Infamous: Second Son lead designer departs Sucker Punch (update)

Jaime Griesemer, lead designer on Infamous: Second Son, left developer Sucker Punch Productions earlier this month, he confirmed on Twitter yesterday.

"Yes, I have left [Sucker Punch]. Not really talking about it yet, [though]," he said.

Griesemer joined the Bellevue, Wash.-based Sucker Punch in June 2011 and first contributed to the stand-alone Infamous 2 expansion, Infamous: Festival of Blood, which was released in October 2011. In addition to serving as lead designer on Second Son, which launches this Friday, March 21, Griesemer was the creative director for Infamous Paper Trail, a web-based tie-in for the PlayStation 4 exclusive.

Prior to his tenure at Sucker Punch, Griesemer spent a dozen years at Bungie from 1998 to 2010, with contributions to games from 1998's Myth 2: Soulblighter through six Halo games to the upcoming Destiny, which is set for release Sept. 9.

This is the third departure of a key development official from a Sony Computer Entertainment subsidiary in the past few weeks. Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog earlier this month, and this week, God of War 3 creative director Stig Asmussen left Sony Santa Monica.

Update: Griesemer reached out to Polygon to provide more details. Here's what he had to say:

I appreciate all the well-wishes on the news that I am leaving Sucker Punch, but please don't take the timing as cause for concern about Second Son — it's a great game that I am proud to have on my resume and I can't wait for everyone to play it — or Sucker Punch — a studio on the rise with a bright future — or Sony — a great organization with some of the savviest, most pro-gamer executives in the business. And while I am honored to be mentioned in the same articles as legendary designers like Amy Hennig and Stig Asmussen, please don't look too hard for some sinister pattern.

The truth is that any creative, vibrant industry is necessarily volatile; the only sure bet is that the next few years will not look the same as the last. Change is part of the job, but along with the upheaval and uncertainty, there's opportunity and new challenges. It's an exciting time to be a free agent and I'm going to go see what's out there. Simple as that...