Angie Smets (Guerrilla Games) has been promoted to Head of Development Strategy at PlayStation

[Unchained]

A message from Guerrilla studio management

Guerrilla is one of Europe's leading game companies and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. We started in 2003, and have pushed the boundaries of technical and artistic excellence in our games ever since.

www.guerrilla-games.com

A MESSAGE FROM GUERRILLA STUDIO MANAGEMENT​

After almost an incredible 20 years at Guerrilla, our Studio Director and Executive Producer Angie Smets is starting a new role as Head of Development Strategy at PlayStation Studios!


"These past two decades at Guerrilla have been an absolute dream. I feel privileged to have worked alongside some of the smartest and coolest people in the industry. I'm so grateful for everything I've learned alongside all the other Guerrillas. We have accomplished so much as a team, and I'm incredibly proud of all the games we've shipped together.

A special shoutout to Jan-Bart van Beek and Michiel van der Leeuw. It feels like just yesterday that we were figuring out how to make and ship the first Killzone. Little did we know that we would eventually lead Guerrilla together. You've become like brothers to me, and there's no way to thank you enough. I will miss you dearly."


We are all so grateful for the leadership Angie has provided for Guerrilla and wish her all the best in her new adventure!

In terms of new structure, Guerrilla is happy to announce that our management team now consists of Joel Eschler (Studio Director and Production Director) and Hella Schmidt (Studio Director and General Manager), alongside Jan-Bart van Beek (Studio Director and Art Director).

We have full confidence in our new leadership as they steer Guerrilla towards a bright future, expanding the world of Horizon with Aloy's next adventure and our exciting online project. Michiel van der Leeuw (Technical Director) will be focusing on the future technology and strategy for the Decima engine.

 

[Deleted member 417]

@Angie

Congrats on the promotion

 

[Nhomnhom]

At this rate Guerrilla will end up running PlayStation.

 

[Vertigo]

Getting vibes that decima is gonna get pushed in-house. Interested to see it take on different genre of games if it happens.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

Getting vibes that decima is gonna get pushed in-house. Interested to see it take on different genre of games if it happens.

I don't think so. Just Guerrilla having excellent software engineers and very capable management. Hence, their people have more chance to get promoted.

Edit: yeah you might be right. He already stated he has plans for Decima

 

[Yobo]

Decima could be good to get new devs for Sony onboarded quickly

I hope that Naughty Dog and Insomniac maintain their own engines though

 

[Wraith Phantom]

Development schedule. It was either someone at insomniac or guerilla. Hulst worked with her before so easy hire really.

 

[Dabaus]

Weird that sony is invested in epic while also pushing their own proprietary engine.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Weird that sony is invested in epic while also pushing their own proprietary engine.

not weird at all

 

[Dabaus]

Since this week is a fiscal quarter, I guess this is sony giving investors news about first party developments? Sounds like studios are growing at a steady clip. Im curious where the rest of that 5 billion acquisition budget went. Surely Firewalk was less than a 150 million?

 

[Aidendelaney95]

Curious about plans for the Decima engine. Could we see it being used more openly across PlayStation Studios teams that don't have their own engines?

 

[Papacheeks]

At this rate Guerrilla will end up running PlayStation.

Better than Neil Druckman who to me needs to go. Guy is a fantastic story writer/Teller. But the direction of Naughty Dog and their bloat is very apparant. And I feel Santa Monica, Guerilla are just more efficient.

 

[Gamernyc78]

 

[Darth Vader]

The decima bet seems really clear

• For studios that have their own in-house engine, they will be allowed to continue to use it, refine it, and share tech with other studios
• For studios without their own in-house engine but that have a sufficient business case for one, they will allow to build it while using either Unreal or Decima
• For studios without their own in-house engine that don't have a business case and/or size/know-how, they will be pushed to decima

I can see a future where Sony is confident in Decima as an engine that can be pushed as a competitor to Unreal and Unity. I can imagine how helpful in making their platform even more attractive for small time developers that are willing to learn the engine, and they can even entice them with something like "free dev kit + decima + all them instruction manuals and help" kinda deal.

 

[Darth Vader]

Better than Neil Druckman who to me needs to go. Guy is a fantastic story writer/Teller. But the direction of Naughty Dog and their bloat is very apparant. And I feel Santa Monica, Guerilla are just more efficient.

