Kratos’ 2D prequel is heading to the PS4. Sony says Sons of Sparta will be playable on the older console from midnight local time on 16 November, after several months as a PS5 exclusive.
A patch arrives on the same day for both consoles, so people who already own the PS5 version also get two extra ways to play. Hermes Mode turns the campaign into a speedrun, and Erebus Mode makes every fight lethal for both sides.
According to Sony’s PlayStation Blog, Mega Cat Studios’ Hermes Mode brings a split timer and a leaderboard that survives between sessions. You unlock it by finishing the game once, or at the start menu with a Konami-style code: “Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, L1, R1, Touchpad”.
In Erebus Mode, you and your enemies both go down in a single hit. You pick either mode when you start a new game and choose a save slot, and the choice is locked for that save, so a run begun in Erebus stays in Erebus.
The voice cast is led by two actors from earlier games. TC Carson narrates as the adult Kratos, Antony Del Rio voices the young Kratos, as he did in 2010’s Ghost of Sparta, and newcomer Scott Menville plays young Deimos. The writing team is the one behind God of War (2018) and Ragnarök.
The game itself is a canon story about Kratos as a young cadet in Sparta’s Agoge, training alongside his brother Deimos. It is a side-scrolling action platformer where he upgrades a spear and shield through skill trees and uses divine artifacts called the Gifts of Olympus. Sony gave no PS4 price in its post.
