Head of PlayStation Studios shares insight into what’s to come.
It’s been just about 17 months since Hermen Hulst took the reins of PlayStation Studios, the international network of world-class development studios that produce some of PlayStation’s biggest hits — from Returnal and Astro’s Playroom to The Last of Us Part II, Dreams, Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart and much, much more.
Over our jam-packed 20-minute discussion, Hulst provided updates on a host of topics: studio development updates, thoughts on PS5 and PS4 development, PlayStation Studios’ vision for PC releases, and a whole lot more.
Listen to our full interview on the Official PlayStation Podcast here, or read on for some key excerpts, edited for brevity and clarity.
PlayStation.Blog: Do you see single-player, narrative games as essential to the PlayStation Studios console experience?
Hermen: Absolutely. Single-player, narrative-driven games — that’s our DNA. PlayStation Studios have made, in my mind, some of the most memorable narrative experiences available. We love making them, and we’ll keep making them as long as gamers enjoy them. For me, the idea of sitting down on a Friday night with a brand-new world, and a great story to explore — that sounds pretty perfect, right?
We also want to make sure that we’re creating a variety of experiences for our audiences. Franchises, new IP, big games, smaller and more innovative games, single-player stories, and multiplayer. Who says that multiplayer experience cannot have great stories, right?
PSB: We’ve seen the announcement of Haven, from Jade Raymond as well as a bunch of industry veterans. And more recently Firewalk, which also has some top names from the industry.
How do you see partnerships like these fitting into the larger PlayStation Studios vision?
Hermen: Yeah. You know, these partnerships are very exciting. You could, I guess, make a distinction between development teams who are part of Sony — like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Media Molecule, Sucker Punch, and so on — and then development teams who are working with us like partners… Haven, Firewalk, but also teams we’ve worked with over years, like Kojima Productions, From Software.
To me, in many ways, there really is no difference. They’re all PlayStation Studios. We are, at the end of the day, a creator-led organization. Which to me means that we want to find the best possible development studios in the world and help them passionately pursue their ideas.
To me, it’s important that PlayStation Studios is a place that allows creators to join us and do the best work of their career. That’s really what I’m after.
….
PSB: Are you able to give us a snapshot of the total number of titles that PlayStation Studios are currently developing for PS4 or PS5?
Hermen: Well, we have a lot going on right now. PlayStation Studios have more than 25 titles in development. Almost half of these are new IP. The other half, they’re titles that are set in franchises that PlayStation fans already know and love. So, it’s quite a lot.
PSB: How important is new IP for PlayStation Studios?
Hermen: New IP is incredibly important to us. New IP is the lifeblood of gaming. But, new IP is just one aspect of our strategy. Ultimately, I want PlayStation Studios to be fiercely daring, to take risks. I want us to continue to embrace the legacy of PlayStation, pushing the boundaries of gaming, keep making games that matter. Games that, probably, wouldn’t have been made anywhere else.
And you know, Bend Studio is working on a very exciting new IP that they’re very, very passionate about. They’re building on the deep open-world systems that they developed with Days Gone. So I’m really happy for Bend Studio.
PSB: How have the teams at PlayStation Studios been able to cope and adapt with these big challenges over the last year?
Hermen: Perhaps the biggest challenge has been when we need specialist locations, often physical locations. Primarily performance capture, audio work. We’ve come up with some really clever solutions to some of this, we built tiny recording studios in people’s houses.
But when you’re doing performance capture for a lot of cinematics, with multiple actors — that’s not so simple to solve. So you’ve got a choice. You could do it later in the schedule, which could cause you problems. Or you could risk the final quality by doing it in a different way.
But I can tell you, we’re not going to risk the quality. We want to ship extremely high quality games, finished games, and we have to do that obviously without pushing our teams to the breaking point.
So we have, currently, two very big, very narrative-driven games in development: Horizon Forbidden West and the next God of War. And for both of those, they’re frankly affected by access to performance capture and talent. For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn’t quite certain yet, and we’re working as hard as we can to confirm that to you as soon as we can.
And for God of War, the project started a little later. So we’ve made the decision to push that game out to next year, to ensure that Santa Monica Studio can deliver the amazing God of War game that we all want to play.
With these things, something’s gotta give. It cannot be the quality of our titles, and it surely won’t be the health or the wellbeing of our amazing team.
PSB: How does PS4 factor into PlayStation Studios’ development vision? Is it still a focus internally for future game development?
Hermen: It very much is. You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, right? I think that’d be bad news for fans of PS4, and frankly not very good business.
