Another high-profile name departs Sony as Santa Monica designer leaves company

Seth Killian, former designer for Sony developer Santa Monica, has left the company "on his own terms," becoming another big name that leaves the big company and looking foward to indie development.


Apparently, Killian was set to leave back in December, finishing up with the company in recent months.

Hi guys, I chose to leave my Sony family back in Dec + on great terms. I was inspired by their amazing indies to do my own thing :)
— Seth Killian (@sethkillian) March 25, 2014

GameSpot's news story on Killian's departure lists him as the fourth "high-profile" worker to leave the company. The list also includes Col Rodgers (Driveclub director), Jaime Griesemer (Infamous: Second Son designer), and Stig Asmussen (God of War series veteran).

Don't forget, Uncharted writer Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog and Jack Tretton stepped down as CEO of Sony earlier this month. Also, Santa Monica faced a huge amount of layoffs in late February.

What's happening with Sony's studios? Departures are happening left and right, and it's puzzling to see from the public eye considering how well the PlayStation 4 has been doing out of the gate.

It's been a rough patch for Santa Monica, who has also suffered the slow death of PlayStation All-Stars and seeing God of War Ascension only selling 1.7 million worldwide on PlayStation 3. In comparison, the Gold of War Collection sold 2.5 million and God of War III sold 4.65 million copies globally (stats from VGChartz).

In better news, Santa Monica is working with Ready at Dawn on the upcoming exclusive, The Order: 1886.