He was at my local game expo just this past December. During Q/A I asked him if he was interested in portraying Kratos again (this was before the reveal of the current projects). He said he would be, but its up to Sony. And they had chosen Judge because he had the stature AND voice to do the job.

So.... he probably already had been contacted to do this, but obviously could not say anything under NDA.

I liked T.C. Carson as Kratos a lot (and also a big fan of Living Single back in the day). But Chris Judge was also great. Carson was pure anger and very fitting for that era, as was Judge for the modern one. I'll never complain about either.I'll need to hear Carson now really go through the lines though and see how he does with classic Kratos.

It's a bit of a similar case for Metal Gear Solid. While I'm forever a Hayter fan and I didn't like Sutherland in the few moments he did speak, Sutherland as Big Boss/Venom Snake did have an "okay" transition voice between Hayter in MGS3 and Peace Walker, and Richard Doyle in MGS4. Both grossly outshined Sutherland, but I guess it has a slight hint of Hayter's gravel and some of the stern, tired and curt inflection of Doyle.

Not a rumor. PGI head Russ Bullock confirmed that about 30% of the team was laid off, with the rest of the team focused on releasing the upcoming MW5: Mercs DLC and another MW5: Clans DLC later this year. He also confirmed that the MechWarrior license was renewed recently, so it seems likely that work will continue on the IP (pure hopium).

Losing Alex Iglesias (their lead artist) is huge, as not only was he instrumental to PGI finding success with MechWarrior thanks to his fantastic mech designs, but his work could be considered a part to BattleTech's stunning resurgence in the tabletop community. I hope he gets picked up by Catalyst Game Labs so that he can start doing official BT designs again.