Guerrilla Games is a video game developer and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They are overall one of the largest and most prominent European developers.
The developer is best known for their first-person shooter series Killzone. However, they have since moved on from the series and begun to work on a new action role-playing game titled Horizon Zero Dawn, their first non-Killzone title since Shellshock: Nam '67 and their first game to not be a shooter.
History[]
Guerrilla Games, then named Lost Boys Games, used to operate as a subsidiary of Dutch media conglomerate Lost Boys. It was created as a result of a merger of three independent Dutch developers, including Digital Infinity and Orange Games.
In 2003, Lost Boys Games was sold to Media Republic, a new company launched by one of the founders of Lost Boys, Michiel Mol, and in July of the same year was renamed Guerilla Games. Under Media Republic, Guerilla began to working on Killzone and Shellshock: Name '67 in collaboration with Sony Computer Entertainment and Eidos Interactive, respectively. Killzone would go on to garner relatively mixed reception, but nonetheless sell over a million copies. Due to the title's success, in 2004, Guerrilla signed an exclusive development agreement with their Killzone collaborators Sony Computer Entertainment.
The developer gained major public intention in May 2005, following the release of a pre-rendered Kilzone 2 trailer; the hype and skepticism surrounding the game's unveiling has resulted in Guerilla's status as a principal developer within Sony Computer Entertainment. In December of the same year, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired Guerrilla from its then parent company Media Republic, with the developer becoming a wholly own studio of the publisher.
Killzone 2 was released in 2009 to critical acclaim and is Guerrillas most critically successful game to date. Killzone 3 was released in 2011 to positive reviews, though slightly less so than Killzone 2. Killzone: Mercenary, a Playstation Vita game developed by Guerrilla Cambridge was released in 2013 and received fairly positive reviews and is widely considered the best shooter available on a handheld. The latest game in the series, Killzone: Shadow Fall was released later during the same year as a Playstation 4 launch game. The game received mostly positive reviews, though clearly less so than Killzone 2 and 3. It was primarily praised for its technical achievements and showing off the hardware capabilities of the then-new Playstation 4 console.
On 15 June 2015, during E3 2015 Sony's press conference, Guerrilla's new intellectual property Horizon Zero Dawn was announced. A vast departure from the Killzone series, Horizon Zero Dawn is a third-person role-playing game released exclusively for the PlayStation 4 in 2017.[2][3]
The game received widespread positive acclaim from various critics. An expansion, The Frozen Wilds, was released in November 2017. By February 2018, over 7.6 million copies had been sold, increasing to over 10 million a year later, making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games. In March 2020, Hermen Hulst confirmed in an interview that Horizon Zero Dawn will receive a PC port.[4] The PC version was released on 7 August 2020.
The next game in developed, Horizon Forbidden West, was first revealed at the 2020 PS5 Future of Gaming event on 11 June 2020. It is a sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn. The title was developed for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and was released on February 18, 2022.
Later, on 4 January 2022, Horizon Call of the Mountain was announced. It is a VR game that is designed for PSVR2.
Released games[]
As Lost Boys Games[]
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Dizzy's Candy Quest (GBC, 2001)
- Rhino Rumble (GBC, 2002)
- Black Belt Challenge (GBA, 2002)
- Invader (GBA, 2002)
As Guerrilla Games[]
- Shellshock: Nam '67 (PS2, Xbox, PC, 2004)
- Killzone (PS2, 2004)
- Killzone: Liberation (PSP, 2006)
- Killzone 2 (PS3, 2009)
- Killzone 3 (PS3, 2011)
- Killzone: Mercenary (PSV, 17 September 2013)
- Killzone: Shadow Fall (PS4, 25 November 2013)
- Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4, PC, 2017)
- Horizon Forbidden West (PS4, PS5, 18 February 2022)
- Horizon Call of the Mountain (PlayStation VR2, 2023)