Sucker Punch Productions

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Sucker Punch Productions, LLC
PlayStation Studios (2011–present)
Websitesuckerpunch.com

Sucker Punch Productions, LLC is an American video game developer based in Bellevue, Washington. It is best known for creating character action games for PlayStation consoles such as Sly Cooper, Infamous, and Ghost of Tsushima. The studio has been a part of PlayStation Studios since 2011. As of 2020, the company employs about 160 people.[1]

Sucker Punch Productions was founded in October 1997 by Brian Fleming, Bruce Oberg, Darrell Plank, Tom and Cathy Saxton, and Chris Zimmerman. The founders worked at

Sony Computer Entertainment to publish the game, which became an unexpected commercial success and spawned a franchise with two sequels: Sly 2: Band of Thieves (2004) and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
(2005).

After working on three Sly Cooper games, the team continued its partnership with Sony and pivoted to making an

open-world, comic book-inspired superhero game titled Infamous (2009). Infamous was a modest success and Sucker Punch followed it up with two sequels, Infamous 2 (2011) and Infamous Second Son (2014). After the release of Infamous 2, Sony acquired Sucker Punch for an undisclosed sum. Following the release of Second Son, the studio spent six years working on the next game, Ghost of Tsushima (2020), which went on to become one of Sony's fastest-selling original games for the PlayStation 4
, selling more than 9.73 million copies.

History

Founding and Rocket

Sucker Punch Productions was founded in October 1997 by Brian Fleming, Chris Zimmerman, Bruce Oberg, Darrell Plank, Tom Saxton, and Cathy Saxton, who first met while they worked at

The Incredible Machine and was to feature 3D visuals, but the plan was scrapped. Two of the founders, Tom and Cathy Saxton, left Sucker Punch Productions in 1998.[2]

After purchasing a development kit from

Ubi Soft agreed to publish the game after seeing positive press reaction to it. The project, which was later renamed Rocket: Robot on Wheels following a trademark dispute,[5] received generally positive reviews when it was released in 1999,[2] however, it was not commercially successful, with Fleming describing the audience response as "tepid".[3]

Sly Cooper success

Following the critical success of Rocket, Sucker Punch developed another character action game. The project, titled Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, stars a raccoon thief as its protagonist. According to Fleming, "the sight gag of a raccoon putting on a mask somehow seemed super funny to us." Learning from the frustrating process of pitching Rocket to publishers, Sucker Punch decided to approach a publisher first. Fleming observed that the most successful platform games at that time were the ones released by console manufacturers. The team approached Sony who agreed to publish the game for the PlayStation 2. Working with Sony allowed the team to streamline its development goals since they were developing the game for one platform.[4] As the game was developed for young players, the team initially worried about Cooper being a thief and if that would enforce a message to young players that stealing was acceptable. The writers remedied this by introducing Sly as a master thief who only steals from other thieves. "Thievius Raccoonus" are Latin-style words invented by the team.[3] Development of the game lasted for 3 years, during which time Plank departed the team.[6][2] Creative director Nate Fox described the launch of Sly Cooper as a tense experience for the team as Sucker Punch was an unproven studio at that time, and they were unsure about whether the market would be interested in such a "wacko game".[6] Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was released in 2002 and was both a commercial and critical success selling about 1 million copies, surpassing the studio's expectations.[4]

Thievius Raccoonus' success enabled the studio to pursue a sequel.

The Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.[11]

Infamous and acquisition by Sony

The success of the

open-world game, with development lasting three years by a team of 60 people.[15] It received generally positive reviews and sold nearly 2 million copies as in 2010.[16]

With the success of the first game, Sucker Punch began working on a sequel.

Foster City Studio, as the key reasons why Sucker Punch agreed to Sony's acquisition.[9][19]

With Sony's support and funding, the studio continued to make Infamous games, releasing the standalone expansion

Infamous: First Light in August 2014. The studio was hit with layoffs in the same month.[25]

Ghost of Tsushima

Following the release of Second Son, the team began brainstorming their next game. Sucker Punch wanted to create an open-world game with a large emphasis on

feudal Japan and would feature a samurai as the protagonist. The art and the environment teams had a difficult time transitioning into the project as the game was a huge departure stylistically from the Infamous franchise, which has a "punk rock" aesthetic. This caused a significantly longer production time compared to other Sucker Punch titles, with development lasting for about six years. The game, titled Ghost of Tsushima, was released in July 2020 as one of PlayStation 4's last first-party exclusive titles.[1] It was a huge commercial success and quickly became one of Sony's fastest-selling new intellectual properties. By November 2020 it sold over 5 million copies.[28] As a result of the game's success, directors Jason Connell and Fox became tourism ambassadors for the island of Tsushima in 2021,[29] and a film based on the game is in development.[30]

