Guerrilla Games has just released Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores and the studio is far from calm. Everything has changed at the top of the studio, with a number of the studio’s top brass taking on new roles. The most prominent is Angie Smets, who is leaving her previous position as studio director and executive producer at Guerrilla to work as Head of Development Strategy for PlayStation Studios.
Guerrilla Games appears to be a talent hotspot, as Smets is not the first person from the studio to go down that path. She followed in Hermen Hulst’s footsteps, who previously led Guerrilla Games before being promoted to president of PS Studios.
These changes were announced in a recent management update by Guerrilla. While detailing the changes, the update also teased a third game set in the universe of Aloy, possibly a sequel. Guerrilla laid the groundwork for its new management team alongside the usual words of admiration for Smets’ contributions to the company. The studio announced that Joel Eschler, Hella Schmidt, and Jan-Bart van Beek would have the rein of the company. The statement from the studio reads:
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.
Guerrilla Studio Management
This would have been a routine announcement, but the fact that it goes over Aloy’s next adventure and the online project separately confirms the Horizon trilogy. By the looks of it, Guerrilla is not trying to hide the fact.
Although it does not explicitly state that this new expansion will be a sequel to Horizon Forbidden West, it should be evident that PlayStation would want a sequel, given the fact that the game is among the most popular triple-A titles for the studio. The possible explanation that the studio didn’t explicitly mention the upcoming title is the recent release of Burning Shores DLC, and it only seems fair.
Now that Smets will no longer be part of Guerrilla, the studio will have Joel Eschler as studio director and production director, Hella Schmidt as studio director and general manager, and Jan-Bart van Beek as studio director and art director.
