SIE Santa Monica Studio

Santa Monica Studio, LLC is an American first-party video game developer and part of SIE Worldwide Studios, which is owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment, known for developing the God of War series. It is based in Los Angeles, California and was established in 1999.

History
Santa Monica Studio developed the Kinetica game engine that was first used in Kinetica and later in God of War and God of War II.

They have an external development branch that funds and provides support for a wide variety of games. External development runs an incubation program which has funded and housed independent developers, including Thatgamecompany and Giant Sparrow.

On January 29, 2014, it was reported that the company is moving from Santa Monica to Playa Vista, Los Angeles. Their new facility occupies a 20-acre site and allows the studio to house two independent studios as well as having an "improved sound bay and a motion capture studio".

On February 25, 2014, the studio was hit by layoffs due to cancellation of a new intellectual property.