What is the best PlayStation studio?
Spoiler: I am going to present the case for Insomniac Games being the best PlayStation first party developer. If I were planning to make the case that they have been the best in that category for the PS5, this would be an incredibly short article as their output has outshined the competition by a laughable margin. Spider-Man (Miles Morales and 2) and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart have all released on the PS5 and any one of them would put them comfortably in this conversation. All three? It’s a blowout, stop the fight!!
I didn’t appreciate how deep the Insomniac/PlayStation roots go until recently and the more I dug in, the more impressed I became.
The criteria here is loose, but is based around longevity, game quality, game quantity, and number of true tentpole titles.
The Pretenders
These are the studios under the PlayStation umbrella which have produced quality, but don’t make the cut for the true contenders.
Bend Studios
They made hits with the Syphon Filter series, but then pivoted into portable games from established franchises before getting the chance at their own IP which produced Days Gone. That is a game with its fans, but it is safe to say it didn’t live up to expectations and might have redirected Bend going forward.
Housemarque
A bit of a wild card, they are a recent addition to the SIE portfolio, but they deserve a shout out here for Returnal which still stands as one of the best original, exclusive PS5 titles years into the console’s lifecycle. Ultimately, not enough good games have come from Housemarque yet, but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing their next move.
Media Molecule
LittleBigPlanet is iconic. Dreams was an amazing piece of software. However, for me, that resume doesn’t hold up to the best of the best here.
Polyphony Digital and San Diego Studios
Each of these studios develop one series and do so extraordinarily well. Gran Turismo and MLB The Show are flagpole series in their respective genres, but each are a bit too niche to carry a single-franchise studio into the contender category.
The Contenders
Given the requirements, the list of true contenders dwindles down to five really quickly: Guerilla, Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Sucker Punch. Let’s look at the resumes of each.
Guerilla
Franchises: Killzone, Horizon
Summary: Guerilla found a FPS hit in the Killzone series, particularly during the PS3 era. The first game wasn’t overly well received but found an audience as PlayStation’s answer to Halo. The series made it all the way to PS4 before dying so Guerilla could shift focus to the open world, third person, robot-dinosaur epic that was Horizon Zero Dawn. HZD was an incredibly ambitious jump into a new IP and very much succeeded. The PS4/PS5 sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, is an amazing visual spectacle with solid gameplay to match.
Why They Should Lose: Killzone and Horizon are very strong entries into their genres, but neither is top tier. We will see examples of better 3rd person open world games shortly, and Killzone was just another solid FPS in a sea of them in its era.
Why They Should Win: Horizon is at least in the conversation for best open world game, and I’m sure fans believe it to be better than the games I will get to below. It’s an incredibly ambitious setting and does a fantastic job weaving an engaging story and building a spectacular world. The aspect which Horizon does worst, in this writer’s opinion, is the combat which still has you shooting robot dinosaurs with a large variety of weapons. It is fun to play and evokes a very specific childlike feeling of wonder being able to fight against robot dinosaurs.
Naughty Dog
Franchises: Crash Bandicoot, Jak, Uncharted, The Last of Us
Summary: Phew. That’s a hell of a list. Each of the three played a major role in defining the console generation they appeared on. Crash Bandicoot WAS Sony in the ‘90s for many people of a certain age (mainly those of us who ignored JRPGs at the time). Uncharted was a smash hit on PS3 and The Last of Us took video game storytelling to new heights. It’s incredibly fun to think about each of these four series and how one feeds into the next. Jak is the fully 3D game they couldn’t make on PS1. Uncharted is a refinement of the Jak gunplay and adds some serious storytelling. The Last of Us takes that storytelling to a new level while refining the heck out of combat.
Why They Should Lose: It’s not Insomniac? That honestly might be the only acceptable answer for me on this one, because I absolutely love Crash, Uncharted, and TLOU (Jak is very good, but not top tier PS2 action/platforming in my opinion). The real knock here is that their output in the last decade includes ONE new game (The Last of Us Part II, which is an all-time great, at least) and a handful of remasters. They had the debacle of spending years on a standalone, live service, online multiplayer TLOU title that got canceled. They need to make more games, it’s as simple as that.
Why They Should Win: Personally, I think The Last of Us Part II stands among the best games of the last decade or so. It absolutely perfected that gameplay style and took massive storytelling swings that are typically reserved for TV series (hey; somebody should make a TV show out of TLOU!). Crash is one of the best and most beloved series on PS1, ditto Uncharted on PS3, throw in Uncharted 4 where the hardware finally caught up to the vision they wanted to achieve and the resume is absolutely stacked. That the Jak series is kind of an afterthought to me says a ton about how good Naughty Dog’s output has been over the years.
