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Sony's recent State of Play climaxed with a surprise announcement: the original God of War Trilogy, played out across PS2 and PS3 consoles, will be combined into one release, presumably set for PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro. But what form is this game going to take? Who is developing it and how - if at all - does it fit into Bluepoint's work with its apparently abandoned God of War live service game? And finally, why announce it at all if Sony has literally nothing to show? All this and more takes centrestage as the lead story in the latest edition of DF Direct Weekly, where the team share their views on an absolutely packed State of Play.

Going into the God of War discussion, let's be upfront here - we've got an announcement but nothing more, which presents issues of its own. While rumours of a return to Kratos' original trilogy have done the rounds for quite some time now, we have no "insider" information to share - but we do have plenty of thoughts on the project.

That said, a little more detail would have been welcome. Who's developing it for example? Bluepoint is the undisputed "master of the remaster" and of all of the Sony first-party studios, it is the team best placed to remaster or indeed remake God of War. It sounds like a match made in heaven but, if a studio of Bluepoint’s calibre were involved, Sony’s marketing would likely have leveraged its name. No developer reveal suggests a different internal structure in place, or an outside partnership with Santa Monica Studio. We also don't know the nature of Bluepoint's "lost" God of War work for the aborted live service project - but surely that would be more closely tied to the Nordic-themed games rather than the Greece-based originals.

But really it's all about the form the new trilogy will take. Will it even be three games, or instead a single narrative built from the major beats of the original releases? Three game logos within Sony's trailer does suggest three distinct remakes, but we should expect a crucial difference in comparisons to the original games. The originals spanned two console generations with evolved technology deployed for each new title: basic logic suggests that this time it'll be the same game engine in use for all three instalments, with a unified aesthetic across the games. It'll be interesting to see the extent to which each game needs additional work as asset quality increased over time in the originals.

Another concern for the DF team is the extent to which Sony may wish to unify the original trilogy with the new Nordic-themed games. Crucially, will the fixed camera perspective of the first God of War games persist, or will the action be retrofitted into the "over the shoulder" third person perspective seen in recent games? Our preference is to retain the cinematic camera view of the original trilogy: the entirety of the action was built around it. It's core to the combat design. Think back to the incredible introduction to God of War 3 with its astonishing detail and sweeping camera work - or indeed most of the series' major boss encounters. Could they even work with the modern camera set-up?

A remake is one thing, but the alternative - a complete "reimagining" of the narrative could be counterproductive. The preservation of the original design intent is often paramount to a successful re-release, whether it's a remaster or a remake and we would have liked to have had some level of clarification from Sony in its announcement material.

For me personally, an elephant in the room concerns the fact that pre-God of War 2018, there were actually four mainline God of War games. Santa Monica Studio pushed its PS3 technology to its zenith in the oft-forgotten God of War: Ascension. With that in mind, its apparent "erasure" from the epic Greek narrative is a shame in a project claiming to honour the original games and right now, it remains a game locked to original hardware.

Beyond the gaping void in actual information with this reveal, it's the timing of the announcement that warrants scrutiny. With a State of Play so packed with content, there was no actual need to reveal a game that's so early in development that you can't show any content. Bearing in mind that the industry was pivoted away from early announcements, you have to wonder how far along the project actually is and where this reveal sits within a broader marketing plan.

There is some level of danger here in Sony repeating the same kind of mistake Microsoft made with the new Fable, due later this year but initially announced way back in 2020. We have to hope that the game is further along than Sony says it is, otherwise it sets the stage for years of speculative questioning about when we'll actually get to play it, dampening the initial excitement. On the flip side, at least Sony was upfront about the lack of actual material, resisting the temptation to offer up the more traditional, pointless, CG trailer.

Looking ahead more positively, the basic idea of remaking the original games is obviously a fantastic one. Each release was an incredible technological showcase for its time, albeit blemished by unlocked frame-rates and occasionally poor or, at best, inconsistent performance. We're promised "from the ground-up" revamps of three amazing games and the potential is mouthwatering. Just go back to God of War 3 Remastered for PS4 (playable on PS5, of course). Play that initial level again and marvel at the scale and ambition. That's basically an eleven-year-old remaster of a 16-year-old PS3 game and it's still phenomenal. The potential for a well-executed remake of this title - and indeed the two prior games - is off the charts and we can't wait to find out more.