PlayStation Studios guide: all Sony teams ranked for PS5 (June 2023) By Kes Eylers-Stephenson, 01 Jun 2023 FollowtopicsPlayStation StudiosKes Eylers-Stephenson The PlayStation Studios guide has a tier list of the development teams under Sony, as well as recent trophies and a summary of each team working on PS5 games.Welcome to the PlayStation Studios State of Play update for June 2023 as they continue to produce the best PS5 games. This PlayStation Studios guide features a studio ranking, PS5 game trophies, and a summary of each team in Sony's portfolio.Update: Updates to Naughty Dog, Haven Studios, and Firewalk Studios after the PlayStation Showcase 2023Sony will close PixelOpus on June 2nd — this is your last chance to assess the team.PlayStation Studios ranked and ratedPlayStation Studios tier listPlatinum Studio tierNaughty DogInsomniac GamesGold Studio tierGuerrilla GamesBungieSanta Monica StudioSan Diego StudioSilver Studio tierSucker PunchHousemarquePolyphony DigitalBluepoint GamesTeam AsobiXDEVBronze Studio tierBend StudioLondon StudioPixelOpusFirespriteMedia MoleculeHidden Studio tierNixxes SoftwareValkyrie EntertainmentUnearned Studio tierHaven StudiosFirewalk StudiosSavage Game StudiosPlatinum Studio tierPlatinumA studio that has achieved it all in game development to the highest tier possibleNaughty DogNaughty Dog Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.The Adored Explorer: An Uncharted Compendium — All you need to know about the series, as well as TT community memories and ranking.Naughty Dog has been best in class for cinematics, story, environmental design, set-pieces, characters, and gameplay for a long time now. ‘Greatness Awaits’ is a PlayStation slogan best personified by Naughty Dog and the dev team deserves nothing less than the highest honor in the world of PlayStation, to be called a Platinum Studio.However, Naughty Dog's latest The Last of Us multiplayer project has hit hard times and its upcoming new single-player game might take years. That makes this the trickiest position the studio has been in since the start of the PS3 era — here's hoping the studio pulls through!Current Project: The Last of Us multiplayer (confirmed, but downsized and delayed), new single player game which is either The Last of Us Part 3 (rumored), New IP (rumored)Insomniac GamesInsomniac Games Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Two Crude Dudes: A Ratchet & Clank Compendium — All you need to know about the series, as well as TT community memories and ranking.Insomniac Games continues to roll out ludicrously high-quality games at a lightning-fast pace. After only a few years of making great first-party games under its ownership, Insomniac has already become invaluable to Sony. Giving the dev team a Platinum Studio award for its complete trophy list of abilities, end-product, and fun IP is deserved for the PlayStation Studio!Current Project: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 trophies (est. September 2023) and Marvel's Wolverine trophies (date unknown)Gold Studio tierGoldGreat games already notched for the studio and primed to make moreGuerrilla GamesGuerrilla Games Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place. Guerrilla Games made a success of the PS4 generation and compounded its high-level output with Horizon Forbidden West. The team is basically ground zero for PlayStation operations in Europe at this point, with more fingers in more pies than you could count. So, for having a corker of a game under its belt for PS5 and its essential role in PlayStation's European operations, this studio is at the top of the Gold pile for us.Current Project: Horizon 3 (confirmed), Horizon multiplayer games (rumored)BungieBungie Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place. Bungie is a Sony-owned team, but isn't a PlayStation Studio and will remain functionally independent making multiplatform games. The team is 900-strong and the primary focus will be on live-service gaming and infrastructure for the PlayStation Studios set-up while providing Sony Pictures with ammunition for PlayStation Productions TV and film adaptations. We think Destiny and Halo are more than good enough games to warrant placing Bungie into the Gold Studio category of studios for now. Hopefully, once Bungie has settled down we will have a better idea of how the team is set to provide internal assistance.Current Project: Destiny 2 trophies — expansion The Final Shape (2024)Santa Monica StudioSanta Monica Studio Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Santa Monica has talent, can make a game feel great, and exudes confidence in a post-Ragnarok world. The team has helped curate fantastic experiences from other development teams in the past too, but, as of yet, the team has not replicated that outstanding God of War-level output like a Naughty Dog or an Insomniac has with multiple IP. That feels very harsh to say, and harsher to give the team just a Gold Studio ranking. Make no mistake though, that is certainly the mark of a great developer.Current