Where it makes sense to develop a title for both PS4 and PS5 — for Horizon Forbidden West, the next God of War, GT7 — we’ll continue looking at that. And if PS4 owners want to play that game, then they can. If they want to go on and play the PS5 version, that game will be there for them.
That being said, it’s also very important to have showpieces for PS5, hence the development of Returnal and Ratchet that are exclusive to PS5.
PSB: [How does] PC fit into the worldview of PlayStation Studios moving forward?
Hermen: We’re still early on in our planning for PC. And Horizon Zero Dawn has been very successful. I think it shows there’s an appetite from gamers outside the PlayStation ecosystem to experience the amazing portfolio of games that PlayStation fans have enjoyed for years.
But I want to emphasize that PlayStation will remain the best place to play our PlayStation Studios titles at launch. But we do value PC gamers, and we’ll continue to look at the right times to launch each game. Bend Studio just released the PC version of Days Gone on May 18. So that’s about two years after the PS4 release.
And I hope that a new set of fans can and will enjoy that title. And that’s the goal — we want to reach new gamers who haven’t yet experienced the great stories, characters, and worlds that we’ve built. Releasing games on PC will not come ever at the expense of building an exciting lineup of great console games.
PSB: Another topic that’s been out there recently is Japan. Do you feel that, from the PlayStation Studios perspective, that Japan is still a big focus for development? Or are you maybe considering a shift to a more Western focus for game development?
Hermen: Oh no, I want to be very clear that Japanese games and Japanese talent remain extremely important to PlayStation Studios and to Sony Interactive Entertainment. Japan and Asia are strongly associated with our legacy: the success of Sony, the PlayStation brand, and many of our iconic PlayStation franchises were actually born in that region.
I remember watching the PlayStation 5 Showcase event from last year. It struck me how much Japanese influence there was in the games that we showed. And what a key part of PlayStation’s DNA that is. It’s one of the things that makes PlayStation different, unique in my mind.
I know the potential from high-quality games from Japan and Asia, and some of the best development talent in the world is found there. They have that history of innovation, of craftsmanship and skill, that pride and team spirit. We very much want to continue those traditions.
Polyphony Digital is such an important part of the PlayStation family, making the best driving simulation games in the world. We’re building Team Asobi in Tokyo, a world-class studio that are developing a franchise for all ages with global appeal. Such a creative team.
And alongside Asobi, we will continue to maintain and build partnerships through our external development team. So I’m really excited about the future of PlayStation games from Japan, and Asia. And I’m grateful for the interest and passionate support for our Japanese teams.
PSB: Great to know. And perhaps this is a redundant question, but it seems like maybe we haven’t seen the last of Astro Bot?
Hermen: I hope not! I love that guy.
Ok, so no more exclusives, only timed exclusives. You’re killing your brand. Plus Horizon, Days Gone, Death Stranding are all looks and runs better on pc than on brand new PS5. What a shame.
what in the world are you on about? did you read the article?
Jisatsu_Kiddo: “PlayStation will remain the best place to play our PlayStation Studios titles at launch. But we do value PC gamers, and we’ll continue to look at the right times to launch each game.”
So yeah, no more true exclusives. Everything will be on pc with better graphics eventually.
Exclusive PlayStation Studios games, how exactly are they killing their brand? Is just been growing all around the world.
People still bootlick companies this hard in 2021 imagine getting mad more people playing games
You are basing your reaction on the supposition that given the choice everyone will make the move to PC and therefore Sony won’t sell consoles. . People who will wait for a game on PC are PC players anyways. I will always be console first. I prefer gaming with a controller and I don’t care if it’s 60fps or if it looks photorealistic. The people who DO care about that already game on a pc so they aren’t losing anything.
La pire entourloupe de l’histoire du JV !!!
Après le coup bas qu’a été le post du quiblog Sony qui suivait le reveal de la console et qui nous apprenait que Horizon 2 était cross gen, voilà que les jeux qui m’ont fait acheter la PS5 cece retrouvent sur ma vielle PS4.
La question que je me pose est “est-ce que ma console va tenir le coup des futurs jeux véritablement next gen ??”
Déjà qu’en 6 mois elle a la reconstruit sa base de donnée un nombre incalculable de fois ???
Que la liste des erreurs et plus longue que mon bras.
Ils font quoi là ??? Elle tiens pas le choque cette console ??? Il attendent que les périodes de garantie des 1ere consoles soient dépassée pour envoyer du lourd ???
Et c’est quoi ces histoires de révisions de la console, ya un défaut qu’on veut nous cacher ????
Elle est où la 8K, le 120 FPS, la 4K native et le 60 FPS.
