Horizon Zero Dawn Developer, Guerrilla Games, Expanding

After the enormous success of the Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games proved that they are a more than capable studio. For the decade prior to Horizon Zero Dawn’s release, Guerrilla claimed fame by developing Sony’s flagship FPS series, Killzone. Many enjoyed the series, but the masses were hardly chomping at the bit for it. When they finally got the offer to work on something of their choosing, they jumped at the chance. And with impressive sales results and an 89 on Metacritic; they did not disappoint.

That kind of success tends to have its perks. You can start asking for a little more. The little more that Guerrilla Games has asked for is an expansion, and it’s a big one. Guerrilla Games’ workforce is currently around 250 people. By the beginning of next year, the studio hopes to recruit more talented individuals to get that number closer to 400. On top of that, they will also be moving into a new five-floor office, which should have no problem housing all of those new employees.

But what’s the point of this expansion?

Well, in an interview with Dutch website, Het Parool, Herman Hulst, the managing director of the studio said: “We have worked at Horizon for 6.5 years, which is exceptional: we want to release games in the two or three years, both new titles, and games based on existing titles.” 6.5 years is a damn long time to be working on the same thing. The length of the development timeline could be due to Guerrilla having no prior experience with developing third person, open world, action adventure games; but I think it’s also just because of the immense size of Horizon. Crafting that kind of world from scratch isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

Looking to the future of Guerrilla Games

An expansion of this size, Guerrilla can now develop games, not only in a more efficient and timely manner but also of a higher standard. Having 800 eyeballs on one thing tends to make it a little easier to identify mistakes. Horizon Zero Dawn never had a prolific glitch problem, but you get the point. Couple that with the fact that Guerrilla now has almost 7 years of experience and a base to build on and the inevitable sequel to Horizon becomes quite exciting.

Something else worth noting: producing a new game within 2 – 3 years would put the release of Guerrilla’s next game right around the launch of Sony’s next console. Perhaps Guerrilla will be providing another launch title for Sony. Just something to think about.