Hot on the heels of this week’s news that Bungie will be joining PlayStation, I had a chance to chat with Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, to learn more about how the developer collective might collaborate with the celebrated studio. We also touched on Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 (State of Play tonight!), and MLB The Show 22.

See below for a transcript, edited for length and clarity, or listen to our chat in full.

Sid: So Hermen, it’s official – Bungie is joining PlayStation. Not exactly something I would have predicted a few weeks ago, but spectacular nonetheless.

Hermen: Exciting news, right? It’s a really good surprise. We like surprises. Let me just say that I’m so pleased that we could make this happen because Bungie is truly a world-class developer.

Sid: Yeah, absolutely. Just a legendary developer, really. I don’t think that’s overstating it. They’ve been around for a long time, about 30 years…. I was curious, what are some of the ways you’ve seen Bungie influence the gaming medium over the past few decades?

Hermen: It’s actually an amazing story, when you look at it. As you said, they’ve done many genres on many different platforms. And of course their work on Halo was phenomenal, in my mind some of the best shooters in history. Halo also had a very strong component. And then there’s Destiny, a series still going strong after eight years, I think. Many people have tried to build a successful live service, and failed. Because it’s really hard. So Destiny’s success is very special. I’m also impressed by the production values from them, in terms of technology, graphics, performance capture, sound and music…all of that is really top-class at Bungie.

Sid: They’re trailblazers. Halo: Combat Evolved — it’s been, what, 20-something years since that came out? But they laid the groundwork for first-person shooters on console, and a lot of those ideas have endured over that time, whether it’s grenades, melee, sticky aim was an innovation of theirs, having a recharging health bar… and all the things you pointed out with Destiny and the live service element, making this game that evolves over time. Very innovative studio.

Hermen: Yes, everyone in gaming knows that Bungie’s gameplay is one of the benchmarks. It always feels fluid, it’s always very responsive, easy to pick up and hard to put down. They’ve either started or perfected so many innovations in their games. I follow their design choices very closely since, obviously as you know, I was working on Killzone while Bungie was developing Halo. 

Sid: Moving forward, how do you see PlayStation Studios partnering with Bungie? Do you envision a close working relationship with them?

Hermen: Absolutely. And obviously it’s still early, the deal itself needs to be finalized before we can officially start discussing detailed collaboration. But I’ve spent a lot of time with folks like Jason Jones and Pete Parsons, and some of the senior team over at Bungie. And let me tell you that everyone’s very ex

Shohei Ohtani was our unanimous choice to be on the cover of MLB The Show 22, but we wanted to do something special for the Collector’s Edition(s). You might not know this, but Shohei is a big fan of manga and anime; he has been since his years attending Hanamaki Higashi High School in Japan. His passion for baseball has always been high but his love for a specific manga series made him love baseball more.

Play Video

Shohei Ohtani put together what could be considered one of the greatest single seasons in MLB history. One could say it was superhero like, we sure did. With that in mind and knowing Shohei’s love for manga and anime the decision was clear. A normal Collector’s Edition cover wouldn’t suffice— we needed to take it to the next level.

We heard through the grapevine that famed manga artist, director, and writer Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai, Batman Ninja) was a huge fan of Shohei Ohtani. We all thought how cool would it be if Takashi drew an anime version of Shohei for the Collector’s Edition cover of MLB The Show 22? Shohei is a once in a generation athlete with superhero like abilities on the field. What better way to bring that to life than to have worlds collide on a truly unique cover? We are thrilled to share the results of this collaboration.

Cover Art not representative of in-game art.

Now you’re wondering, “What’s in the Ed

The Critics’ Choice promotion returns to the PlayStation Store on Wednesday, February 2. Featuring critically acclaimed games, along with some of the biggest and most popular titles you can buy at PlayStation Store in a massive promotion at the start of February. That includes Call of Duty: Vanguard – Standard Edition, Far Cry 6 – Standard Edition and F1 2021 PS4 & PS5.