God of War turns 20 this month, but before you get too excited, Santa Monica Studio says "there are no planned announcements" at its celebratory panel

God of War studio Santa Monica is gearing up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its beloved action-adventure series, but it's already trying to get fans' expectations in check with the clarification that one event won't feature any new announcements.

You couldn't blame anyone for wondering if news might be on the way to coincide with the series' big birthday on March 22, especially since it was only last month when Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb claimed that previous rumors about remastered classic God of War games making an appearance on PS5 had "jumped the gun a little bit." Instead, he alleged that this "stuff will happen closer" to an anniversary event happening at the Gallery Nucleus in California.

At this event, there's an exhibition on display from March 15 to March 23, and perhaps most excitingly, two special panels featuring cast members, including Kratos actors T.C. Carson and Christopher Judge and Freya actor Danielle Bisutti. Over the weekend, the second panel was announced, and it was at this point that Santa Monica Studio stepped in to make sure that no one gets the wrong idea about what's going to happen there.

"Pantheons collide! We're so excited to bring a selection of the Greek and Norse cast for this God of War 20th Anniversary panel where we'll be reflecting on the past two decades of the series," Santa Monica writes. "With such a stellar lineup and all the anticipation we've seen around the anniversary, we do want to be clear that there are no planned announcements for this event."

To be fair to Grubb, he didn't claim that an announcement would arrive on this exact day at that specific panel, so there's still a chance that he's correct about an announcement being around that time, but we'll have to wait and see. If you want to hold onto a morsel of hope, it also appears that Santa Monica Studio is referring to there being no announcements at the panel itself – it may not be ruling out an anniversary announcement in its entirety. Clearly though, the developer wants to keep fans' expectations in check, so it's probably best not to count on that.

We're going through a bit of a rough patch right now for God of War fans, as in January it was reported that an unannounced live-service God of War game had been canceled. The game was apparently in development by Bluepoint, the studio behind the Demon's Souls remake, and at the same time, news surfaced that a separate unannounced live-service title from Days Gone studio Bend had been scrapped. Even if no announcements are happening at this anniversary panel, let's hope that we get some good news soon.

In the meantime, be sure to check out our roundup of 10 games like God of War Ragnarok you should play next.