Opinion: Hermen Hulst Has Failed and PS Studios Needs a Change 1
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Trust me, I don’t take any pleasure writing an article like this, but I think Hermen Hulst may need to be ejected from the top job at PS Studios pronto.

I’ve been circling this opinion for quite some time, but today’s bad news about Horizon Hunters Gathering is the final nail in the coffin for me.

As I said, I don’t like writing like this.

But Hulst is a well remunerated exec at the very highest level of a lucrative business; his decisions determine the fate of the thousands of employees under PlayStation’s umbrella.

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And while I appreciate many voices contribute to the state of Sony’s first-party, Hulst has been head of PS Studios since 2019, and currently has the title CEO of the Studio Business Group. The buck stops with him.

It’s not all been bad since he took over the job from esteemed executive Shuhei Yoshida; the platform holder’s released many successful games, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Ghost of Yotei.

Opinion: Hermen Hulst Has Failed and PS Studios Needs a Change 2

From a financial perspective it’s also performing better than any gaming company has in history, with a record-breaking fiscal year forecast for the current term. It’d be reductive to say Hulst has played no part in that.

But without undermining all of the work of its talented teams, the manufacturer’s biggest internal success stories have been iterative by nature.

MLB The Show has continued to churn under San Diego Studio’s stewardship (although it has successfully expanded to multiple platforms); Santa Monica Studio built on God of War 2018 with the familiar but fantastic God of War Ragnarok.

There have been breakout success stories like Helldivers 2, but aside from the aforementioned, I think Sony’s first-party has taken a step or two backwards under Hulst’s leadership.

Naughty Dog is yet to ship a new title this generation, spending several years working on an almost-complete multiplayer version of The Last of Us, which was infamously scrapped.

Opinion: Hermen Hulst Has Failed and PS Studios Needs a Change 5

Remake specialists Bluepoint were shuttered after wasting years working on an online God of War game and then subsequently failing to settle on another project.

Bend Studio has failed to follow up on the underappreciated success of Days Gone, and is unlikely to ship a new game this generation either.

Hulst has successfully nurtured Team Asobi into a Game of the Year winning studio which should be acknowledged, but it’s come at the cost of Japan Studio – a beloved outfit that may have been messy internally, but produced games enthusiasts loved.

And the investment into live service has been nothing short of disastrous, with Concord becoming one of the most embarrassing releases in Sony’s entire history when it was shut down and refunded within weeks.

Opinion: Hermen Hulst Has Failed and PS Studios Needs a Change 3

Any attempts to succeed in the live service space have struggled, with big swings like Fairgames and 4Loop unlikely to ever make back their investment – if they even release at all.

Meanwhile, the manufacturer’s acquisition of Bungie has completely backfired, with the critically acclaimed Marathon failing to find an audience and Destiny all-but dead.

Hulst is acting on a remit from above, and I don’t think the pursuit of live service is necessarily wrong. The manufacturer knows the bulk of its revenue is contributed by a handful of evergreen games.

But I feel the former Guerrilla managing director has utterly failed to greenlight the right projects. Many of its most important teams now find themselves years behind schedule, with no obvious route to success.

I think that’s underlined by today’s Horizon Hunters Gathering reports.

Opinion: Hermen Hulst Has Failed and PS Studios Needs a Change 4

According to trusted journalist Jason Schreier, the bulk of the Amsterdam studio has been working on this co-op action game, which is now being repurposed as a smaller-scale online product – and may yet be cancelled if it fails to impress by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, a “tiny team” has been prototyping the true sequel to Horizon Forbidden West, meaning it’ll potentially be five years or more before the follow-up to Aloy’s adventure arrives – assuming Guerrilla even survives that long.

What’s particularly egregious to me here is that fans have accused Hulst of showing favouritism to the Dutch developer, given his background with the team. And yet even they seemingly find themselves hung out to dry under his leadership.

Hulst may not be to blame alone, but he’s the man at the top. PS Studios, once the envy of the entire industry, is largely unrecognisable at this point.

It’ll continue to release successful products in the near-future with God of War Laufey, but it’s been encumbered by bad decisions that simply can’t be ignored anymore.

Where do you sit on the current state of PS Studios? Is the division being run properly, and would you stick to the current course? Or do you think changes are required to get PlayStation’s first-party back on track? Sound off below.

Do you think PS Studios is in need of change?