Class: Subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment
Industry: Designer and publisher of consumer entertainment software.
Founded: 2000
Headquaters: Amsterdam, Netherlands and Cambridge, United Kingdom
Employee count: ~270[1]
Website: www.guerrilla-games.com
Guerrilla Games is a video game developer and a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment headquatered in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Cambridge, United Kingdom. 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, the 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]
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, 2017)