It's all change at the top of Guerrilla Games. Having just shipped Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, a handful of the studio's top brass are taking on new positions. Perhaps most notably, Angie Smets has been promoted to Head of Development Strategy for PlayStation Studios.
She'll move from her old job as studio director and executive producer at Guerrilla to work on Sony's first-party slate as a whole. Smets began work at the studio almost 20 years ago, and has gradually worked her way up to the top management. Now, she'll be leaving the team to oversee all Sony's developers.
It's an interesting trajectory, as it's a similar one to that of Hermen Hulst. He was also once head of Guerrilla Games, and was promoted to president of PS Studios a few years ago. It appears that the Amsterdam studio is a real hotbed for talent — perhaps we'll see more Guerrilla alumni moving into PlayStation itself in future.
As mentioned earlier, Smets isn't the only one getting a promotion. Joel Eschler and Hella Schmidt will join Jan-Bart van Beek as fellow studio directors as well as leading production and art respectively. Meanwhile, technical director Michiel van der Leeuw will be focusing on development of the team's powerful in-house engine, Decima.
[source linkedin.com, via guerrilla-games.com]
Comments 10
Very best of luck to her!
Congratulations to her!!!
That's awesome good luck in your new position ^__^
Well done Angie Smets! With hard work and dedication you will gain all you deserve! Congratulations!
Bring back by Guerilla Cambridge! Mercenaries was a masterpiece 🥰
I have mixed feelings about these sorts of things. On one hand I'd much rather the internal talent be the ones that move up. On the other hand it's kind of like poaching the talent that makes the studio successful, so it always makes me wonder if it hurts the studio as the top people keep going to executive/corporate positions and away from the studios. Plus I haven't been thrilled with Herman's tenure as a corpo, so I'm not sure I like more of Guerilla moving up, despite Horizon being my favorite current PS series.
So long as they aren't being promoted to their level of incompetence - always a risk, never a certainty.
Before anyone moans about a favorite studio changing, it's always good to remember that even if the people don't change, people still change. That is to say, none of us are the same person we were 10 years ago, we all change, even if we stay in the same job. So the team that made the last game you loved (or hated) won't be the same team making the next game - even if it's the same people, they've changed, hopefully grown, hopefully improved, but changed.
She’s certainly earned it. Good luck to her in her new role.
I like to see good employees move up. I'm hoping to see more from guerilla games 😋
Happy for her, seems like she deserves it!
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