Games developed

Year Title Platform(s)
1999 Rocket: Robot on Wheels Nintendo 64
2002 Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus PlayStation 2
2004 Sly 2: Band of Thieves
2005 Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
2009 Infamous PlayStation 3
2011 Infamous 2
Infamous: Festival of Blood
2014 Infamous Second Son PlayStation 4
Infamous First Light
2020 Ghost of Tsushima PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows
2021 Ghost of Tsushima: Legends

References

  1. ^
    GamesRadar. Archived
    from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Moriarty, Colin (September 12, 2014). "Something Electric in Bellevue: The History of Sucker Punch". IGN. Archived from the original on April 18, 2022. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  3. ^
    PlayStation Blog. Archived
    from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e Reeves, Ben (June 9, 2010). "Sly Devils: The History of Sucker Punch Productions". Game Informer. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  5. ^ "Sprocket Will Never Be Released". IGN. August 18, 1999. Archived from the original on April 18, 2022. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
  6. ^ a b Reilly, Jim (September 29, 2009). "Sucker Punch Talks Motion Controls, 3-D Gaming". IGN. Archived from the original on April 18, 2022. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
  7. ^ Sucker Punch Productions. "The Making of Sly 2". Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2020 – via YouTube.
  8. ^ "Sly 2: Band of Thieves Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
  9. ^ a b c Hanson, Ben (June 25, 2013). "Sucker Punch Talks Letting Go Of Sly Cooper". Game Informer. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  10. ^ "Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on April 29, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
  11. ^ Ray Corriea, Alexa (July 19, 2012). "Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is Sanzaru's love letter to the series". Polygon. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  12. ^ Hanson, Ben (May 22, 2013). "The Origins Of Infamous". Game Informer. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
  13. ^ McElroy, Griffin (June 9, 2009). "Interview: Sucker Punch's Nate Fox on inFamous and inSpiration". Engadget. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  14. USgamer. Archived
    from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  15. ^ Kelly, Kevin (March 25, 2009). "GDC09: An inFamous interview with Sucker Punch's Brian Fleming". Joystiq. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015. Retrieved June 26, 2009.
  16. ^ Juba, Joe (June 4, 2010). "July Cover Revealed: Infamous 2". Game Informer. Archived from the original on June 6, 2010. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  17. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (August 2, 2011). "Sony buys inFamous dev Sucker Punch". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  18. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (September 27, 2010). "Sucker Punch on inFamous 2". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  19. ^ Ruscher, Wesley (June 26, 2013). "Why Sucker Punch left Sly Cooper behind". Destructoid. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  20. ^ Orry, Tom (August 16, 2011). "inFamous 2: Festival of Blood coming this October". VideoGamer.com. Archived from the original on August 22, 2022. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  21. ^ Yoon, Andrew (March 29, 2012). "Journey becomes PSN's fastest-selling game". Shacknews. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  22. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (June 19, 2013). "Super-powered in Seattle: inFamous Second Son preview". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on July 9, 2019. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
  23. ^ "Realising InFamous: Second Son's next-gen vision". MCV. April 16, 2014. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  24. ^ Sarkar, Samit (April 10, 2014). "Infamous: Second Son sales topped 1M units in nine days". Polygon. Archived from the original on November 1, 2017. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
  25. ^ Te, Zorine (August 19, 2014). "Infamous Developer Sucker Punch Experiences Layoffs". GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 27, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
  26. ^ Dastoor, Vaspaan (July 20, 2020). "Ghost Of Tsushima Developer Considered Making The Game About Pirates, Scottish Folk Heroes, and Even The Three Musketeers". IGN. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  27. ^ Oloman, Jordan (July 21, 2020). "Ghost of Tsushima Developer's Cancelled Project 'Prophecy' Leaks". IGN. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  28. ^ Romano, Sal (November 12, 2020). "Ghost of Tsushima sales top five million". Gematsu. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  29. ^ Scullion, Chris (March 5, 2021). "Ghost of Tsushima devs to be made permanent ambassadors of the real island". Video Games Chronicle. Archived from the original on July 7, 2021. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
  30. ^ Kroll, Justin (March 25, 2021). "Sony And PlayStation Productions Developing 'Ghost of Tsushima' Movie With 'John Wick's Chad Stahelski Directing". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 25, 2021. Retrieved March 25, 2021.

External links

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