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As Sony sets the stage for the upcoming release of God of War: Ragnarok, the developers working on the game, Santa Monica Studios, don't seem to be looking at much downtime between projects. In fact, the latest information coming from the studio implies quite the opposite, with Santa Monica seemingly going on a hiring spree for an as-of-yet unannounced title.
Specifically, the Sony owned studio is looking for a number of experienced staff that would be joining its ranks in short order. The listings are numerous and detailed, as the developer has open positions for art directors, concept artists, producers, and more, and although information pertaining to the games they'll be working on is still in short supply, there are some hints as to what it might be.
Everything points to Santa Monica releasing God of War Ragnarok in 2022, so it does make perfect sense for the team to be already hiring for its next major project. The job listings imply that the scope of Santa Monica's next game will not be reduced, either, as the developer is looking for staff with several years' worth of experience in AAA game development. The position of a Senior Producer, for one, necessitates at least one shipped AAA game as well, with the listing mentioning that both PC and console producers are welcome to apply.
At this time, Santa Monica Studios has 17 open positions it's looking to fill for its next AAA project, and they range from programming and art production all the way to quality assurance staff, making this a mid-sized expansion of its production capacities. Overall, this seems to be a continuation of Santa Monica hiring for a large-scale project from a few months back, but fans will need to wait a bit longer still if they're interested in what the project might be.
While the mention of PC AAA game development wouldn't be particularly noteworthy on its own, it's worth remembering that PlayStation is hiring a PC strategy director at this time, and this could imply that Santa Monica's next project might have a PC version planned ahead of time. Sony is now seemingly looking to expand the PlayStation brand beyond the confines of the actual console itself, opening up a wide array of possibilities for the company in the future.
Of course, Santa Monica isn't Sony's only prominent game developer. Rumors have been circling around that Sony has an unannounced "banger" coming in 2022 that's comparable to God of War, which would be quite an impressive feat. This is still unconfirmed, however, and could very well turn out to be a dud.