*Spoiler Alert* Minor spoilers ahead.
God of War: Ascension only came out a day ago, but it already has the internet buzzing because of something discovered within the game. This something happens to be a painting located within a side room in Chapter 6: The Cistern.
The painting itself is not what’s important, but it’s the text directly underneath the painting that’s grabbing everyone’s attention.
As you can see in the picture above, the painting contains a striking portrait of Mt. Olympus with a message underneath it that reads,
Of all the prophecies I have seen, this one haunts my dreams.
QUJIKPHIUEEEKMJQUJ
The full truth of this nightmare yet remains hidden. – Aletheia
The message is somewhat of a head-scratcher, but popular belief was that the middle line is code for something. Sometime after the discovery, some clever gamers were able to decipher and translate the code. The code translates to SUN BIRD BULL LION SUN. The code differs depending on the language you’re reading, but what doesn’t differ is the translation.
There are guesses that the code could be a password for a puzzle or feature within the game, but nothing has been found so far. Since no one has found a place to input the code people are now beginning to hypothesize that the translation may be referring to the future of the franchise. These hypotheses suggest that the words SUN and BIRD refer to a phoenix or the Egyptian Sun God Ra and could mean that the next God of War game will take place in Egypt (by the way bulls and felines were considered sacred in Egypt).
Another hypothesis is that the translation is in reference to the Zoroastrin deity Mithras. Mithras was a warrior born from the dirt who served as a both a Sun God and a God of War. It is said that Mithras brought life to humanity after spilling the blood a great bull. Mithras was a Persian God that was eventually adopted by the Greek.