On va devoir se bouffer une gen à sacrifier la résolution et les effets visuels pour jouer en 60FPS.
Non mais allô quoi PlayStation, on veut des explications
Agree one quadrillion percent with you. Sony should never be putting their IP’s on competing platforms. If you game on PC and refuse to play on any other platform, then you simply have to do without Sony’s first party IP’s.
elBunny46: Simple, they’re killing PS5 sales. Why buy console if everything is on pc with better graphics and 60 fps.. I bought console for exclusives. Now I can sale it because I want to experience ps5 games at best quality and pc is obviously better. They’re alienating loylal fans
you consider a game being brought to pc 2 YEARS after it launched on PS as “killing your brand”?? to me, that’s sony throwing pc a chewed bone once in a while. if sony started releasing new exclusives to pc on day1 that they come to playstation – i’d agree with you. and and you think sony is “killing their brand” – you don’t pay attention to the real world.
cope harder, games are games PC sales games that’s it so protective over games for no reason and that’s so sad.
Some of you fail to grasp that once you go PC, you open yourself to MANY more games. Those backlogs we already have? They’d just get EVEN LARGER. So who cares if you need to wait 2 years to play a PlayStation Studios game? Between Steam’s amazing sales, Epic’s free weekly games, and GamePass on PC, there is more than enough titles to hold our attention before the definitive version of a PlayStation Studio game releases on PC. And yes, you can use controllers on PC already. I fully understand this is Sony’s way of increasing their software sales, and that’s all there is to it for the console leader.
If Sony can make more money with additional PC releases (and that’s obvious) then they will, because money makes the world go round.
foxhole07 – you clearly have your own interpretation of what was said.
theman64:yes it’s called shovelware and vaporware. the odd gem may pop up but it’s not as grand as new people think.
If they’re not going to be making any major PS5 exclusives, they need to drop the $70. Their excuse for raising the price is not justified. DLC, microtransactions, deluxe editions, etc., are making them enough money – just look at their earnings.
In less than 2 years since he took over as CEO Jim Ryan has turned PlayStation into the biggest joke in the gaming industry.
Damn right, the whole reason people are excited about PlayStation is the generational leaps and exclusive games. Seems they’re intent on undermining all of that in the pursuit of short term profit by making the PS5 a timed exlusive, shinier version of PS4 games, box.
Not everyone wants to game on a PC, and indeed not everyone wants to spend the money required for getting a PC up to a decent spec to compete with PS5/XSX or better (GPU/CPU/RAM). Yet the PS5 (and Series X/S to a degree) have custom hardware that will make games designed for the console difficult to port to PC. The SSD in the PS5 is not something readily available to PC gamers and most certainly not at the same price point. Games that take advantage of it (Ratchet & Clank) will struggle to work on a current PC and perhaps even within the next few years if at all this generation.
The tempest audio in the PS5 is simply outstanding. Having used Dobly Atmos, DTS and Windows Sonic – I can hand on heart say the PS5 Tempest Audio is already better and it hasn’t even seen its full potential. The same can be said about the DualSense controller and its exclusive features. These are all compelling reasons to purchase the game on PS5 and in many cases will perhaps ensure the game is only playable on PS5 this generation.
Now, for games that don’t need any of the PS5 custom hardware (God of War, Uncharted, Horizon etc) then why not release them on PC after a certain period? It doesn’t stop people enjoying the games on the PS5/PS4 at a much cheaper price point than a decent rig. Yet it does enable PC gamers with the right rig to enjoy these great games that will further fund PlayStation games and projects in the future.
When people say; “I would rather get the game on PC where it will (subjective but likely) look and play better. Sony are giving me no reason to own a PS5”, they are ignorant of the fact that not everyone wants a PC. I personally prefer having a system that primarily plays the games I buy from one digital store front, with less maintenance and software juggling/updating. PC master race people will come out the woodwork and try to convince me the trade off is worth the extra money and hassle, but no – to me it is not. I don’t want an Epic, Steam, Xbox, Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar or battlenet launcher to play my games. I want to turn my system on, play a game off the UI that has come from one source (be it PSN or disc) and crack on. I also don’t want to sift through multiple ways to communicate with my friends (Steam chat, Discord, Xbox App etc), I just want to put my headset on and join/host a party.
Everything I mentioned above will more than likely cover the thoughts of many others. We simply don’t want a PC and enjoy the simplicity of a console. Some of us also recognise the PS5 does things and will play games that can’t be done/played elsewhere. So please – enjoy your PC and enjoy any PS games that come to it and compliment the huge catalogue of games available. But don’t act all high and mighty and insist others follow suit.