God of War Laufey is burning the series’ rulebook and sending it to the afterlife… literally. Faye, wife of Kratos, mother to Atreus, is the protagonist in the latest game from Santa Monica Studio, and the 20 minutes of footage that just dropped as part of State of Play is one hell of an introduction to our new queen of carnage, facing off against two gods of war, forming an alliance with a cosmic cube, and finding herself stuck in a fever dream of a new world.

"We’ll always tell stories about Kratos, but I think for us, it was just a chance to talk about somebody who was so pivotal to the beginning,” says Ariel Lawrence, Game Director on God of War Laufey. “To get to know them and push beyond into this new world and give us some place to be surprised and see how things connect. So for us, it's not a departure; it's more of an expansion."

If you need a quick refresher, Faye – played by True Blood and Daredevil star Deborah Ann Woll – is a frost giant of Jötunheim, has the power of foresight, and was known as Laufey the Just. The Leviathan Axe from God of War was crafted for her, she has access to magic, and fought Thor. She also gave Kratos the nickname “Grumbles.”

"Faye left an incredible impression on Kratos and influences how he goes about his life now," says Lawrence.

Where in the worlds

Santa Monica Studio’s new project isn’t a prequel, as rumored, and actually starts the moment that Faye’s body is burnt on the funeral pyre at the beginning of 2018’s God of War. This transports her to a land called the Everywhen, the afterlife of the gods. It’s definitely not the Elysium fields of Valhalla, but a nightmarish otherworld with killer flowers and masked skeletons, where creatures are being rounded up in cages. There are bonfires of corpses and an ominous gateway hanging in the sky. It's far from a friendly place, as Santa Monica Studio’s Head of Creative, Cory Barlog, is more than happy to divulge.

"They're all assholes,” he says. “Literally every god that exists in all of the mythologies has this really terrible relationship with power and how they abuse all of it. When you put all those people – like a bunch of billionaires on an island – they think they're gonna have a happy life. No, they're all going to fight each other, they're all going to be in this strange sense of conflict because they're locked in a prison."

This idea is brought violently home by two notable enemies, Sekhmet and Begtse. The latter, a colossal red dude, is the Mongolian god of war. He’s so metal that his name comes from a Mongolian word for armor, and his role seems to be as a sort of afterlife bouncer for Sekhmet. As for her, she’s a big deal in Egyptian mythology rather than just another god of war, associated with plagues, vengeance, medicine and the sun. She was created by Ra, Egypt’s ruler of the Earth, sky, and underworld, to punish humanity, but got way too into it and nearly wiped them all out. God of War Laufey seems to be really leaning into the whole psycho mean girl element, and I'm here for it.

"Sekhmet still has that kind of gravitas, the scariness, the command,” says Lawrence. “We wanted to be able to really show that kind of toe-to-toe, and for [Sekhmet and Begtse] to meet."

Faye the fighter

Luckily, Faye is no slouch in the smashing the crap out of stuff department. She's easily as much of a badass as Kratos, despite not being built like a Panzer tank. She’s more athletic, taking on enemies with agility and speed rather than muscle, and her Jotun origins mean she has magic at her disposal. She also quickly gets her hands on a very unusual sword.

“She has a different physical profile than Kratos," explains Lawrence. "Kratos is like a brick wall, and a little stoic, but his brutality is different. How do we show somebody who's as equal [to him] as she is?"

To find a way to reflect the difference between Kratos and Faye, the team looked back across the entire series of games to take a deep look at how they’d portrayed Faye’s story so far. Lawrence explains that developing Faye's combat style proved a breath of fresh air for the studio, allowing it to pull from the series’ history while still doing something new.

"The Greek era had an influence on Faye,” she says. “The Norse era has an influence on Faye. So going [back] to our more agile, fluid combat roots but also retaining our companions, our gritty closer combat. How do those marry together and then make something that's uniquely Faye-feeling while still being a Santa Monica game?"

Mighty and magical

While we only got a hint of Faye's magic during the reveal, we know she's packing plenty thanks to references to her life in the previous games. She has the power of foresight, was able to cast protective wards around the forest where she and Kratos lived – remember those glowing handprints? – and has incredible strength.

When we get to the Everywhen, the density of magic is amplified by like a thousand“

"For Kratos, magic is a tool he wears on his belt. With Faye, magic is a part of her," says Barlog. He explains that her powers are more like Freya's, and tied to the natural world. "There's that moment in the reveal where she gets the sword and then she pops the soul out of that character, and you get that great slow-mo to see that there is a power even beyond what was shown before that she has. And it is only going to grow and evolve inside of this world. It's that idea that in the realms that we've explored, in Greece and in the Norse realms, magic is part of the air. It exists all around us. Its density is a certain amount in these realms. And when we get to the Everywhen, the density of magic is amplified by like a thousand."

Friends of Faye

So, about that sword. We first discover it stuck inside a cosmic cube who is – obviously – called Phranque, and voiced by The Boys star Jack Quaid. Faye quickly finds out that the sword comes with an enchanted ribbon guardian named Rue (voiced by Perlina Lau) and suddenly gaming's weirdest threesome is born.

"I hope by the end of this, everybody has feelings for some ribbons and a jellied cube," says Lawrence.

"It has been part of the iterations of this since the very beginning. Phranque has been carried over through every single aspect of this," added Barlog. "To me it's one of the most important parts of it. Strip away all of the fanciful and the design and the extra and what you have is this very simple cube, but you imbue inside of it an incredible struggle as well as an earnestness and a real personality."

We also see another, unnamed, almost pixie-esque character who seems important to Faye's story, but Barlog and Lawrence stay coy on his role. Whatever his part to play, Faye isn't facing the Everywhen alone.

One singular universe

As you might expect from the studio that turned Kratos from a caricature to an emotional exploration of fatherhood, God of War Laufey looks ready to give you big feelings, too. As Faye adjusts to her new surroundings, she hears Kratos's voice and even sees a vision of him, a reminder that in this story’s timeframe she has only just been separated from her husband and son. She also seemed to be able to communicate with Kratos during moments of God of War Ragnarök, so while Kratos may not be the star this time around, he and Atreus will still play an important role in Faye's story.

"Everything that we're doing inside of this game, running in parallel to the timeline of 2018 and Ragnarok, also has direct connections to everything, so that everything is part of a singular universe inside of it," says Barlog. “None of this is like we're telling a side story. This is all a new chapter in the same book, a massive book, and we are starting to show that this has more than you could have imagined."

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.