Guerrilla B.V. is a Dutch video game developer based in Amsterdam. The company was founded as Lost Boys Games in January 2000 through the merger of three smaller development studios as a subsidiary of multimedia conglomerate company Lost Boys. Lost Boys Games became independent the following year and was acquired by Media Republic in 2003, which renamed the studio Guerrilla Games and sold it to Sony Computer Entertainment in 2005. The company employs approximately 250 people under the leadership of joint studio heads Angie Smets, Jan-Bart van Beek, and Michiel van der Leeuw. It is best known for the Killzone and Horizon game series.
History
Guerrilla is the result of a merger between three Dutch video game studios: Orange Games, Digital Infinity, and Formula Game Development. Orange Games was founded in 1993 by Arjan Brussee, the co-designer of the 1994 game Jazz Jackrabbit; Digital Infinity was founded by Arnout van der Kamp in 1995; and Formula was founded by Martin de Ronde in 1998 and sold to Lost Boys in 1999. The three studios merged, forming Lost Boys Games as a subsidiary of Lost Boys on 1 January 2000. With de Ronde as managing director, the new company employed 25 people, growing to 40 by November 2000. Hermen Hulst was hired from a consulting firm to replace de Ronde as managing director the following year. In 2001, when Lost Boys merged with Swedish media company IconMediaLab, Lost Boys Games was spun off into an independent entity, though under the continued ownership of Mol. Lost Boys Games began developing Game Boy Color games with original characters, but the studio found that publishers would rather release games including licensed characters. Because the studio did not want to compromise on significantly altering the characters it had created, it was unable to find a publisher for them. Consequently, Lost Boys Games moved on to work-for-hire projects, creating four handheld games: Dizzy's Candy Quest, Rhino Rumble, Black Belt Challenge, and Invader. The latter two games were published by Xicat Interactive. Mol later established a new media company, Media Republic, which acquired 75% of Lost Boys Games in 2003. Shortly thereafter, in July 2003, Lost Boys Games was renamed Guerrilla to reflect the style of its new parent company. The developer soon began work on its two titles: Killzone and '. Both titles would be released the following year to mixed reception, however Killzone enjoyed pre-release hype and anticipation, and despite some backfire effect due to the media hype, Killzone went on to sell over a million copies worldwide, earning Greatest Hits and Platinum status in North America and Europe respectively. Guerrilla signed an exclusive development agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment in March 2004, that would see future development solely for Sony's line of video game consoles, the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. By late 2005, many companies, like Eidos Interactive, eyed purchasing Guerrilla; ultimately, Sony Computer Entertainment bought out the entirety of Guerrilla in December 2005. Guerrilla went on to release ' for the PlayStation Portable in October 2006, Killzone 2 for the PlayStation 3 in February 2009, and Killzone 3 for the PlayStation 3 in February 2011. By February 2012, co-founder Brussee had left the studio to join Visceral Games. As of June 2018, Guerrilla employs 250 people in its Amsterdam offices; it planned to move into a new building on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in early 2019 and expand to at least 400 employees in this new location. In November 2019, Hulst was appointed the head of Worldwide Studios and Angie Smets, Jan-Bart van Beek and Michiel van der Leeuw became joint studio heads in his place. During the 2015 E3 conference, Guerrilla unveiled a new intellectual property, Horizon Zero Dawn described as a "post-apocalyptic open worldaction role-playing game that follows the story of Aloy, a young huntress who inhabits a world that is overrun by machines, and attempts to journey across several lands to uncover her past." In 2017, Guerrilla released Horizon Zero Dawn on the Playstation 4. 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, Helman Hurst confirmed in an interview that Horizon Zero Dawn will receive a PC port. The PC version is scheduled to be released on 7 August 2020. The next game in development, 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 will be developed exclusively for PlayStation 5. The upcoming game is expected to be released sometime in 2021.
Games developed
As Lost Boys Games
As Guerrilla Games
Technology
Guerrilla uses a proprietary game engine now known as Decima.