Santa Monica Studio
Franchise: God of War
Summary: I am breaking my own rules here as this is a one-trick pony studio but I listed it as a contender. The reason? God of War is an all-time franchise. The first two set the stage and delivered incredibly fun gameplay with ambitious set piece fights on the PS2. Follow that through to the PS4 soft reboot with a mythology and setting change, God of War (2018) is an absolute masterpiece on so many levels. The single camera shot sounds like a cheap trick but it’s incredibly interesting and fun in practice. The set piece fights are bigger and more memorable than ever. The storytelling is top shelf. Ragnarok might be a bit too similar to God of War (2018) for some tastes, but sometimes creating a new 25-30+ hour adventure in the world and gameplay of an already amazing game is more than enough.
Why They Should Lose: No variety. Pretty simple, if you aren’t interested in God of War then Santa Monica has nothing to offer you.
Why They Should Win: God of War is one of the best franchises in gaming history. It has survived for four generations at this point and always offers best-in-class everything for its era.
Sucker Punch
Franchises: Sly Cooper, Infamous, Ghost of Tsushima
Summary: Sucker Punch crushed it with the Sly Cooper series on PS2. An action platformer with light stealth aspects, the series was incredibly unique and all three games were beloved. The art style alone made the games standout amongst its peers, and the charming characters, fun stories, and great gameplay backed it up. Infamous followed in the same vein, offering more action adventure goodness, this time allowing you to control characters with superpowers. The games packed a lot into relatively tight runtimes, and were a lot of fun. Ghost of Tsushima is, in my opinion, the apex of open-world, map-vomit style games. It offers fun, engaging combat, a strong story, amazing visuals, perfect traversal, and is one of those rare massive games that I couldn’t put down when I was playing.
Why They Should Lose: The franchises here don’t offer a ton of variety and, depending on your view, none might come in as one of the top of their generation. Producing a steady stream of very good games is commendable, but is it worthy of this title?
Why They Should Win:They are incredibly good at what they do. Play any random section of levels in Sly Cooper and you will come away impressed with the charm oozing from every portion of the game. Soar through the air in Infamous and be amazed at how well they nail traversal, better than most in a pre-Spider-Man video game world. Ride a horse around in Ghost of Tsushima and marvel at the details the game features at every turn.
Insomniac
Franchises: Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, Spider-Man
Summary: They made the original Spyro trilogy (aka the good ones). The console Ratchet and Clank games (aka the good ones). The console Resistance games (aka the good ones). Spider-Man 1, Miles Morales, and 2. If you like open area/world games starring loveable characters, Insomniac is the studio for you. Spyro took the early 3D open-area, collect-a-thon concept and sped it up. The games play so smoothly, it’s difficult to believe they are from the same era as some extremely clunky early 3D games. Ratchet & Clank has consistently offered non-stop action, a bit of platforming, absurdly fun guns, and charm from the PS2 through to the PS5. Rift Apart absolutely stands up as one of the best games on the PS5 and stands even taller if you only consider PS5 exclusives. Resistance is a series I’ve never played but it, by all accounts, had a very successful trilogy on the PS3. The modern Spider-Man games set new standards for open world gaming. Miles Morales refined the original formula a bit then 2 blew away expectations by doubling essentially everything from the first while keeping the same tidy, sub-20 hour game (and cutting nearly half off of the platinum trophy time). Aside: they also made Sunset Overdrive for Xbox before they were acquired by Sony.
Why They Should Lose: If you don’t like action platformers, there’s not much to see here.
Why They Should Win: They have consistently offered games that are, above all else, fun. While other open world games strived to pack as many hours of content in as possible, Insomniac kept their flagship series to a tidy 15-18 hours with Spider-Man 2. The Ratchet and Clank games are a staple at this point, you know exactly what you’re getting in the next entry but you still want to play it anyway. Rift Apart doubled as a tech demo for the PS5’s SSD and three years after its release there haven’t been many other PS5 games as technically impressive. The ability to maintain a cutting edge on the tech side while never once losing sight of the fun factor is Insomniac’s greatest strength.
The Verdict
Some may say the jury is rigged here, because it’s just me, but I declare Insomniac the winner.
One way to illustrate Insomniac’s track record is to compare the total number of original current-gen exclusive titles by studio:
Insomniac: 2
The other four contenders combined: 0
Seriously. Naughty Dog has released two remasters of The Last of Us games. Santa Monica and Guerilla have both released one flagship title but they were both cross-platform with PS4 (Ragnarok and Forbidden West). Sucker Punch is working on Ghost of Tsushima 2. It is difficult to take this decision in any other direction when roughly halfway through the current generation, nobody else on this list has released an exclusive game for that console.
To add to this, Insomniac is the only developer in the contenders list which has announced a new IP (Wolverine, not an original IP, obviously).
Even if you prefer to ignore recent results, Insomniac’s back catalog stands up with the others. Maybe you prefer Crash and Uncharted or Sly and Tsushima, but you can’t really argue that Spyro and Ratchet & Clank deserve to be in the same league as the other classic series from developers on this list. I have a soft spot for games that keep a tidy playtime as well and Insomniac’s titles always do so without ever feeling like they are missing something.
Insomniac makes fun games and makes more of them than anyone else currently on PlayStation’s first party roster. They are the winner of my imaginary award that only I get to vote on.
