Housemarque Co-Founder Ilari Kuittinen Exits as Sami Hakala Takes Over

A 31-year tenure ends with a planned handover

Ilari Kuittinen, the co-founder and managing director of Housemarque, has left the Finnish studio. August 31, 2026 was his last day.2 He shared the news in a farewell letter posted on the studio's social media account. The letter looked back on 33 years in the games industry, 31 of them at Housemarque.212 His successor is already in place. Sami "Haxu" Hakala, previously deputy managing director, officially took the managing director role on July 1. Kuittinen stayed on through the end of August to support Hakala and the leadership team.56

Housemarque doesn't use the title of chief executive officer. Managing director is the top operating role at the Helsinki studio, so Hakala is effectively its new chief executive. None of the coverage mentions a board vote, a public search for a successor, or an outside hire. The studio has been part of Sony Interactive Entertainment since 2021, and every report presents this as an internal promotion that leadership carried out quietly. In his letter, Kuittinen said the transition had been planned "carefully behind the scenes." He added that the studio's strategy and creative vision are in "exceptional hands."210

Where the reporting agrees, and where it doesn't

The basic facts are the same across outlets. Kuittinen started Terramarque in 1993 and teamed up with Harri Tikkanen to form Housemarque in 1995.26 Several reports describe the studio as the result of a merger between Tikkanen's Bloodhouse and Kuittinen's Terramarque.410 Outlets also agree on what comes next for him. Starting in September he is taking a break, though he plans to keep attending trade shows and award events and may eventually do mentoring or consulting work.369

Some smaller details don't match. A Kotaku headline says Kuittinen is leaving after 33 years, which seems to mix up his time in the industry with his time at the studio.1 Most outlets correctly say 31 years at Housemarque.24 One report says Hakala would start as managing director the day after Kuittinen left.7 Kuittinen's own statement and most other coverage put Hakala's start on July 1.212 These errors don't change the story, but the July 1 date matters. It shows Hakala had already been running the studio for two months before the public announcement. That points to a handover that was finished, not one that was still happening.

The bigger difference is in how outlets frame the exit. Most present it as a celebratory retirement after a long career. Beebom and Memesita focus on the legacy, and Gematsu mostly reproduces the letter.239 Polygon takes a sharper angle. It places the departure alongside recent exits by senior figures at Insomniac and Sucker Punch, and calls it another major shakeup at PlayStation Studios.11 Kotaku uses a similar frame and calls Kuittinen "another" PlayStation studio co-founder to step down.1

The Saros question

The pointed coverage keeps coming back to Housemarque's latest game, Saros. It launched on PlayStation 5 in April 2026, with Rahul Kohli as Arjun Devraj on the hostile planet Carcosa. The studio called it its largest production to date.4 Polygon cites Alinea Analytics estimates that Saros had a "slow" start, with about 300,000 units sold.11 In May, Kotaku also reported an analyst's claim that the game was underperforming relative to expectations.

Polygon is careful on this point. It says there is no clear evidence linking the sales numbers to Kuittinen's exit.11 That caution is justified. Kuittinen's letter calls Saros a highlight, alongside Returnal, Resogun and Super Stardust HD.2 Nothing on the record says Sony pushed for the change.

The studio's own public messaging in June is worth noting, though. In an interview with The Game Business, Kuittinen and brand director Mikael Haveri admitted Saros hadn't topped the sales charts. They argued that Returnal had also built momentum slowly after launch.18 Kuittinen compared Housemarque's long-term ambitions to FromSoftware's path from King's Field to Elden Ring. He said the studio would keep its core identity and "keep educating the market" about its style of high-intensity action.18 He also suggested future projects "might not be at the scale of Saros."18

My reading is that the Saros numbers alone don't explain this exit. The handover was planned months in advance, and Hakala was already in charge by the time Kuittinen gave that June interview, or soon after. Still, the timing is significant. The founder who led Housemarque through its riskiest bet is leaving right as the studio decides what to make after a game that sold modestly. Whatever the reasons, Hakala inherits that decision.

How Housemarque got here

Kuittinen's career tracks the studio's major reinventions. Housemarque became known for fast arcade games. Supreme Snowboarding sold more than a million copies in 1999. A long relationship with Sony followed, starting with Super Stardust HD in 2007, then Dead Nation, Resogun and others.11 Resogun helped launch the PS4 in 2013.12

Those games got good reviews but didn't sell much. In 2017, Kuittinen wrote an open letter declaring that "Arcade is dead" and said the studio would change direction.11 Nex Machina had missed commercial expectations, and that pivot led to the larger third-person action games Housemarque makes today.4

The result was Returnal in April 2021. It was a roguelike shooter that combined arcade-style combat with a bigger production and a narrative structure, and it brought Sony's acquisition of the studio later that year.412 Kuittinen told interviewers that Housemarque had "26 years as an independent, just managing to survive and moving from one game to another." He said that joining Sony meant the studio could plan further ahead.184

Reports on the studio's growth don't fully agree. Techtroduce says the team that shipped Returnal had about 80 people.4 The Game Business describes Housemarque going from 40 to 120 employees.18 The figures likely measure different points in time or different groups of staff. Either way, Saros was a much bigger production than anything Housemarque had made before. Kuittinen said learning to organize development at that scale had been a major change for the studio.18

What the new managing director inherits

Hakala takes over a studio that, by its leadership's own account, has only recently become a fully integrated first-party developer. In June, Kuittinen said Housemarque was "now truly a PlayStation first party" because it had shipped a game inside Sony.18 A few days before his departure was announced, he spoke at gamescom dev 2026 about the move from independent studio to first-party developer and how the company's production structure had changed as it grew.4

The studio hasn't announced its next game. It also hasn't explained how Kuittinen's responsibilities will be divided under the new leadership.413 For now, the stated priority is continued support for Saros. Recent updates added a photo mode and new trophies.18 In an interview after Saros launched, the studio also said Sony's backing gave it room to pursue new original projects as well as sequels.15

Why it matters

Founder-led studios inside large platform holders have a familiar life cycle. The founders get the studio through the acquisition, deliver one or two big games for the parent company, and then hand over to an internal successor who grew up under them. Housemarque now fits that pattern. Promoting the deputy rather than bringing in an outside executive suggests Sony values continuity in the studio's creative direction. That reading fits Kuittinen's statement that the strategy and vision are staying in place.2

The harder question is whether Housemarque can keep its "bullet ballet" identity without its co-founder at a time when AAA budgets demand bigger sales.18 Polygon's comparison to recent leadership exits at other PlayStation studios suggests Sony's first-party group is in a broader period of generational turnover.11 Kuittinen leaves having turned a small Finnish arcade developer into a first-party AAA studio. Hakala's challenge is to show that the studio's commitment to difficult, demanding games can also become a strong business.