Project: UnknownSan Diego StudioSan Diego Studio Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place. San Diego Studio is clearly a team of talented developers capable of making great baseball games. With MLB The Show 23 the team recovered a little bit from the lull of MLB The Show 22, once again making a classic baseball sim that rocks the park. That shoots the team back to the Gold Studio tier from last year's Silver Studio drop-off. Current Project: MLB: The Show 23 trophies (2023) — continued support, MLB The Show 24 (2024)Silver Studio tierSilverMade a great game, has plenty of potential, or serves a vital purposeSucker PunchSucker Punch Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place. Sucker Punch is an interesting studio to award a trophy because it has made solid games over and over again without a single true ‘miss.' If we could give Sucker Punch something in between Silver and Gold Studio awards, we would. We feel like the team needs to replicate the quality of Ghost of Tsushima and deliver a little more than a ‘refined’ classic open-world to reach the Gold Studio tier, so until then it remains a Silver Studio.Current Project: Ghost of Tsushima 2 (rumoured)HousemarqueHousemarque Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Housemarque's amazing arcade games have been staples of every iteration of modern PlayStation console: everlasting gobstoppers that don’t ever age badly. Returnal was the perfect step up into the AAA-looking game. However, after years of struggle with Stormdivers and the slight imperfections with Returnal, a strong Silver Studio tier position feels like a suitable spot.Current Project: UnknownPolyphony DigitalPolyphony Digital Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Gran Turismo 7 had a rocky launch and continues to struggle to keep pace with the live service pack. At the same time, Polyphony Digital is slow and labored in the making of its games despite being an undoubtedly fantastic and passionate team. The Gran Turismo series needs a kick in our opinion despite how good the last entry was on the track, leaving them demoted from Gold Studio to Silver Studio until the team shifts up another gear.Current Project: Gran Turismo 7 trophies (2022) — continued support, Gran Turismo 8 (rumored)Bluepoint GamesBluepoint Games Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.That Gold Studio tier is looming for Bluepoint, having hit it out of the park with the Demon’s Souls (2020) remake and Shadow of the Colossus (2018) remakes. However, recent news about the team making “original content” seems risky given the Texas team is totally untested with making something wholly new. Honestly, if it was only making remakes and remasters, Bluepoint would be higher up. Therefore, we are putting the team at the Silver Studio tier until the team can be fully assessed in this new frontier. Current Project: Bloodborne trophies (2014) — sequel or remaster (rumoured)Team AsobiTeam Asobi Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Team Asobi has proved itself to be capable of making excellent games with players collecting the Astro’s Playroom trophies en masse on PS5 and Astro Bot Rescue Mission trophies on the PS VR. This places them as a solid, steady team that we can always bank on delivering new hardware. However, that also leaves the group without a big project to really show its full talent. A hard one to rank, but a better-than-average grade makes sense.Current Project: Astro sequel rumouredXDEVXDEV Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.XDEV is very different from anything else on this list. Thinking about the team in a development capacity is limiting; XDEV is more like the connective tissue between lots of different components of PlayStation, Sony, and the development teams. Giving the team a Silver Studio status feels like a fair representation of its hard work, without overstating its presence as a developer.Current Project: Establishing independent partnersBronze Studio tierBronzeOne of the less-prominent studios, or one that is as-of-yet unprovenBend StudioBend Studio Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.What a strange old studio! With Bend's long history with Syphon Filter and nearly as long downtime between recent projects, it appears to be back on track. So, we at TT are excited for the future of Bend Studio, but wish that the team had not been messed around so hard by Sony as of late off of the back of Days Gone. As a reflection of current news, it is a Bronze Studio with plenty of room to maneuver. Current Project: New IP (Rumoured)London StudioLondon Studio Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.The idea of a new IP on PS5 using everything that London Studio has learned could rocket this squad up the tier list. A welcome return to PlayStation Home would certainly be a wild project for the team to take on, and we genuinely believe it could lead to success. However, it looks like the next game will be something fantasy, co-op and live service. We can't wait to see