going to take but I’m just going to throw out that it’s going to take close to a similar time to do this, right, and then if you think, wow a third one in that same [amount of time], we’re talking like a span of close to 15 years of a single story and I feel like that’s just too stretched out.” He also said that this would just feel too long for the completion of the story which, when you put it like that, makes a fair bit of sense.

eFootball has a $40 DLC pack that won't work for two months

Even though the game somehow hasn't still released, things just seem to be going from bad to worse for eFootball, the F2P successor to Konami's lynchpin Pro Evolution Soccer franchise. The news that the game would essentially be a demo at launch due to content rollouts happening later in the year was hardly enticing for fans, and now it turns out that the game's premium preorder option includes a microtransaction option that won't actually be usable until another two months after launch.

• Although the game follows a F2P model, Konami have mentioned before that they have plans for premium, paid content rollouts. This particular one, called the eFootball 2022 Premium Player Pack on the Xbox and PlayStation stores, costs a hefty $39.99. The bundle includes the base game (surely that's the free part?) plus in-game currency and what Konami call Chance Deals. These Chance Deals are for signing important players but, like the currency, can't actually be used until "after the update scheduled for mid-November of 2021." Neat.

Battlefield 2042 delayed

Following a spate of (often rather dramatic) rumours, DICE officially confirmed this week that the release of Battlefield 2042 has been pushed back by around five weeks. That means that, instead of launching on October 22nd, the game will now arrive on November 19th. In their statement announcing the delay, DICE outlined that the pandemic has posed "unforeseen challenges" to the dev team and, as such, the team need more time to finish off the game.

• While DICE's official confirmation was nice to have, the industry had already been pretty clued in on Battlefield 2042's delay thanks to the usual insiders. VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb tweeted about it being the start of delays season, before later specifying Battlefield 2042 via Discord. While DualShockers' Tom Henderson also reported on the delay and how it looked like an eleventh-hour decision for the studio.