New God of War Coming in 2012?

When God of War 3 was complete, Sony's Santa Monica Studios said that Kratos' story is pretty much done and over with...but that's just Kratos and not the God of War franchise. Nothing's been heard since about God of War, but today, something very interesting came up.

PSM3, an unofficial Playstation Magazine, has confirmed from an anonymous source of theirs, who actually does work at Santa Monica, confirmed that a new installment will be arriving in September 2012. It's not official at all, nor is it known if it's exactly going to be "God of War 4," or some sort of spin off, but it makes sense that there would be more, but without Kratos. Only time will tell or if proven false...

SOE Studio Closures and Layoffs, "The Agency" MMO Cancelled

Apparently, things are going down with Sony Online Entertainment studios and games, one of which being The Agency, which had been announced at E3 a few years ago. That's not the only thing that's been going on, though!

Stated by Joystiq, they noticed that tweets were coming from George Broussard's Twitter regarding closures and layoffs at SOE. As far as we're told, Seatle, Tucson, and Denver have definitely shut down, but the Austin studio is still up. The only problem there is that half of the staff have been let go.

SOE has stated that due to these actions they have "focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties, while also maintaining its current portfolio of online games."

Activision kills Guitar Hero, True Crime, and lays off DJ Hero Devs

The music/rhythm genre had been dying for quite a while, but who knew that the Guitar Hero franchise would get the nail in the coffin. Activision has stated that "due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011." Ouch....

That's not all! They have also canned the reboot of the True Crime franchise, under the working title of True Crime: Hong Kong that was set to release a while ago, but was pushed to release this year. Activision also states that "The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."

Freestyle Games, the studio behind the DJ Hero franchise, has also suffered from the ongoing announcements from Activision. Massive layoffs have begun due to the lack of sales in the same genre that Guitar Hero was in.

With news still coming in from Activision's announcements, GamerzItch will keep you posted.