Naughty Dog has released more games than SSM since 2013 (not counting remakes / remasters) and the same as GG (again not counting Remakes / remasters)

SSM - Gow Ascension, GoW (2018), GoW Ragnarok [3]
Guerrilla - Killzone 4, Horizon Zero Dawn + The Frozen Wilds, Horizon Forbidden West + Burning Shores [5]
Naughty - The Last of Us + Left Behind, Uncharted 4 + Lost Legacy, The Last of Us Part 2 [5]

If we had the remakes and remasters, ND released 2 Remasters (Uncharted), 1 Remake (TLOU), and Neil co-produced one of the biggest and most critically acclaimed shows in recent years.

ND is stuck between 2 franchises for now (apparently a new one coming)

 

[nongkris]

I think the only internal engine that matches/exceeds Decima is the Insomniac engine. Hopefully those two are sharing tech with each other as insomniac has some things that Decima doesn't do, 60 fps ray tracing and better upscaling.

 

[Wraith Phantom]

I think the only internal engine that matches/exceeds Decima is the Insomniac engine. Hopefully those two are sharing tech with each other as insomniac has some things that Decima doesn't do, 60 fps ray tracing and better upscaling.

There was only ever two options a person from insomniac or Guerilla (Suckerpunch also they are just not limelight guys). They are excellent at releasing games Near enough on time. Scheduling & development is exactly what they excel at. This was an easy hire because she worked with Herman already. Just going to concentrate on the games coming nothing to see here.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Better than Neil Druckman who to me needs to go. Guy is a fantastic story writer/Teller. But the direction of Naughty Dog and their bloat is very apparant. And I feel Santa Monica, Guerilla are just more efficient.

Uncharted 4 and TLoU Part 2 were great. The worst of the past 4 ND games was the one where he was not involved.

 

[Papacheeks]

Uncharted 4 and TLoU Part 2 were great. The worst of the past 4 ND games was the one where he was not involved.

I'm specifically talking about Studio bloat, and efficiency. guerilla, Insomniac, to an extent Santa Monica didnt balloon during Production to 1200 People like Naughty Dog did to finish Last of us part 2. Then also Santa monica was able to make their own PC version in-house for God of war 2018 while also getting Ragnarök to Ship.

ND couldn't ship a remake to PC without massive issues and they were given plenty of time and offered options for support to handle brunt of it. Santa Monica was able to ship God of war 2018 FOR PS4. Add a PS5 config for PS5 launch for 4k@60, while working on PC version and working on a full o sequel.

Naughty Dog had major issues getting to finish line for Part 2 and used 1200 Bodies to do it. And that causes major after math of people, top talent to leave.

You kind of have to dig a little to see, ND though one of the most talented, lately on multiple projects have had the most bloat. ANd compared to others like Insomniac, Gureilla seem inable to manage multiple things in-house as well.

Either they are spread too thin on having too many hands on other things, or there's some internal studio bloat/Management going on.

 

[Nhomnhom]

I'm specifically talking about Studio bloat, and efficiency. guerilla, Insomniac, to an extent Santa Monica didnt balloon during Production to 1200 People like Naughty Dog did to finish Last of us part 2. Then also Santa monica was able to make their own PC version in-house for God of war 2018 while also getting Ragnarök to Ship.

ND couldn't ship a remake to PC without massive issues and they were given plenty of time and offered options for support to handle brunt of it. Santa Monica was able to ship God of war 2018 FOR PS4. Add a PS5 config for PS5 launch for 4k@60, while working on PC version and working on a full o sequel.

Naughty Dog had major issues getting to finish line for Part 2 and used 1200 Bodies to do it. And that causes major after math of people, top talent to leave.

You kind of have to dig a little to see, ND though one of the most talented, lately on multiple projects have had the most bloat. ANd compared to others like Insomniac, Gureilla seem inable to manage multiple things in-house as well.

Either they are spread too thin on having too many hands on other things, or there's some internal studio bloat/Management going on.

To me you need to look at ND like we look at R*. TLoU2 was ahead of anything that release in 2020 and could pretty much be release as is today and it would be one of the most impressive games ever.

Guerrilla and Insomniac are yet to release a game as acclaimed/impactful as your average ND game. SSM make hits but is far less productive than ND and Ragnarok isn't nearly as impressive for 2022 as TLoU Part II was for 2020 or Uncharted 4 was for 2016.

Finally, we are yet to see Factions, if it looks like shit then sure, maybe they have become unproductive but if does well and it's something ambitious than that would explain their bloat.