It's more likely that they will keep Kratos around, and I hope they deliver.

I hope we are going to have a new god of war in the midle of the nordic Ragnarok! Think about this, Sony Santa Monica vision of the fall of the Nordic gods, the Ragnarok! whit a hero, possible a human or perhaps a demigod-god, leading this titanic event that will destroy all the world!

Super Mario Land 3, Super Mario World 2

Awesome god of war 3 was awesome cant Waite to see the gfx on the PS4

Where did I say no series has ever done that? I'm talking about God of War specifically, thanks for the contribution.

Whose left to kill?

Maybe Kratos might start fighting Norse gods or even indian gods, they can make an infinte amount of games about indian gods.

maybe kratos split into four different horsemen, there is war kratos, famine kratos, pestilence kratos, and death kratos. Or perhaps kratos has to fight his way out of limbo to the elysium fields to reunite with his family for all eternity

The God of War brand is strong enough to go on without Kratos. 

A far more interesting game for me would be one based around Herakles and his 12 labours. Would be very varied in gameplay, but with a lot of combat elements to keep the simpletons interested. Ok, that's a little harsh on my side. :p 

It would have killing famous mythological beasts (Hydra, Nemean Lion, Stymphalian Birds) puzzle solving (i.e. cleaning the Aegean stables), hunting (Cretan bull, Cerynean Hind, Erymanthian Boar), stealth (stealing the apples of Hesperides), etc.

Some of these tasks were mocked in GoW 3, but they were a lot more difficult than that simpleton Kratos who's only solution to everything is to kill it. It shows how little Santa Monica knows of mythology (especially when you base your whole story around the "box" of Pandora and "hope" (elpis, which can mean different things in ancient Greek! It makes no sense that hope was among all the evil stuff inside the "box" of Pandora. A better translation would be "the expectation of bad things" -> Mortals being aware of all the awful things that will happen in their future. Truly the most evil thing inside the "box" of Pandora and because it remained in the box we were spared of at least that.) Basing your story around hope is BS, ancient Greeks often thought poorly of hope. It made men weak. And the last thing I thought about in GoW 1-3 was that Kratos represents hope for mankind. He kills everything he sees.

GOW without Kratos is not GOW. it is as simple as that.

Kratos will definitely be in the game, but it may not be the playable character. I think Deimos is more likely to be the protagonist of the game; and you are in a quest of rescuing Kratos from Uranus, The primordial one.