There are hints toward both Norse games, so Laufey may take place during the events of both
Gods, and monsters, and magical beings, oh my!
Inside her prison, Faye meets two new companions: a gelatinous cube named Phranque and a sentient ribbon called Rue wrapped around the hilt of a sword lodged in Phranque’s side. These two aren’t immediately recognizable as gods or entities from various mythologies, so fans are running rampant with speculation. Rue, the magical ribbon, could be a reference to Leizu, the creator of silk in Chinese legend or the Huntian Ling sash wielded by Nezha in Asian mythology.
Phranque, however, is a bigger mystery, as my guy is literally just a liquid cube that sounds like Hughie from The Boys (he’s voiced by Jack Quaid). One of the cool theories I saw was that he may be part of a larger whole, and was severed from something when the sword was removed. What is the sword? It’s unclear at the moment, but one of the people Faye rescues later on says that it’s “more than [she thinks] it is.”
Some fans are theorizing it could be Excalibur, and that it could have been pulled from a body of water, as depicted in some mythologies, and created Phranque when it was removed through some magical force. Faye has clearly fallen into what reads like a melting pot of different legends and magical forces, but where is she?
Welcome to the Everywhen
Phranque calls this place “the Everywhen.” It’s the afterlife of the gods, and since God of War has established that multiple pantheons exist, when they die, they all end up here. However, it may also still have some connections to the living world. Once Faye is able to break out of her cage by igniting an explosive, she has a very brief encounter with what seems to be Kratos who helps her off the ground in the rubble before he disappears. A fan decided to sync this moment with part of the opening from God of War Ragnarok where Kratos briefly dies before being resuscitated by Thor, and it surprisingly fits perfectly.
Whether this is just a really cool coincidence or intentional remains to be seen. The timeline doesn’t track one-to-one, as several years have passed between Faye’s death before God of War and Kratos’ heart briefly being stopped in Ragnarok, but this is the afterlife, so time may work differently here.
Full-powered Faye kicks ass
Now that Faye has accepted her death, she is able to tap into the full strength of her magic and also wield’s Rue’s mystery sword. This is where the differences between her and Kratos become much more apparent. She’s able to whip out spells that separate enemies’ souls from their bodies and pull off acrobatic feats and work with Rue to tie up and toss around enemies as she slices and dices them with the blade. Kratos always sang Faye’s praises as a warrior, so it’s really cool to finally see her proving those rumors true.
The trailer ends with a cinematic fight between Faye and Begtse, which, like many God of War fights, has both participants throwing each other long distances and still getting up for round two. Begtse also hints that there’s more to the blade Faye wields than she realizes, and Faye theorizes that the Mongolian God of War may be afraid of it for some reason.
The title card interrupts the fight just as things are getting good, but there’s a lot to chew on in these first 20 minutes of footage. Faye is dead, but may still be able to help the living as she fights through gods of multiple pantheons in the Everywhen. And she’ll have some help along the way just as Kratos and Atreus did in their journeys. Santa Monica Studio says it will have more to show in the coming months, but God of War Laufey still has no release date, so we don’t know how much longer we’ll have to wait for the game to come to PS5. Whatever the game ends up being when it launches, the possibilities of multiple mythologies converging in one place has given fans a lot to speculate on in the months ahead.