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.

PlayStation 4 receiving critically-acclaimed ports from last generation

Four games that received some of the higher scores on PlayStation 3 and Vita will be coming to the PlayStation 4.

Sony announced today that Flower, flOw, Sound Shapes, and Escape Plan will all be developed by Santa Monica and released with cross-buy functionality.

From Jeffrey Grubb of Venture Beat:

Flower and Sound Shapes will both debut alongside the PlayStation 4 on Nov. 15. Flow and Escape Plan will follow on Nov. 29. Some of the games will see minor improvements. For example, Flower will run in a full 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second.

Thanks to cross-buy functionality, those that have bought these games on PlayStation 3 will be able to download them automatically on their next-gen console.

Flower and flOw were originally developed by thatgamecompany, also the creators of the longest-running, highest-rated game on PS3, Journey. Sound Shapes was developed by Queasy Games and Escape Plan was developed by Fun Bits Interactive.

I wonder if there's any difference in buying some of these games directly from the PlayStation Network or from a collection. Having both Flower and flOw from the Journey: Collector's Edition package, I'd hope those would also unlock the future PS4 editions.

[Image credit: Flickr]

Potential DLC from PlayStation All-Stars include Journey, Gravity Rush levels

On the heels of Santa Monica's announcement that they will discontinue downloadable content for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, a few images were leaked over the weekend that suggest some of the DLC could have been from famous Sony franchises.

Both images found on All Games Beta look like stages that represent Journey and Gravity Rush, both famous titles on the platforms they came out on.

Journey was the best critically-acclaimed title overall on the PlayStation 3 before the release of The Last of Us this summer. Gravity Rush is a cult favorite among Vita owners and has been a staple in the PlayStation Plus instant game collection.

It's just more of what could have been if the brawler could have attracted a bigger audience.

[Source: All Games Beta]
[Image credit: Flickr/Israel.]