New leadership at Guerrilla Games fuels rumours of a Horizon sequel and emphasizes the studio’s dedication to expanding Aloy’s universe.
The video game industry is constantly changing, so it is only expected this would also be true for the creators that make the magic happen behind the scenes. Guerrilla Games’ Co-Studio Director Angie Smets has been promoted to Head of Development Strategy at PlayStation Studios, as announced by SIE this morning. She has been part of developing the Horizon and Killzone game universes. With leadership changes, Guerrilla may have also inadvertently revealed that a Horizon sequel is in the works.
Smets has worked with studio heads Jan-Bart van Beek and Michiel van der Leeuw for the past three years. With her departure, Jan-Bart van Beek retains his studio director role alongside newly-promoted Joel Eschler (previously Production Director) and Hella Schmidt (previously General Manager).
“These past two decades at Guerrilla have been an absolute dream,” Smets said in a statement published this morning. She expressed her gratitude to Van Beek, Van der Leeuw, and the Guerrilla team: “I feel privileged to have worked alongside some of the smartest and coolest people in the industry.” She went on to mention how much the three of them had accomplished with the launch of the first Killzone.
Guerrilla also published a statement expressing appreciation for Smets’ work, laying the groundwork for its new management team and their roadmap. The studio had exciting things to say about Eschler and Schmidt’s new roles within the company: “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.”
A lot of speculation was brewing about the next step for Aloy. The studio stated back in December they would be “continuing to create epic solo adventures for Aloy” alongside the confirmation of exploring online capabilities. At that time, they could have just been thinking about the recently released Burning Shores DLC though.
Aside from these emerging rumours, there was the recent PSVR2’s Call of the Mountain launch, a rumoured Horizon Zero Dawn PS5 remaster, and a Netflix show in development. If all these projects are genuine, the world of Horizon is only getting more expansive, meaning fans of Guerrilla and Aloy will have plenty to enjoy over the next few years.