it, but until then the team needs to prove it can work so remains in the Bronze Studio tier. Current Project: New live-service co-op fantasy IPPixelOpusPixelOpus Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.PixelOpus is clearly a "promise waiting to be fulfilled" kind of team, so striking that balance with a Studio Tier is tricky. The catalog of PixelOpus games is shallow, so a Hidden Studio would be an appropriate representation of the embryonic output except for the fact we can already see the potential for the future of this team — Silver Studio, with room to soar! So, an odds-even Bronze Studio tier is a fair representation of PixelOpus.Current Project: PS5 IP in conjunction with Sony Pictures AnimationFirespriteFiresprite Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Firesprite is a bit of a mish-mash studio. The Liverpool-based team has been primarily operating as a VR developer for Horizon Call of the Mountain (2023) on PSVR 2's release, but the rumored next project (the Twisted Metal reboot) is not necessarily going to be of that ilk. Indeed, considering the humongous amount of staff, it really does feel like the team is prepping for something big — so we feel comfortable plopping Firesprite in the Bronze Studio tier until further assessment can be made after Horizon Call of the Mountain's somewhat tepid launch. Current Project: Twisted Metal (rumored)Media MoleculeMedia Molecule Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.You are mad at us for putting Media Molecule at the bottom rung, we get it. We are huge LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway fans, don't get us wrong. The problem is how Media Molecule's success is now intertwined with that of the failed Dreams (a great game, poorly thought out). Unlike most other studios under the PlayStation Studios label, Media Molecule has felt mismanaged by Sony. Can you imagine if Dreams had been a multi-platform game on PC, Game Pass, and as a PS5 pack-in? We are sad about not recognizing the talent residing in the knitting basket of Media Molecule, but with Dreams canceled and no forthcoming project, the future of Media Molecule is not looking good.Current Project: UnknownHidden Studio tierHiddenThere is something there, but harder work is needed to unearth itNixxes SoftwareNixxes Software Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Nixxes Software has produced some solid PC ports and, interestingly, the PlayStation Studios PC games published without Nixxes' help suffer a noticeable drop in quality (The Last of Us Part 1, Horizon Zero Dawn). This makes us think the team seems talented at what it does: PC porting. So, while Nixxes still remains in the shadowy hidden tier, it certainly does great work for PlayStation Studios. Current project: PC PortsValkyrie EntertainmentValkyrie Entertainment Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Valkyrie works with art assets and development assistance and has done so in the shadows of big AAA games. We can't help but think this team loves to graft. Now, under the PlayStation Studios label, we hope it finds some fun in helping with a concentrated batch of PlayStation talent on a variety of projects. We might never understand the hard work going on at this studio, the Hidden Trophy reflects a mysterious talent at Valkyrie!Current Project: Unknown support workUnearned Studio tierUnearnedHas yet to show its talentHaven StudiosHaven Studio Spotlight — All recent news, studio history, and ranking in one place.Haven Studios, headed by industry veteran Jade Raymond, is leading the charge on the Canada-based development scene. The team is making something called Fairgames — a heist-style live-service social game about robbing the billionaires that will last generations — but without anything playable to show for its world yet, we are going to place them in the Unearned Tier.Current project and upcoming trophy list: Fairgames trophiesFirewalk StudiosFirewalk are a PlayStation StudioFirewalk Studios are the most recent purchase from Sony for PlayStation Studio. The team is currently working on a live-service shooter called Concord, for which we have only had a CGI trailer, so far. Until we can play a game by Firewalk, we're leaving them in the Unearned Studio tier.Current project and upcoming trophy list: Concord trophiesSavage Game StudiosSavage Game Studios are a PlayStation StudioSavage Game Studios is a mobile developer and has been bought by Sony based on the promise of whatever its upcoming game is. Without any game development history — the studio was only formed in 2020 — and without any announced project, this team remains in the Unearned Studio tier.Current Project: Live service action game for mobileThank you for reading, remember to comment on your own tier list for the studios, or any observations, for a chance to be included in the next State of Play update!PlayStation Studios Written by Kes Eylers-StephensonEditor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favourite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.