Official announcement: the "God of War" sequel has been pushed back from a planned 2021 release to 2022. And it is not exclusive to the PS5 console.

Sony Santa Monica broke the news on its Twitter account, citing the safety and well-being of its "team, creative partners and family" as the reason for the delay.

Given that the pandemic has affected almost every industry, this is not a huge surprise. The biggest bombshell, however, is the confirmation that "God of War 2" will be a cross-gen title.

Sid Schuman, head of PlayStation Studios, dug a little deeper into the delay on the PlayStation blog, saying: Horizon Forbidden West and God of War. And for both of them, frankly, performance capture and access to talent has been affected."

As for "Horizon Forbidden West," Schumann said, "We plan to release it this holiday season," but added that it is not certain.

"As for Horizon, we believe it will be released this holiday season. But it's not a sure thing yet, and we're doing everything we can to confirm it to you as soon as possible," Schumann explained.

Development of God of War began after Horizon Forbidden West, and Schumann said that Sony "is working hard to make sure that Santa Monica Studios can deliver the great God of War game that we all want to play, and that decision to delay the game to next year," he explained.

However, this is bad news for fans who were looking forward to experiencing the game on next-generation consoles. Schumann confirmed that "Horizon Forbidden West," "God of War 2," and "Gran Turismo 7" will all be cross-gent titles and will be available on both PS4 and PS5.

"You can't build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then back out of it, can you? I think that's bad news for PS4 fans and frankly not very good business," Schumann said.

"If it makes sense to develop titles for both PS4 and PS5, such as 'Horizon Forbidden West' or the next 'God of War' or 'GT7,' we will continue to consider it. And if PS4 users want to play those games, they can; if they want to play the PS5 version, they can.

"Nevertheless, it is also very important to have a standout title for PS5, which is why we developed "Returned" and "Ratchet" specifically for PS5."

"God of War" boosted the PS4 in terms of graphics, and we hope the sequel will do the same for the PS5. However, by making "God of War 2" a cross-platform game, the visual fidelity may be compromised somewhat so that it will work on older hardware. Depending on how well Santa Monica Studios is able to scale up the game's graphics, the cross-platform nature of the game may not allow it to take full advantage of the PS5's power.

This may be unfortunate for those who got their consoles with the promise of getting high-end PS5 exclusives and playing PS5 re-release games.

On the flip side, it is currently very difficult to find PS5 or even Xbox Series X stock due to the worldwide chip shortage affecting the supply of game consoles and graphics cards.

However, Returnal is a great example of a next-generation title that takes advantage of the PS5's power, and those who manage to find Sony's new console will have a game that can justify the $499 expense. Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart should have the same trick up its sleeve. If you don't want to play it completely blind, try the "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart" primer to understand the series:.